On the Impossibility of a Logical System and the Influence of Non-Germanic Elements.
In the pre-Germanic era, when the oldest symbols of the Nordic race emerged, the deepest level of consciousness—namely, the completely primitive "all-consciousness," which was not yet capable of distinguishing between acting persons but only recognized "events"—had already been surpassed. Even the most primitive group consciousness had already passed, and the development toward personal consciousness, toward a differentiated self-awareness, had already begun. Thus, the ancient Germanic symbols were already the results of a worldview, of contemplating and experiencing natural phenomena in the awareness of their rhythm, movement, meaning, and consequences.
They are, therefore, the result of human thought, of spiritual perceptions and emotions. No matter how deeply connected to nature they were, the ancient Germanic symbols nevertheless arose through abstraction from nature and the creation of a new synthesis. However, this intellectual labor should not be confused with an act of our rational thinking. The connection to nature in early spiritual life, still largely determined by sensory perception, caused these symbols to be more deeply felt than consciously thought out—and certainly not deliberately invented. Consequently, the ancient Germanic symbols do not at all possess the sharply defined, explicitly determinable meaning that we, with our notions of logic, might wish to find in them. Their rationality is of an entirely different order.
This is why, in the study of symbols, inquiries made in rural areas often yield the vaguest and seemingly most unmotivated answers—yet these are often more accurate and profound than those of the overly self-aware village schoolteacher or other notable who "takes an interest in such matters."
Attempting to construct a fixed system of symbols, from which a coherent conceptual or religious system of ancient times or rural life could emerge without gaps or internal contradictions, is fundamentally at odds with the nature of Germanic symbols and the Germanic people themselves—and is therefore doomed to failure from the outset.
Such a secret doctrine—for that is what it would ultimately amount to—could only be reconstructed for peoples with a distinctly intellectualized priestly rule, and our ancestors certainly did not belong to that category. It was only with the arrival of the Christian Church that such a rationally conceived and detached symbolic system, originating from the theocratic East and thus scarcely comprehensible in lived experience, was introduced. No wonder that these "empty" Christian symbols, as they were perceived by the people, could so easily be filled with old, inherited pagan representations in a manner that suited their own nature! So much so, in fact, that it is now often impossible to determine whether a given symbol is of folk origin or ecclesiastical in nature.
But that is not all. The deep connection of the Germanic worldview to nature makes it, in a broader sense, very difficult to determine whether we are even dealing with a symbol at all—and to what extent the symbolic meaning of a particular image or form has truly penetrated the consciousness of the people.
THE ABSTRACT SYMBOLS
There are cases in which certain universal emotional complexes were already so closely connected to specific natural phenomena that there was no longer any need to abstract them.
One might think of the spring welling up from the earth, the towering tree deeply rooted in the soil, or the unshakable rock, firmly grounded and defying the centuries. These are already the deepest, most expressive, and most comprehensible symbols.
Thus, in the natural worldview of our ancestors, there must have been many compelling symbols that never became abstracted or turned into signs. Perhaps many of these can still be seen today, yet we can no longer grasp their essence because our soul is no longer able to hear that primordial language.
Adama van Scheltema emphasizes that the pure, untainted nature of the Old Norse faith inherently resisted an abstract symbolic language. The same applies here as it does to a rational system concerning the depiction and representation of personified nature gods: such things would have been perceived as meaningless abstractions as long as the deepest religious awe was still directly experienced through the observation of nature itself.
Only when religious concepts become detached from their natural roots and become subjects of contemplation and reflection does the path open for universally valid, abstract-schematic symbols that take over the function of imagery.
Whenever a certain prehistoric period comes to an end, we see such symbols accumulating—and the closer prehistory itself comes to its conclusion, the more intensely this occurs.
