Editing Flag of Denmark (section)

=== 1219 origin legend ===
[[File:Danmarks flag 1219 Lorentzen.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Dannebrog falling from the sky during the [[Battle of Lyndanisse|Battle of Lindanise]], 15 June 1219. Painted by [[Christian August Lorentzen]] in 1809. Original located at {{lang|da|[[Statens Museum for Kunst]]|italic=no}}, Denmark.]]
[[File:Danish flag info sign.jpg|thumb|left|Information sign at Guinness World Records Copenhagen]]
A tradition recorded in the 16th century traces the origin of the flag to the campaigns of [[Valdemar II of Denmark]] (r. 1202&ndash;1241). The oldest of them is in [[Christiern Pedersen]]'s ''Danske Krønike'', which is a sequel to [[Saxo Grammaticus]]'s {{Lang|la|[[Gesta Danorum]]}}, which was written in 1520 to 1523. Here, the flag falls from the sky during one of Valdemar's military campaigns overseas. Pedersen also states that the very same flag was taken into exile by [[Eric of Pomerania]] in 1440.

The second source is the writing of the [[Franciscan]] friar [[Petrus Olai]] (Peder Olsen) of [[Roskilde]] (died {{Circa|1570}}). This record describes a battle in 1208 near [[Viljandi|Fellin]] during the [[Livonian Crusade|Estonia campaign]] of King [[Valdemar II]]. The Danes were all but defeated when a lamb-skin banner depicting a white cross fell from the sky and miraculously led to a Danish victory. In a third account, also by Petrus Olai,{{dubious|date=July 2016}} in ''Danmarks Tolv Herligheder'' ("Twelve Splendours of Denmark"), in splendour number nine, the same story is retold almost verbatim, with a paragraph inserted correcting the year to 1219.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}}<!--the existence of such a work cannot be substantiated except for mentions in passing in exactly this context (Dannebrog). Also, if it exists, it is not clear that "Peder Olsen" is the same Peder as the Petrus Olai of Roskild--> Now, the flag is falling from the sky in the [[Battle of Lyndanisse|Battle of Lindanise]], also known as the Battle of Valdemar (Danish: ''Volmerslaget''), near [[Lindanise]] (Tallinn) in [[Estonia]], of 15 June 1219.

It is this third account that has been the most influential, and some historians{{Who|date=April 2010}} have treated it as the primary account taken from a (lost) source dating to the first half of the 15th century.

In Olai's account, the battle was going badly, and defeat seemed imminent. However the Danish bishop, [[Anders Sunesen]], was on top of a hill overlooking the battle and prayed to God with his arms raised. The Danes moved closer to victory as prayed. When he raised his arms, the Danes surged forward, but when his arms grew tired, and he let them fall, the Estonians turned the Danes back. Attendants rushed forward to raise his arms once again, and the Danes again surged forward, but for a second time he grew so tired that he dropped his arms, and the Danes again lost the advantage and became closer to defeat. He needed two soldiers to keep his hands up (a story almost identical to the battle described in Exodus 17:11-12). When the Danes were about to lose, the ''Dannebrog'' miraculously fell from the sky. The King took it and showed it to the troops, their hearts were filled with courage, and the Danes won the battle.

The possible historical nucleus behind this origin legend was extensively discussed by Danish historians in the 19th to 20th centuries. One such example is [[Adolf Ditlev Jørgensen]], who argued that [[Theoderich, Bishop of Estonia|Bishop Theoderich]] was the original instigator of the 1218 inquiry from Bishop [[Albert of Buxhoeveden]] to King [[Valdemar II of Denmark|Valdemar II]] which led to the Danish participation in the Baltic crusades. Jørgensen speculates that Bishop Theoderich might have carried the Knight Hospitaller's banner in the 1219 battle and that "the enemy thought this was the King's symbol and mistakenly stormed Bishop Theoderich tent. He claims that the origin of the legend of the falling flag comes from this confusion in the battle".<ref name="Adolf Ditlev Jørgensen 1875"/>

The Danish church-historian L. P. Fabricius (1934)<ref>L. P. Fabricius ''Sagnet om Dannebrog og de ældste Forbindelser med Estland'' (1934)</ref> ascribes the origin to the 1208 Battle of Fellin, not the [[Battle of Lyndanisse|Battle of Lindanise]] in 1219, based on the earliest source available about the story. Fabricius speculated that it might have been Archbishop [[Andreas Sunesøn]]'s personal ecclesiastical banner or perhaps even the flag of Archbishop [[Absalon]] under whose initiative and supervision several smaller crusades had already been conducted in Estonia. The banner would then already be known in Estonia. Fabricius repeats Jørgensen's idea about the flag being planted in front of Bishop Theodorik's tent, which the enemy mistakenly attacked believing it to be the tent of the King.

A different theory is briefly discussed by Fabricius and elaborated more by Helge Bruhn (1949). Bruhn interprets the story in the context of the widespread tradition of the miraculous appearance of crosses in the sky in Christian legend, specifically comparing such an event attributed to a battle of 10 September 1217 near [[Alcácer do Sal|Alcazar]] in which it is said that a golden cross on white appeared in the sky and brought victory to the Christians.<ref name="Bruhn1949">{{cite book|author=Helge Bruhn|title=Dannebrog: og danske faner gennem tiderne|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WIXUAAAAMAAJ|year=1949|publisher=Jespersen og Pio|pages=17–}}</ref>

In Swedish national historiography of the 18th century, there is a tale paralleling the Danish legend, in which 
a golden cross appears in the blue sky during a Swedish battle in Finland in 1157.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Flag of Scania - ENG Part 1 |url=https://www.skaneflaggan.nu/04_flaggskriften/flageng/index.html |access-date=2024-04-15 |website=www.skaneflaggan.nu}}</ref>