Flaming sword (mythology)

Mythological weapon

A flaming sword is a sword which is glowing with a flame which is produced by some supernatural power. Flaming swords have existed in legends and myths for thousands of years.

According to the Bible, a flaming sword ( lahat chereb or literally "flame of the whirling sword" 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). or even as a figurative description of bladed chariot wheels. In Kabbalah, the flaming sword represents the order which the sefirot were created in, also known as “the path of the flaming sword.”

Dumah is an angel mentioned in Rabbinical literature and popular 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.

Eastern Orthodox tradition (as expressed in the Lenten Triodion) 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.

The ancient Gnostic codex On the Origin of the World predicts that the kings under the archons will be drunken from the flaming sword during the end times.

In Norse mythology, the weapon wielded by the giant Surtr is referred to as a "flaming sword" by Snorri Sturluson in Gylfaginning 4, of the Prose Edda. Snorri immediately afterwards quotes a stanza from his poetic source, (Völuspá 52), where it is stated that Surt has fire with him, and that his sword shines with the "sun of the gods of the slain". The relevant kenning from the quoted poem, svigi lævi ("destruction of twigs"), is usually interpreted to mean "fire". However, Henrik Schück interpreted the kenning as referring to a sword, emending the phrase to svigi læva to identify it with the sword Lævateinn in Fjölsvinnsmál. afterwards requoting more extensively around the same strophe (Völuspá 48–56). The possibility that this sword imagery was inspired by Christian writings have been speculated.

According to the Welsh triads, the Dyrnwyn ('White Hilt'), one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, is said to be a powerful sword belonging to Rhydderch Hael, one of the Three Generous Men of Britain. 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 as soon as the recipients learned of its peculiar properties, they always rejected the sword.