The ornamentation of the late Stone Age is, in principle, opposed to symbolism. However, toward the end of the Stone Age, sun symbols begin to appear on Danish pottery. The following curvilinear decorative art of the Nordic Bronze Age is initially almost devoid of symbols, but in the final phase of this period, they appear in great numbers, as seen on the so-called "razors." Although Old Germanic animal ornamentation—right up to the Viking Age—cannot yet be regarded as a symbolic language, the true abstract symbols on tools and weapons from different periods of the Iron Age become increasingly numerous.
Finally, from the later period of the Norse expeditions originate the many figures and actions from Germanic mythology, whose symbolic meanings we today can only guess at rather than truly understand, as A. v. Scheltema writes in Symbolik der germanischen Völker, in Handbuch der Symbolforschung II.
INHERENT SYMBOLIC VALUE
Besides the symbolic quality of certain natural phenomena, the “immanent” or “inherent” symbolism — that is, the symbolism belonging to the very essence — of simple geometric figures must also be considered. Here, too, we must take a step back, because our minds are so overcrowded with a chaotic mixture of art forms from all times and cultures that the expressive power of simple geometric motifs barely reaches our consciousness anymore.
Yet the entire decorative art of our ancestors — through the Stone, Bronze, and Late Iron Ages — shows with what intensity such forms were once perceived and experienced. For thousands of years in the North, the straight line alone was sufficient to convey the artist’s intention, so that even a diagonal already stood out as a distinct expression of “movement.” And how clear and orderly the curvilinear ornamentation of the Bronze Age remained in its early stages!
Even the complex animal ornamentation remained a form of pure art, distanced from naturalistic representation. However, we will never be able to pinpoint exactly the transition from purely decorative forms to meaningful decorative forms, then to ornamental symbols, and finally to purely symbolic signs.
What we can do, however, is draw conclusions from the character of the curvilinear Bronze Age ornamentation about the particular spiritual attitude of the pure Old Germanic agrarian society of that time — a task A. v. Scheltema has already undertaken in his works Altnordische Kunst and Die Kunst unserer Vorzeit.
As for symbolic values, it must be kept in mind that for the farmer, even the simplest geometric motifs carried a strong — though entirely unconscious — symbolic significance. Conversely, in seemingly unmistakable symbols, the primary experience of form alone often played a significant, perhaps even dominant, role — one that entirely escapes our attention today.
Thus, it is possible for a geometric figure to be elevated to a sacred symbol purely because of its "inherent" symbolic power, and to persist stubbornly even though no one can explain or assign it a particular meaning.
This immanent symbolism certainly plays a role in the enduring survival of ancient symbols, which have long since been stripped of their original conscious meaning through Christianization. These symbols outlasted that spiritual upheaval thanks to their inalienable inherent form-symbolism.
Conversely, Christian symbols can be reduced to simple geometric core shapes, which ultimately turn out to be nothing more than meaningful prehistoric symbols.
Finally, pagan and Christian representations can merge and influence each other in various ways. The wheel cross provides a remarkable example of this complex evolution through its countless forms over the centuries.
It is therefore impossible to say definitively: "The wheel cross means this or that." Each instance must be examined individually.
BUILDING ON JUNG
If we wish, however, to return to the "first," original meaning, the depth psychology of Jung — and especially his research on dreams — offers a new approach.
If we accept, as A. v. Scheltema writes in Symbolik der germanischen Völker, Jung’s idea that the collective unconscious of all times and peoples, including the advanced cultures of the South and East, created a remarkably similar symbolic language of forms, then the subsequent conscious interpretation of this symbolism must inevitably differ greatly.
This is not only for ethnological reasons but also on purely methodological grounds: if the early all-consciousness or group consciousness manifests itself in the unconscious life of the modern Germanic person, then it is only natural that we should expect to find echoes of our own prehistory — the original spiritual life of our own ancestors.
It is astonishing, writes A. v. Scheltema, how closely the symbols of our ancient past and those from our völkisch beliefs confirm Jung’s key findings. (Of course, the symbols from Germanic worship, the myths of the late Germanic world, seasonal festivals, and folk customs are not dream images — but the interpretation of dream symbols can help us approach and better understand these ancient symbols.)
