Algiz Rune and the Peace Sign

[Norse_Angel]

Hail!
As most of us who study runelore knows, Algiz is a rune of protective qualities. "The Elk" rune is one that I use in many charms against negative energies and ill-intentioned aggression. Here's one of the poems on Algiz

The Rune Poem – Verse XV
The Elk-sedge usually lives in the fen,
growing in the water. It wounds severely,
staining with blood any man
who makes a grab at it.

With that being said, the peace sign is about 57 years old, and was established at one of the many heights of the new aged Runic revivals. This was also a time deep within the high-tensioned conflict of the Cold War, that almost led to near catastrophic outcomes. Gerald Holtom was one of the many activists who were pro nuclear disarment, but he was the father of the world renowned peace sign.
Now, I may just be crazy, but I feel it's a tad fishy that a universal sign of peace is actually an old rune that empowers the exact opposite while it is in its reversed position
What are your thoughts?

[Rae'ya]

Re: Algiz Rune and the Peace Sign

Hail!
As most of us who study runelore knows, Algiz is a rune of protective qualities. "The Elk" rune is one that I use in many charms against negative energies and ill-intentioned aggression. Here's one of the poems on Algiz

The Rune Poem – Verse XV
The Elk-sedge usually lives in the fen,
growing in the water. It wounds severely,
staining with blood any man
who makes a grab at it.

With that being said, the peace sign is about 57 years old, and was established at one of the many heights of the new aged Runic revivals. This was also a time deep within the high-tensioned conflict of the Cold War, that almost led to near catastrophic outcomes. Gerald Holtom was one of the many activists who were pro nuclear disarment, but he was the father of the world renowned peace sign.
Now, I may just be crazy, but I feel it's a tad fishy that a universal sign of peace is actually an old rune that empowers the exact opposite while it is in its reversed position
What are your thoughts?

Why is that fishy?

If you look hard enough, you will find runes and bindrunes in all sorts of crazy places, both historically and in more modern times.

[Rick]

Re: Algiz Rune and the Peace Sign

As those of us who seriously study runelore know, the Algiz rune was, until recently, widely used across Northern European countries on tombstones. Algiz (upright) would appear before the date of birth, and Eir (Algiz turned upside down) would appear before the date of death. So the upside down Algiz rune's association with death was why it became associated with the anti-nuclear movement, and others then began using it as a symbol of peace.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Algiz Rune and the Peace Sign

Given previous comments about how the Elder Futhark is more authentic somehow than the Anglo-Saxon one, I would just like to point out that the rune verse you are using comes from the Old English Rune Poem (which translation is it by the way?) and doesn't appear so far as I know in either the Norwegian or Icelandic rune poems.

The thing is that the Anglo-Saxon runes don't just have a meaning and that's the end of it. They are slippery, hard to pin down. And this is in keeping with what we know about Anglo-Saxon poetry. Even the 'Elk Sedge' of the opening line may mean nothing of the sort (it could, for example just as easily mean an elk-hero or even elk-sea although most scholars will opt for the plant interpretation).

The fens too, have layer upon layer of meaning. So I feel personally a llittle uneasy at taking this rune at its apparent face value. My own feeling is that this is a good rune for peace since the plant grows in the marsh minding its own business. It doesn't go looking for trouble yet it is quite capable of defending itself. And in a way that is what peace is all about.

[thalassa]

Re: Algiz Rune and the Peace Sign

Its semaphore for N and D overlayed. ND, being nuclear disarmament. At least according to what I've read about the supporting documents of them. Not having read them myself, its hard to say... but people have long had their own ideas and agends about it.

[thalassa]

Re: Algiz Rune and the Peace Sign

Its semaphore for N and D overlayed. ND, being nuclear disarmament. At least according to what I've read about the supporting documents of them. Not having read them myself, its hard to say... but people have long had their own ideas and agends about it.

Interestingly, according to a later story by the designer, its based on the imagery from the Goya painting The Third of May 1808:

In a sense, Holtom’s design did represent an individual in pursuit of the cause, albeit in an abstract way. The symbol showed the semaphore for the letters N (both flags held down and angled out from the body) and D (one flag pointing up, the other pointing down), standing for Nuclear Disarmament. But some years later in 1973, when Holtom wrote to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News at the time of the formation of the DAC, the designer gave a different explanation of how he had created the symbol.
It could echo both the frustrations of the anti-nuclear campaign and a sense of optimism."At first he toyed with the idea of using the Christian cross as the dominant motif," Rigby explains in his article, "but realized that 'in Eastern eyes the Christian Cross was synonymous with crusading tyranny culminating in Belsen and Hiroshima and the manufacture and testing of the H-bomb.' He rejected the image of the dove, as it had been appropriated by "the Stalin regime...to bless and legitimize their H-bomb manufacture.'"

Holtom in fact decided to go for a much more personal approach, as he admitted to Brock. "I was in despair. Deep despair," he wrote. "I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle round it. It was ridiculous at first and such a puny thing."
In Holtom’s personal notes, reproduced by peace symbol historian Ken Kolsbun, the designer recalls then turning the design into a badge. "I made a drawing of it on a small piece of paper the size of a sixpence and pinned it on to the lapel of my jacket and forgot it," he wrote. "In the evening I went to the post office. The girl behind the counter looked at me and said, 'What is that badge you are wearing?' I looked down in some surprise and saw the ND symbol pinned on my lapel. I felt rather strange and uneasy wearing a badge. 'Oh, that is the new peace symbol,' I said. 'How interesting, are there many of them?' 'No, only one, but I expect there will be quite a lot before long.'"

(source)

If it is based on the Goya painting, its based on a misremembering of it...arms are the wrong way.

(ETA: unless its the dead guy on the ground and not the guy surrendering)

1280px-El_Tres_de_Mayo,_by_Francisco_de_Goya,_from_Prado_thin_black_margin.jpg



Either way, people have been interpreting it in all sorts of ways for years. Like these guys.

Because we are good at making giant mental leaps to make things mean what we are predisposed towards. We see what we want to see. Like these guys.


I'd call it convergent evolution applied to culture...or coincidence.

[anunitu]

Re: Algiz Rune and the Peace Sign

I also read about the Goya painting...To me it always looked like a B-52 flying...Though I believe the Japan bomb was dropped by a b-29(Just my take here)