In episode 360, Gedflynn offered to teach Schierke how to summon Daimons, a kind of spirit we hadn't heard about before. What he tells her is as follows:
Daimon (ダイモン) is a Greek word and a concept from Greek mythology. There were different uses for the word over the centuries, but the way it's presented in Berserk is similar to how Hesiod describes it in Works and Days. He asserted that Daimons were humans of the Golden Age who had become spirits acting as guardians to mortal men. That fits with what Gedflynn says about how some human heroes attained that status.
That said, not all of them are former humans, so what about those who are astral beings? At this point it's hard to say for sure what form they'll take, but they're presented by Gedflynn as different from the nature spirits we've seen Schierke summon so far. They're not tied to a specific location in the corporeal world, which to me implies they may have a more universal quality while still being personifications of some forces of nature. It might be more abstract concepts or related to wider ranging phenomena (like, say, "storms"), instead of being tied to a river for example. Maybe the closest thing we've seen so far is the Wheel of Flames.
One of the big unknowns is how Schierke will be able to use these entities. Our best clue is what we've seen Flora do, since she's the only Daimon we know of at the moment. She's associated with fire and was able to use her power to stop Grunbeld from pursuing the group as well, as burn away the "apostle shades" in Casca's nightmare. At first glance that doesn't seem too different from what Schierke does when she summons "regular" spiritual beings, but I imagine there will actually be more to it than that. I'm especially curious to see what would occur if she called forth ancient heroes that weren't magic users. Would they manifest physically and fight?
There's also the question of where these Daimons dwell exactly. We're only told it's deeper than for the spirits we've seen so far. Are they all together in one place, or do they have their own separate domains? One possibility is that they all reside in the fields of Elysion (エーリュシオン), a verdant island that would border the great ocean of souls. There, they would have retained their individuality instead of "becoming one". This is again borrowed from Greek mythology, in which the Elysian Fields (Ēlýsion pedíon) were the resting place of heroes and righteous people in the afterlife.
It would be a bit of a mish-mash of references, but I find the idea alluring and Miura is pretty liberal with how he uses mythological or folkloric elements. As an island, I even wonder if it could symbolically be perceived as an opposite of sorts to the Vortex of Souls and the Abyss.
Side note: If you're wondering whether the Golden Age arc in Berserk was named after the Golden Age from Greek mythology, then yes it most likely was. Miura uses the same word. However there are no actual parallels to be drawn between the two, beyond the fact that "it was a better time".
Daimon (ダイモン) is a Greek word and a concept from Greek mythology. There were different uses for the word over the centuries, but the way it's presented in Berserk is similar to how Hesiod describes it in Works and Days. He asserted that Daimons were humans of the Golden Age who had become spirits acting as guardians to mortal men. That fits with what Gedflynn says about how some human heroes attained that status.
That said, not all of them are former humans, so what about those who are astral beings? At this point it's hard to say for sure what form they'll take, but they're presented by Gedflynn as different from the nature spirits we've seen Schierke summon so far. They're not tied to a specific location in the corporeal world, which to me implies they may have a more universal quality while still being personifications of some forces of nature. It might be more abstract concepts or related to wider ranging phenomena (like, say, "storms"), instead of being tied to a river for example. Maybe the closest thing we've seen so far is the Wheel of Flames.
One of the big unknowns is how Schierke will be able to use these entities. Our best clue is what we've seen Flora do, since she's the only Daimon we know of at the moment. She's associated with fire and was able to use her power to stop Grunbeld from pursuing the group as well, as burn away the "apostle shades" in Casca's nightmare. At first glance that doesn't seem too different from what Schierke does when she summons "regular" spiritual beings, but I imagine there will actually be more to it than that. I'm especially curious to see what would occur if she called forth ancient heroes that weren't magic users. Would they manifest physically and fight?
There's also the question of where these Daimons dwell exactly. We're only told it's deeper than for the spirits we've seen so far. Are they all together in one place, or do they have their own separate domains? One possibility is that they all reside in the fields of Elysion (エーリュシオン), a verdant island that would border the great ocean of souls. There, they would have retained their individuality instead of "becoming one". This is again borrowed from Greek mythology, in which the Elysian Fields (Ēlýsion pedíon) were the resting place of heroes and righteous people in the afterlife.
It would be a bit of a mish-mash of references, but I find the idea alluring and Miura is pretty liberal with how he uses mythological or folkloric elements. As an island, I even wonder if it could symbolically be perceived as an opposite of sorts to the Vortex of Souls and the Abyss.
Side note: If you're wondering whether the Golden Age arc in Berserk was named after the Golden Age from Greek mythology, then yes it most likely was. Miura uses the same word. However there are no actual parallels to be drawn between the two, beyond the fact that "it was a better time".