He provides countless examples of this: for instance, the symbols and dream images associated with the circle, the spiral, the movement around a center, and those that refer to the center itself (woman, mother, spring, vessel of water). The circle appears as an enclosed space, as an eight-spoked wheel. The center can also be represented as a tree or an egg. The enclosed space can also take the form of a garden or a cave. All these images also appear in strictly geometric forms.
The (inverted) symmetrical arrangement of two symbols also holds meaning as "center-consciousness" and leads, for example, in the late Stone Age to the zigzag band and later, in the Bronze Age, to the wave band and the spiral vortex.
In animal ornamentation, during the second phase of this style (from around 600 CE), the inverted-symmetrical group becomes an almost natural element in decorative art, often combined with interweaving and knotting. These knots evolved in folk art into the well-known "sacred knots," which must have carried a very strong and compelling symbolic meaning alongside their purely decorative beauty.
The symbolism of the "knot" here suggests connectedness and intimate intertwining. Consider the role that the knotted cloth plays in folk customs during marriage proposals.
Adama van Scheltema attempts, using Jung’s method, to reach the core idea of Germanic symbolism: "For we, too, are dealing with a text containing fragmented and unknown words, and we, too, must try — by comparing a series of texts in which that unknown word appears — to arrive at its meaning."
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION
The fundamental idea of the "primitive" nature religion was not static but distinctly dynamic, based not on natural objects but on natural phenomena — on the functional relationship between essentially different natural forces, which nonetheless strive from within toward organic unity and harmony. Once again, it becomes clear why the decorative art from the golden age of this grand nature religion — the curvilinear Bronze Age ornamentation — exhibits the same dynamic structure and why it is so difficult to determine whether the circle and spiral motifs, which so wonderfully align with this worldview, were meant as symbols or not.
After examining the symbols associated with this form of worship — which was so closely linked to the sun — such as the tree in its many forms, the sun wheel, and the axe or hammer, Adama van Scheltema explores the symbols that naturally express the concept of fertility emerging from this worship.
Based on these reflections, the author organizes a whole series of symbols into two groups, which correspond to the original meaning of these representations: as expressions of opposing but unifying natural and life forces. He thus arrives at the following general classification:
RELATED TO A FEMININE-EARTHLY PRINCIPLE:
Earth — Water
- Forms of the Earth: The landscape vaulted by the sky, the land, mountains and hills, rocks and stones, caves.
- Forms of Water: Sea, lake, river, swamp, spring, fountain, ice, glacier.
Death and Burial
- Grave: burial mound, stone grave, grave marker, urn for ashes.
Plant World
- Forest, tree, shrub, flower, fruit, grain, field.
- Bread and porridge.
Animals
- Earth animals: Mouse, snake, toad.
- Water animals: Fish.
- Night animals: Cat, owl, bat.
- Female animals: Cow, mare, goat, etc.
Symbols of Fertility and Protection
- The egg.
- Rest and Darkness, Shelter and Enclosure: Night, moon, stars — cave, grave, house, roof, bed — enclosed spaces and fences: courtyard and hedge, fortified settlement, places of worship, fortress and tower.
- Entrance: Gate, door, threshold, window.
Protective and Decorative Objects
- Shield and armor — crown, wreath, belt, necklace, veil.
- The center or goal of a movement.
Stillness
The Woman and Her Work
- Braiding, weaving, spinning, flax cultivation and processing, pottery, housework, preparing food, baking bread, etc.
- Associated Tools: Spindle whorl, distaff, spinning wheel, loom — braided and woven work, threads — pottery (everything that contains or receives), the hearth.
- Hollow Forms: The fire-drilling base, metal-casting molds, so-called "elf bowls."
- The mill.
- Healing, medicinal herbs, and springs.
Qualities and Directions
- Soft, moist, cold.
- Left.
- Blue, green.
- Horizontal.
