Flower in the rain

I think the flower in volume 1 that's shown being hit by a raindrop right before Guts' encounter with the traveling priest and his daughter, Collette, is a harebell. Here's some pictures of harebell flowers and their leaves for comparison:

harebell_flower.jpg


3314%20Harebell.jpg


harebell3.jpg


If the flower in the manga is a harebell, then I find that interesting because according to the language of flowers, which is a way of communicating using flowers, some meanings for the harebell are submission and grief. Guts submits to his dark side when he decides that he doesn't care if something bad happens to the priest and Collette and it certainly ends in grief for everyone involved.

There is also some interesting folklore about the harebell. It was believed that it could assist people in seeing into the realm of fairies, but that it could also reveal and even attract evil spirits, so it was regarded as bad luck by some and was called Aul Man's Bells, the “Aul Man” being a reference for the devil without the danger of actually invoking his name. Another name for this flower was Dead Men's Bells because it was thought that to hear them ring was an omen of death. Not sure how you hear flowers ring, but I guess if you do it means you're in trouble. :magni:

I wonder if Miura was hinting at the woe to come by using this flower at the beginning of the story. I like to think he might have been.

P.S. I'm working on gathering info for a Skullknight and roses post. As far as the language of flowers goes, the meaning of the rose seems to be mostly tied in with its color. Does anyone know what the color of the rose on Skullknight's shield is? I guess with the manga being in black and white it might not be known, but thought it couldn't hurt to ask. I looked through my manga volumes (at covers and inside foldouts) and my Berserk Illustrations File, but couldn't find a color work of SK where his shield was shown. The emblem on it looks like it's a darker color because of the way it's shaded, so I at least don't think it's white, yellow, or a lighter color like that.

Sources:
language of flowers - http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/language.html
more info: http://www.twocrows.co.uk/kaleidescopes/text-pages/scottish-bluebell-text.html, http://www.alchemy-works.com/campanula_rotundifolia.html, https://www.virtualheb.co.uk/harebell-blue-wildflowers-western-isles/
 
That's some really fascinating information, JMP. Thank you for researching and sharing it.

It's pretty clear from this and your last find that this isn't a coincidence. I wonder if he's always had an interest in flowers (or the meanings behind them) and is applying that knowledge to Berserk. Or if he had the idea of using a flower that symbolically fits the situation early on and just stuck with that concept throughout the years.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Thank you for your post!

JMP said:
Does anyone know what the color of the rose on Skullknight's shield is?

Based on the two color pictures I can think of, it's either red (from a painting dating back to 2000) or a paler shade of rose (extrapolated from elements in a painting for the Trading Card Game, circa ~2006). Note that all colors are more saturated in the first painting compared to the second one.
 

Kompozinaut

Sylph Sword
JMP, I absolutely love your posts providing insight into the language of flowers and their synthesis within Berserk. It's truly refreshing and original!
 

puella

Berserk forever
Great post! It's a fresh approach to Berserk. As a woman, I can only tell roses, lilies, tulips, carnations.... :farnese:
I appreciate your insight.
 
Thank you for the kind words! :serpico: I enjoy legends and folklore and I've been interested in the language of flowers for a long time, so it's been fun for me to speculate about Miura's choice of flowers within the story that may relate to those things.

Skeleton said:
I wonder if he's always had an interest in flowers (or the meanings behind them) and is applying that knowledge to Berserk. Or if he had the idea of using a flower that symbolically fits the situation early on and just stuck with that concept throughout the years.
I remember learning in an English Literature class that an author's choices of flowers, plants, and other objects within a story are often used by them to symbolically represent meaning. I thought that was very cool because before learning that I had often just taken things at face value. I think it's pretty awesome that it seems Miura is doing that quite a bit within Berserk in various ways, but I guess that shouldn't surprise me since we know how much work and attention he puts into this. :ubik:

Aazealh said:
Based on the two color pictures I can think of, it's either red (from a painting dating back to 2000) or a paler shade of rose (extrapolated from elements in a painting for the Trading Card Game, circa ~2006). Note that all colors are more saturated in the first painting compared to the second one.
Ok, thanks very much for this info! :serpico:

Delta Phi said:
JMP, I absolutely love your posts providing insight into the language of flowers and their synthesis within Berserk. It's truly refreshing and original!
I'm glad you've enjoyed them! :guts:

puella said:
Great post! It's a fresh approach to Berserk. As a woman, I can only tell roses, lilies, tulips, carnations.... :farnese:
I appreciate your insight.
I'm not really that great at identifying flowers either, puella! Aazealh had identified the shepherd's purse in the story with Chich and out of curiosity I dug around to find more info about the flower. After seeing that some of the meanings and uses of the flower fit in really well with the story I decided to share what I had learned. I thought I recognized the snowdrop, but I still had to do some checking. As for the harebell, I stumbled across that while watching a TV show about crime solving gardeners which happened to feature a similar flower. :ganishka:
 
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