Northvegr - The Swastika

Viktor Rydberg's Investigations into Germanic Mythology Volume II : Part 2: Germanic Mythology

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The Swastika

Dispersion of the Swastika

Page 53

Swastikas, but associated with it is the design of the Greek fret, showing them to be of contemporaneous use, and therefore not as Professor Goodyear believes, an evolution of one from the other. The specimen is in the Museum at Este, Italy.
fig. 158

The Greek fret has been in common use in all ages and all countries adopting the Grecian civilization. Equally in all ages and countries has appeared the crossed lines which have been employed by every architect and decorator, most or many of whom had no knowledge of the Swastika, either as an ornament or as a symbol. (1)
fig. 159

Swastika in panels. --- Professor Goodyear, in another place, (2) argues in a manner which tacitly admits the foregoing proposition, where, in his endeavor to establish the true home of the Swastika to be in the Greek geometric style, he says we should seek it where it appears in "the largest dimension" an din "the most prominent way." In verification of this declaration, he says that in this style the Swastika fig. 160

systematically appears in panels exclusively assigned to it. But he gives only two illustrations of the Swastika in panels. These have been copied, and are shown in figs. 140 and 142, from Dennis's "Etruria," from Waring's "Ceramic Art," and from Cesnola an Obnefalsch-richter. It might be too much to say that these are the only Swastikas in Greece appearing in panels, but it is certain that the great majority of them do not thus appear. Therefore, Professor Goodyear's theory is not sustained, for no one will pretend that four specimens found in panels will form a rule for the great number which did not thus appear. This argument of Professor Goodyear is destructive of his other proposition that the Swastika sign originated by evolution from the meander or Greek fret, for we have seen that the latter was always used in a band

Fig. 161 and 162

ENDNOTES:

1. Athenic vases painted by Andokides, about 525 B. C., represent the dress of the goddess, ornamented with Swastika and Croix swasticale. Am. Journ. Archæol., January - March, 1896, IX, No. 1, figs. 9, 11. [Back]

2. "Grammar of the Lotus," pp. 348, 353. Back

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