It’s been ages since I posted here too, sorry! But anyway, I upped this comic too, probably you’ll have some reading to catch up if you only follow me here, buuuut… If you’re up for Edwardian shenanigans, here you go!
Till Queendom Come is a project about an Indian Rakshasi who’s trying to find her lost heart after the East India Company stole it, a Jotunn who didn’t feel like going back to Norway after the Vikings invasions, and the youngest granddaughter of the last druid of St. Ives who’s now trying to keep on the family tradition on her own in spite of being the wrong gender to do so. Started as a project set in Edwardian England, born in a urge of sudden irritation about seeing Victoria being romanticised everywhere by a cynical comic artist who majored in English. You can read it here on the hashtag #oscarpoppins (which was its unofficial title until now and in my mind will always be), or on Webtoon.
I was delighted to see a trollkors in the comic! I have one myself. However, I don’t think there is any evidence for trollkors as amulets before the 1990’s. That was then the design was created by the smith Kari Erlands from Dalarna in Sweden. She claimed it was modeled after a protective rune found on her grandparents’ farm, but this has not been verified as far as I know.
The principle behind the trollkors is very old, though. According to folklore steel and crosses were believed to protect against the trolls. If you carved a cross above your door, the trolls couldn’t enter. And if you carried some steel on you, you were also safe. It was good to put a pair of scissors in your unbaptized baby’s cradle, since scissors were both made of steel and crossed themselves.
Anyway, great update!
(Me with my trollkors.)
Thanks for the extensive explanation! Since you pretty much wrote all that I was able to find (and couldn’t add in the notes because Webtoon didn’t allow me to add more images, oops), I’ll contribute with an explanation of why exactly I chose that symbol.
I read that it’s a modern interpretation of the rune Othala, and that there are no sources more than Kari Errands stating its roots. The discourse about the material is something I didn’t found and for which I thank you!
I actually debated for some time whether to keep it or go for something else, I wanted something more specifical than just a word or a sentence written in runic alphabet (because Winnie would have asked the meaning and thus wouldn’t have written it, she’s a good girl).
Going further in my search and avoiding all the traps of dubious websites with no sources, the best bet I found was a digitalisation (with transcription and translation, you can find it here) of the Huld Manuscript, which is a nice manual of Runes and sygils used in Iceland for all kind of purposes, with the necessary instructions, compiled by Geir Vigfússon in 1860, with old and new symbols.
The only problem was that beside the runes being medieval and later than the ones Darcy uses (which are your average elder Futhark used in Norway, with an addition of Anglo-Saxon Futhorc because he did learn those as well when he moved)… The sygil that protects the user from evil spirit in the Huld Manuscript is the Daviðs Insigli, aka David’s Sygil.
Darcy never converted to Christianity, and in the end I preferred for him the newer symbol, but which has less of a Christian feel to it (or would have called it in another name, if the symbol was re-branded after the conversion, but I haven’t yet found anything on the topic, and I know not enough Old Norse to make up names). It felt more “on brand” for his character, if a little anachronistic for the period.
A shitton of words later, I’m really glad you liked the update!