RELATED TO A MASCULINE-SOLAR PRINCIPLE:
Air — Fire
- The Sun and Sky Phenomena: Their fertilizing effect on the earth — wind, storm, rain, thunder, and lightning.
Animal World of Flesh and Blood
- Sky Animals: Birds.
- Male Animals: Bull, stallion, boar, goat, stag, rooster.
Symbols of Movement, Light, and Struggle
- Movement and Light, Battle and Attack: Day, sun — wheel, chariot, ship, horse — march, run, jump, ride, throw — offensive weapons: throwing stick, spear, throwing stone and disc, ball, bullet.
- Path as a Symbol of Movement: Ladder, footprint.
Noise and Sound
- Noise, horn calls, clattering, whip cracks, gunshots.
The Man and His Work
- Hunting, fishing, seafaring, plowing, metalwork, warfare, fighting, sports.
- Associated Tools: Ship, plow — weapons: lance, sword, axe, hammer, thunderbolt, arrow (also as a symbol of movement and penetration).
Solid and Forceful Forms
- Weapons, fire drill, rod, whip.
The Miller (as a symbol of force and transformation)
Symbols of Death and Combat
- Killing, wounding, martial arts.
Qualities and Directions
- Hard, dry, warm.
- Right.
- Red, yellow.
- Vertical.
AMBIGUOUS SYMBOLS
It would make no sense to turn this arrangement of two interconnected groups of symbols — which together express the idea of fertility in a thousand different variations — into a rigid "system," a kind of modern-logical conceptual construct of mathematically provable certainties.
On the contrary, we must always keep in mind that these symbols were born from direct observation of nature, but that "reality" is rarely unambiguous. Therefore, symbols often have more than one meaning.
Just like dream symbols, they can only be more precisely defined through their relationships with other signs or actions — in other words, through their function within a larger whole. Only in this way can the intended meaning in each specific case be separated from ambiguity and explained.
Here, the dynamic character of the symbols plays an important role. For example, the circle as a movement expresses the male principle, whereas the circle as an enclosed space symbolizes the female principle. The sacred hearth fire is undoubtedly a symbol of the woman, the sacred center of the house, but at the same time, burning, light, and the play of flames are solar signs and therefore symbols of the male principle.
The same applies to the ship: without a doubt, the ship plowing through the water is a male symbol, yet it is also a safe home, a shielded fortress on the restless waters, a deep maternal womb. Thus, we also encounter the ship as a symbol of the goddess Nehalennia.
In the language of fixed conceptual signs (wrongly considered as "the" symbols), it is precisely this dynamic, fluid, and changeable nature of the ancient symbols that is hardest to understand.
As late forms, they are already externalized and schematized, making them particularly difficult to interpret despite their apparent simplicity and clarity.
NON-GERMANIC AND PROTO-GERMANIC
On one point, however, I would definitely disagree with Adama van Scheltema — namely, regarding the reduction of the symbols and religious concepts of the Germanic era to a "polar opposition" in the sense of the "hieros gamos", the cosmic marriage between Heaven and Earth, or between Sun and Earth, or between the Male Principle and the Female Principle. Adama van Scheltema practically builds his entire interpretation of symbols on this idea, which is very unfortunate, because now this "cosmic marriage" will likely haunt discussions as "the solution" for years to come, stemming from his "Handbook of Symbol Research".
For example, Adama van Scheltema believes he recognizes the "hieros gamos" in the bridal pursuit sagas of the Edda and considers it the reason for the construction of Stonehenge and the origin and ancient meaning of the solstice fires. He also interprets the frequently recurring symbolic religious act of circling or spiraling around a fixed center point (like the Trojaburg, the dance around the tree, or circling a pole or stone — such as the "Vlöggeln around the Stiepel") as the search for and eventual finding of the sacred female center, expressing the Cosmic Marriage and a veneration of Mother Earth.
