Symbols

I've been going through a number of books on symbols, and one of them had a small final chapter on 'Wiccan and Neopagan symbols'. The first symbol displayed was a 'Norse shield knot'-- a square with loops at the four corners made by extending the lines there to join as a loop. And it has knotwork over-and-under at the corners. It's supposed to be protective, invoking the four corners of the Earth. I knew nothing of this shield-knot but I liked its simplicity. To my eye it looked like a keep with four towers, or 'four-hyrned borg', a 'halidom hall', a 'helgihold', or a 'frith-garth' for Nature. It could also be called an 'Alf-knot', although that already refers to the tangled elflocks (dreads) that Shaggy Alfar are wont to sport. It could be a cumbol of warning as well as warding-- no doubt it has been. It could also be a cumbol of the Edhli-menning, methinks, but I prefer the one I already devised for that, which is a reclining hexagon, wider than tall, inscribed with an oval, and with a snaking ray narrowing to a tail-point that radiates out from each corner. The rays imply outreach rather than defence, a connectedness with the environment (umrun). But the Ecologo, the classic ecology symbol, could just as well signify the Menning. I love the Ecologo.

Since it's Yule Eve, you might draw these and other oeko-cumbols to then color, cut-out and hang on your Yule-tree. It's just a thought, for a happy, holy Yule.