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Message:: [QUOTE="DragonflyWink, post: 1879415, member: 111"]The Nordic Swans brooches were in production well past WWII, and the Danish poem below was sometimes included with them: The Nordic Swans (Swans from the North)written by Hans Hartvig Seedorff Pedersen for Nordic Day, 1936----------------------------------------------------------------------- They once settled on the coast of the North,five wild swans, clad in silver plumage.A touch of dawn stained their chests,before the sun even put out its red flame.The last fog is gone, a mighty dome,with clouds of mountain splendor over the foam of waves,lowering its azure into the deep waters,There, swung in the young, bright countries of the North. Then the first swan broke into song:Here sisters, I want to live and build nests.My mind is one with Zealand's clover grassand the honey scent of the Jutland heath.So beautiful is the land - the measure of my wings -where the water lily with its pale bowl,anchored in the dark currents of a lake,lifts against me its swan dreams. But then Denmark, greeted by birdsong,lay white and still on the silent lake,then the swan Sweden spoke to her sister:Here - as you - I dream, live, die!My birch should range to your broad beech,and Zealand's lark responds to Skåne's cuckoo.And separated by the waves and the salty winds,however, the moon's bridge shall connect us. And the swan flew. But on its flight to the east,it was followed by a pair of brave wings.When you land, Finland's voice whispered,to one among a thousand lakes I swing above.And winter lays, icy and steep,its white breath over the lake's mirror:Here the wind meets the crown of the pine,a swan shower of Kalevala's notes. Back sat the last beautiful birds.It was as if they were listening to sea-born song.They heard distant Atlantic and North Sea cool,strike against a coast whose flowers were only seaweed.They saw, in the foam of the wild weather,two nesting places on a rocky shore...Then Norway lifted itself against the wind and wave,and stood to the north, with Iceland in its wake. And a thousand years went by, they met again,the wild swans under the north coast,in the rush of the wind whose hands smooththe hard mountain and the soft breast of the bird.They still roared with swan courage,though the feathers of their wings bore splashes of dried blood.They had fought, raised themselves in anger,they had been bleeding for the right to nest. But washed away again was the red.And mightily throughout the Day of the North,the high rush of five pairs of swan wings,that sounded together as one harp stroke.Five fates sang in the full soundsof victory and defeat, of sorrow and joy.Yet as if every desire and round of painwas felt and cradled with one single heart. The first nesting site was never forgotten.When the storm chases through birch and spruce,and the fog dampens the buoy's bell,then they meet again, the bright swans.And the sun's red rim is half raised,behind cold clouds and steel blue water,as a sign of light above the ground sail five free birds –The Swans from the North! ~Cheryl[/QUOTE]

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