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Vlöggeln around a Stiepel |
Since this movement could not be expressed through static conceptual symbols, it is suggested that people solved this difficulty by forming a symbolic group of motifs, always depicting a female center flanked by two male-oriented symbols. Examples include the tree between two axes (like in the Kivik grave) and similar arrangements. Later, this idea was transferred to the motif from the East of the Tree of Life between two (solar) birds, and so on.
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Kivik grave image |
It cannot be denied that in folk art of the past centuries — and even in prehistoric times — there are many motifs associated with the concept of Mother Earth. Undoubtedly, current folk customs still contain echoes of the symbolic marriage between Heaven and Earth. But it is equally certain that this idea is not specifically Germanic. On the contrary, among no other people in the world has this concept played so little of a role as it did among the Germanic tribes.
If Jung can identify such motifs and if Adama van Scheltema also finds traces of them in Northern art, it undoubtedly means that these archetypal images stem from an older layer than the Germanic religion — from the pre-Germanic period. At most, one could say they are Indo-European in nature, but their widespread presence suggests an even earlier origin.
This aligns with new insights into the Germanic religion: we must always keep the worldview expressed through symbolic acts in mind because these acts explain much of the symbolic representations and conceptual signs.
The idea of the child tree, the Poppe stone (Stone in Friesland, where according to legend women got there children from), and the child pond are ancient. The concept of seeing the fertile earth (and later the cultivated field) as a Great Mother is similarly old. The symbolic act of swearing blood brotherhood under a strip of loosened and lifted turf is also not just Indo-European but far more universal.
The later Germanic female deities are all active, life-giving, and independently wandering figures — much like the post-medieval Perchta and Bertha. Even the much-debated rock carvings provide no evidence for the importance of the Cosmic Marriage in the Germanic worldview. Moreover, the origins of these carvings must still be cautiously considered as purely Germanic.
Even the nature of the goddess Nerthus is not fully explained by simply identifying her as a Mother Earth figure or by attributing her a role in the "hieros gamos".
As for folk customs, Professor Jan de Vries points out in his "Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte" that we are dealing with a small remnant of original pagan practices, almost unrecognizably buried under Christian, classical, and various other influences.
THE FEMALE ESSENCE AMONG THE GERMANIC PEOPLES
In this context, I would like to refer to a lecture by Dr. Bernhard Kummer: "Die weibliche Gottheit bei den Germanen" ("The Female Deity among the Germanic Peoples"). He argues that the human dignity of women in ancient Germanic paganism had not yet been reduced to a purely sexual aspect. The Germanic concept of individuality was a matter for both genders.
The objectification of women as merely a "Mother" — a notion that limits her personality to a passive, receptive, and childbearing role — is indeed known across all levels of cultural development, from the "mother animal" to the "Madonna". However, in Germanic culture, this idea recedes behind the recognition of women’s independence, willpower, drive for action, courage, and active spiritual strength. The impersonal Mother ideal fades in favor of the concept of an equal, active, and dynamic female personality.
The deepest meaning of Germanic parenthood lies in the companionship between the two genders. Only through this lens can the well-defined female figures from the sagas and medieval Germanic art be understood — despite, and certainly not because of, Christianity.
The doctrine of original sin, with its element of blaming women through the biblical "fall of man", is at the root of the horrific witch hunts. From the nomadic love of the East and the world-rejecting male brotherhoods of the Vatican arose the one-sided and eventually perverse veneration of Mary as the Mother of God — a passive, inactive Holy Virgin Mother enthroned in stillness.
But for the pure, nature-connected Germanic pagan, nothing was further from the idea of enclosing mother and child in a sacred shrine, shut off from the men's world outside.
For the Germanic person, the woman was not exclusively a sexual, passive, and defenseless being, confined to a high and holy existence in the limitation of an artificially protected and placed-outside-the-natural-order motherhood. Thus, the woman also had an equal share in the divine and in the worship. Naturally, in accordance with this, the qualities of female deities were not limited to "earthly fertility" or "cosmic motherhood." A Mother Earth concept was therefore never dominant in Germanic thought, and what is commonly dismissed as the general concept of "Magna Mater" cannot simply be reduced to mother-goddess mysticism in any form. What on one hand is understood as passive, to be awakened, fertilized, enduring, and defenseless, appears on the other hand as a war goddess, Dawn, an active, healing force.
