Flaming sword (mythology)

St Jophiel, stained glass at St Michael's Church, Brighton.

St Uriel, stained glass at St James' Church, Ewhurst Green.

The flaming sword is an attribute of both Jophiel and Uriel.

According to the Bible, a flaming sword (Hebrew: להט החרב‎ lahat chereb or literally "flame of the whirling sword" Hebrew: להט החרב המתהפכת‎ lahaṭ haḥereb hammithappeket) was entrusted to the cherubim by God to guard the gates of Paradise after Adam and Eve were banished (Genesis 3:24).[3][4][6] Scholars have variously interpreted the sword as a weapon of the cherubim, as lightning, as a metaphor, as an independent divine being,[7][8][9] or even as a figurative description of bladed chariot wheels.[10]

Eastern Orthodox tradition says that after Jesus was crucified and resurrected, the flaming sword was removed from the Garden of Eden, making it possible for humanity to re-enter Paradise.[11]

Dumah is an angel mentioned in Rabbinical literature. Dumah is a popular figure in Yiddish folklore. Isaac Bashevis Singer's Short Friday (1964), a collection of stories, mentions Dumah as a "thousand-eyed angel of death, armed with a flaming sword". The sword is otherwise associated with various angels, such as the archangel Uriel, Camael or Jophiel.[8][12]

In Norse mythology, the weapon wielded by the giant Surtr of Muspelheim, is referred to as a "flaming sword" (Old Norse: loganda sverð) by Snorri Sturluson in Gylfaginning 4, of the Prose Edda.[13][14][15] Snorri immediately afterwards quotes a stanza from his poetic source, (Völuspá 52),[16] where it is stated that Surt has fire with him, and that his sword shines with the "sun of the gods of the slain".[14][15]

But it has been argued that contrary to Snorri, the poem might be stressing the fiery glare of Surtr himself more than the sword.[17]

In the quoted poem there occurs the phrase svigi lævi ("destruction of twigs") meaning "fire",[lower-alpha 1][18][19] or at least "fire" is the standard interpretation of this periphrase (kenning).[20] However, Henrik Schück's hypothesis sought to interpret this as a sword: emending the phrase to svigi læva to permit identification with the sword Lævateinn in Fjölsvinnsmál.[21]

Snorri paraphrases the strophe of the poem a second time (at Gylf. 51) merely saying: "Surt rides first, and before him and after him is burning fire",[18][22] and afterwards requotes more extensively around the same strophe (Völuspá 48–56).[23]

The possibility that this sword imagery was inspired by Christian writings have been speculated.[24]

According to the Welsh triads (in what is not precisely a triad but an ancillary list known as the "Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain"), the Dyrnwyn ('White-Hilt') is said to be a powerful sword belonging to Rhydderch Hael, one of the Three Generous Men of Britain mentioned in the Welsh Triads.[25][26] When drawn by a worthy or well-born man, the entire blade would blaze with fire. Rhydderch was never reluctant to hand the weapon to anyone, hence his nickname Hael "the Generous", but the recipients, as soon as they had learned of its peculiar properties, always rejected the sword.[25]

The Acala deity (known as Fudō Myōō in Japan) is depicted in Buddhist art holding a sword which may or may not be flaming and sometimes described only generically as a treasure sword (宝剣, hōken) or as vajra-sword (金剛剣, kongō-ken), which is descriptive of the fact that the pommel of the sword is in the shape of the talon-like vajra (金剛杵, kongō-sho) of one type or another.

• Flame-bladed sword
• Flaming sword (effect)

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