DENMARK, FLAG OF

national flag consisting of a red field with an off-centre white cross. The width-to-length ratio of the flag is 28 to 34 (14 to 17), but the length may be extended until the ratio is 28 to 37. According to tradition, the Danish flag fell from heaven on June 15, 1219, during the Battle of Lyndanisse (near modern Tallinn, Estonia) as a sign from God of his support for King Valdemar II against the pagan Estonians. Contemporary references to this flag date from a century later, and evidence suggests that the flag was not unique to Denmark. Many small states in the Holy Roman Empire (or, as in the case of Denmark, along its borders) used similar flags, including Switzerland and Savoy. The imperial war flag of the empire was precisely of this design, its red field symbolizing battle and its white cross suggesting the holy cause for which the battle was being fought. The Danish version of that war flag is a swallow-tailed banner that has a unique off-centre Scandinavian Cross, its arms extending to the edges of the flag; however, it has been associated exclusively with the state and military. The common people did not make use of the Dannebrog (as it is officially known) until the middle of the 19th century. In 1849, during the struggle for a constitution, Danes rallied to a rectangular form of the flag and began for the first time to consider it as belonging to the citizenry as well as the authorities. Whitney Smith History The first written evidence of a Danish kingdom dates from the early Viking Age. Roman knowledge of this remote country was fragmentary and unreliable, and the traditional accounts in Widsith and Beowulf and by later Scandinavian writers, notably Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200), are too mythical and legendary to serve as history. Since World War II, however, archaeological research and the study of place-names have provided considerable information about the earliest settlements. Earliest settlements The first nomadic hunters, after 12,000 BC, developed a Stone Age culture. About 4000 BC one of the greatest changes in Danish history occurred: the inhabitants adopted the practice of agriculture and stock keeping, and the first farmers began to reclaim land from the forests. From about 3500 BC permanent houses for the dead in large megalithic graves were built, but about 2800 BC a single-grave culture emerged. The change was caused by local factors, including new tools, weapons, and religious rites. In the last phase of the Stone Age, the Dagger period (24001800 BC), flint working reached its apogee with the production of technical masterpieces, including daggers and spearheads that were imitations of imported metal weapons. The refined culture of the ruling class in the Bronze Age (1800500 BC) is indicated by the spiral decorations on the bronzes of the period, in particular the famous Late Bronze Age lurs (long, curved metal horns, often found in pairs) from about 1000800 BC. At about the same time, the wooden plow enabled better exploitation of the cultivated areas. After 500 BC, bronze was gradually replaced by iron, and a village society developed in a landscape of bogs, meadows, and woods with large clearings. The villages appear to have been moved and the fields abandoned with each new generation. Chiefs and rich farmers lived in houses between 40 and 100 feet in length, the climate now being colder and wetter; as in the Bronze Age, objects of great value were laid as offerings in the bogs. The period up to AD 400 was marked by the large number of villages, and splendidly equipped graves suggest that political power was gathered in fewer hands. More or less fixed trading connections were established with the Romans; about AD 200 the first runic inscription appeared, possibly developed under the influence of the Latin alphabet. The period from 400 to 800 is known as the Germanic Iron Age, but the finds have been few, indicating a time of decline, unrest, and bubonic plague in the 6th century. The first trading markets appeared at Hedeby (near what is now Schleswig, Ger.) and Ribe in the 8th century, and written sources mention the existence of slaves. Michael I.A. Linton