Thus, the heavens are not universally seen as male-fertilizing; they are just as often viewed as female, and the earth as male (in Northern Babylonia and Egypt). Certainly, the Northern Freya has erotic traits reminiscent of Astarte, but nowhere is as much artifice required as in the Germanic North to construct a Mother Earth worship from this. Both the orgies of the original worship, divine conception, and divine birth are absent, as is the myth of the Sacred Marriage of Heaven and Earth.
If Jung and Adama v. Scheltema also refer to the Chinese, it should be noted that in their Yang and Yin, Heaven and Earth, male and female, light and dark, high and low, they present these as two complementary and harmonious natural forces facing each other. But this is also not an idea of the earliest times, of the most primitive beginning.
Thus, in the Germanic period, the human precondition for a Mother Earth cult is lacking.
To understand the two symbolic series of the male and female natural principles, we must adopt the idea that these two aspects of life are outlined in the ancient Germanic worldview against a sexually neutral background, where both genders are granted the same ideal and the same share in heaven and earth.
This is a worldview in which the woman — and thus the female divine force — plays an active and co-decisive role, free from any humility or subjugation.
In this sense, every sexual interpretation and every symbolic representation that presents the feminine primarily as "mother" (and thus also as earth) must be considered foreign to the people, from the Jewish scattering of grain for the bride to the worship of a Divine Mother. Freed from these tendencies, however, the bipolar arrangement of symbols can certainly prove enlightening: as a juxtaposition of the natural male and female principles.
THE LIGHT, THE GOOD, AS THE MOST SACRED CONCEPT
While the Earth-Sun concept in the Indo-Germanic world does develop to some extent in places like India and Greece, it is most likely that this development occurred under the influence of a foreign race.
For the Germans, however, we can assert that at the center of their religious experience, the concept was not a cosmic-sexual one but a cosmic-ethical one: namely, the symbol of Light. And this great neuter "It" was not envisioned in human form but represented through abstract symbols; or at most "in the symbol of personality," as Hauer aptly stated.
In this context, it is worth noting that Bishop Wölflein (Ulfilas), in translating the Bible into Gothic, translated the Greek word theos (the God) with the Gothic guth, which up until that point had always been neuter and, on this occasion — in the 4th century, and for the sake of the Christian God — was used for the first time in a masculine form.
From this perspective, with the Light symbol as the central and governing thought, solemn rituals such as moving around a fixed center, etc., take on a greater and more elevated significance than in the "hieros gamos."
From the principle of the holy Light, we will be able to interpret the Germanic symbols most clearly, with the older, accompanying and enduring thoughts as either pre-Germanic or post-medieval (folk practices). An overwhelming and inexhaustible Sun-Fire- or Light symbolism throughout the ages seems to confirm this position.
MAGIC-AVERSIVE SPIRIT
Naturally, the meaning of symbols in use has not always been "pure." From the hunter culture of the earliest times, various magical beliefs (such as animal and hunting magic) were undoubtedly carried over, just as later foreign influences infiltrated the völkisch art of the Middle Ages.
However, everything that smacks of magic and demonism is, in essence, non-Germanic, as evidenced by the expression the Germans still used in historical times for magical practices: finngerdh (Finnish work). Without a doubt, the Nordic people were averse to all forms of magic; it was not in their nature and was perceived as foreign. This does not mean, however, that "magic" was never practiced, and some individuals sought their fortune in magical practices — just as today.
But throughout the art of the Ice Age, it is clear that this typically magical hunting art disappears as the farming Nordic peoples come to the fore, so that the magical character of the art is no longer found among the Germanics in the Bronze Age. (It is still present among some hunting tribes in Northern Scandinavia.)
