Found an odd thing when going through the effects of my grandparents the other day. I wonder if the teeming millions could help.
It was a full deck of boxed cards, with “All-British playing cards, John Waddington, London and Leeds” on one side and on the obverse of the box, as usual in these cases, was glued a card from the deck, face down so you can see what the back of the cards look like.
In this case, they said “R/F Eimskipafielag islands” above a large swastika.
My questions are why would Waddington print these things, and where are the Eimskipafielag islands?
In fact anything that could shed light on this would be appreciated.
The swastika is not a traditionally ‘evil’ symbol. It is very ancient, and traditionally is used to represent the sun, eternity, immorality, etc etc. It is still used in the Hindu religion.
The part Íslands probably refers to Iceland not to an island. So R/F Eimskipafélag Íslands means R/F Eimskipafélag Iceland.
“Eimskipafélag Íslands - Eimskip (Icelandic Steamship Company) was foundered in 1914. Eimskip is the largest shipping company in Iceland and company vessels sails mainly on route’s from Iceland to the Continent, Scandinavia, Canada and USA.” Eimskip Fleet.
I agree with Guinastasia the swastika probably has nothing to do with nazi Germany.
I realise that the swastika has been around for a very long time. Was its adoption in Germany due to Hitler’s alleged mystical beliefs, or was the symbol current in Germany before that?
I don’t think the cards can be massively old. After all, cards are pretty perishable, and these had not been stored with any special care, they were in an old cigar box.
I have run the name of the islands through Jeeves and Google, and they have no cites at all, which is unusual in itself.
AHA! altering the spelling to eimskipafelag brings up an Icelandic shipping company. As far as i recall, Iceland was blockaded by not occupied by the Germans. Still wondering about the provenance of these cards.
That symbol has been in existence in India for thousands of years. Hitler’s belief of Nazi’s descending from an Aryan race lead him to adopt that particular symbol for his ideology. I don’t believe it was used in Germany before then.
You gotta love that History Channel!
Damned if I’m going find the part in the book, but in “Midnight’s Children,” by Salman Rushdie, he references an ancient Hindu symbol which bears resemblance to a swastika (“svasi” if I remember correctly).
In addition to the fact that the swastika is thousands of years old, and was derived independently by many cultures, it is also the case that it was a particularly popular emblem around the turn of the 20th century. It was essentially seen as a “good luck” symbol, and printed on a lot of commercial items with no more ominous intent than printing them with horseshoes or four leaf clovers, like on this old postcard:
In fact the American 45th Division used it on a shoulder patch in WWI. And Coca-Cola once issued a swastika shaped watch fob as a promotional item. Some more pre-Nazi swastika stuff:
At FOTW, you can look up keywords. “swastika” has a fairly long list of enteries, mostly third reich, but including the Finnish Presidential Flag (as opposed to the flag of the country itself):
The symbol has some history in Scandanavian cultures, and could appear on some auxiliary Icelandic flag, similar to its appearance on the flag above. Other non-Nazi usages listed by FOTW:
16th century Japanese Daimyo flag - Awo
Chinese Falun Gong
Indian Jains
Hirosaki Municipal Flag - Japan
Cuna Indians of Panama
Hmmm… well, my story is that as a kid I read a 1950’s era book entitled something like Five Passports to Adventure, by Hal Zinder/Zindler(?). It was a travel book, and early in the book he goes to Iceland and sees a blue flag with a swastika on it. It’s explained to him that the swastika represents the Hammer of Thor. Now, it could be that the flag wasn’t the flag of Iceland, but was in fact the flag of the steamship line. (The flag was, now that I think of it, flying from a boat.)
This is certainly interesting (and forgive me if it’s already been posted):
This reminds me of the “Swastika Man” story, about a guy who gets superpowers from the Navajo Sun God or somesuch. The problem is that his costume has a big swastika on the chest, so everyone thinks he’s a Nazi.
I have a quilt pattern book which collected a number of the traditional blocks used, and variant names. The swastika is in there, with one of its names being “Hammer of Thor”, another “Wind of the Osages”, and another something like “Pure Symbol of Righteous Doctrine” (no joke).
You must be thinking of a short story in the “Superheroes” anthology By John Varley. It was a humorous story about a ghost of a dead miner trying to give superpowers to everyone he meets. Having died in the 1800’s, the poor miner can’t figure out why no one will accept his superpowers. Especially after he tells them that the superhero name they’ll have to use is Captain Swatika. IIRC the powers were sun based.
the “Icelandic” and nazi swastikas go different ways? I thought something looked a bit odd. Don’t have the cards to hand, but remind me which way a nazi swastika goes? IIRC nazi version has the terminal points pointing clockwise, if you see what I mean.
I was in the 45th a few years ago (it’s a Seperate infantry Brigade, now). I have three of the pre-WWII patches in my collection, one is sewn on a MP brassard. The swastika is oriented in the opposite direction of the Nazi swatika, though. The 45th was not organized until about 1923 so the patch was not worn in WWI, however. The current patch, incorporating a yellow thunderbird on a diagonally-oriented red square was adopted in 1938 or 1939, IIRC. Link