SWASTIKA, SIX-POINTED STAR, AND SPIRAL
From all this, it becomes clear that the study of symbols can never start from abstract geometric signs. These appear among all kinds of peoples, in various times, with the most diverse functions and meanings. As early as the bone objects from the Old Stone Age, we find "rune-like" signs as undecipherable decorative forms, symbols, ownership marks, and incidental line structures.
Precisely because of their abstract nature, these signs lend themselves well to being linked to contemporary concepts — they are timeless and styleless.
Take, for instance, the well-known six-pointed star constructed from compass strokes. The Nordic flourishing period, the Bronze Age, in all its rich religious life, did not know this figure at all. It only appears later, after strong foreign influence, on the Gundestrup Cauldron. Similarly, the spiral, the knot, and the lily shape are entirely absent in the Germanic Bronze Age. Even the swastika appears only in its "cursive form" with spiral ends in the rock carvings of Tunge (Bohuslän).
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Gundestrup Cauldron with six-pointed star (Marygold) |
It is no wonder, then, that the meaning of runes as conceptual signs is so difficult to approach. Nevertheless, these signs undoubtedly carried a certain symbolic value and a sensory-acquired meaning (aside from their function as written characters), making their study valuable and necessary. But here too, a purely intellectual, "logical" solution in the spirit of our time will never be fully achieved — all the more so because, alongside their recognized meaning, an emotional value also arises from these abstract geometric signs and ornaments.
Thus, alongside the undeniable symbolic meaning of the Bronze Age swastika, many spirals appear purely as ornamentation. Yet even then, their inherent symbolic value cannot be entirely denied, for the same formative thought clearly governed the highly developed art and worship of the time.
Later, the swastika, adapted into a kind of meander ornament, seems to have been used purely decoratively, though it also appears as a series of symbols on various funerary urns.
Since the time of the Migration Period, the swastika has appeared in folk art in a purely geometric form and with certainty as a solar symbol. In this case, it can be assumed that its original meaning was still passed down.
The six-pointed star and the spiral, however, are a different matter: they were entirely unknown during the Bronze Age when the religious symbols of the Germanic worldview were being developed. Therefore, no symbolic content of these shapes could have been passed down. The six-pointed star cannot, therefore, be equated with the sun wheel.
Moreover, in rural areas — not just locally but everywhere — the six-pointed star is associated with a plant name: In the Netherlands called "blomme," in Germany "Ringelblume," and in England "Marygold."
Thus, the six-pointed star and the spiral are primarily technical and geometric decorative figures, arising from the material and tools used, especially in carving techniques. Their origin in Germanic culture lies in the Middle Ages, even before the Gothic period. But the beloved combination of the six-pointed star and spiral in our folk art also appears in Roman Spain (2nd–4th century) and the pre-Christian Near East as a symbol of Astarte.
Of course, the motif so cherished in Germanic folk art has nothing in common with these Eastern symbols beyond its technical form. Its popularity can only be explained by the inherent symbolism of these abstract shapes, which clearly resonated with the aesthetic sense of Germanic farmers.
Perhaps they unconsciously felt in it the radiant and the moving, or the resting and the dynamic, the feminine and the masculine principle. But for the farmers, this need never have become a consciously recognized symbol.
ORIGINALITY OF SYMBOLS
Both the purely stylistic analysis of form, the formal study of symbols, and depth psychology demonstrate that symbolic forms related to the dualistic principle appear universally and at all times among nearly all peoples.
But can we still speak of "proto-Germanic" symbols as an entirely unique creation of the Nordic race?
Yes, indeed. Because the primary importance lies not in the figurative forms themselves but in the meaning they express.
In summary, the distinct character of ancient Germanic symbolism lies in its understanding of the activity of the great forces that govern life strictly within the already existing natural reality — not, for example, in the relationship between a transcendent spiritual afterlife and the natural world of the here and now.