Fersensporn is one of the most popular tattoo designs from The Nacht der Kulturenacht der Nacht, an art magazine that originally ran in the early 1970s. The magazine covers many aspects of culture and design, including tattoos. It's still a very popular periodical and many of the issues come out in hard copy only. You can find Fersensporn at many online sites, but the best one to go to is Tattoo Me Now. This site is packed with high quality designs, along with great extras like links to the original artist's folgen Sie diesem Link website, printable images and unlimited downloads.
One of the most famous Fersensporn designs is the one that features a fairy having her wings spread wide. This particular design has been used as symbolism for flying since the fa
iry is often seen in fairy tales and other forms of entertainment. In German, the word for "wing" is a person. The meaning is "freedom to fly".
Another version of the fairy image is the one that shows a rabbit that's sitting on the foot of a mountain. In addition to the fairy, there are other animals and objects around the foot that represent nature. The rabbit sits in the paws of the mountain, which is accompanied by grass and trees. The symbol representing nature is the Urns that are placed around the mountain; they represent life and time, and the stone that the rabbit sits on is also symbolic of longevity.
The original image had a much different meaning. The word that was used was im "zu" (read: "wood") and "nachrichten" (read: "stone"). As you can see, the meaning of this imagery is quite different from the current one that you may be familiar with, in particular the image of the wood owl and its relation to the eagles. There is a different image of the fersensporn that appears on most European and Asian poems and it is not directly related to any kind of owl.
Let me explain exactly what I mean by this. When people use the term "fersensporn ist ein", they are talking about a form of imagery that has a very different meaning than the one that I have just described above. When people say things like, "look at all those patients waiting in those chairs," or "look at all those birds that are flying around", these are all referring to imagery from the natural world. The patient doesn't stand for anything except for a series of bird images, and the "zu" that I used is for "wood". So in order to translate all of these into German, we would simply need to translate the phrase as "zu fig" or "zu nachrichten."
It's important to understand that the phrase literally means "to have wings" and the word that follows, "zu", actually means "cloud". So the phrase in question literally translates as "cloud to fly". If we translate the phrase as "zufig ein", we can see that the cloud imagery of the patient is being replaced by an image of a bird, which is why you commonly find this phrase spelt out on birdcages and in nature-themed greeting cards.
Here's another interesting example of how the phrase is used in German. Imagine that you are having a conversation with somebody in German. You ask them something about Fersensporn and they inform you that it's actually a type of fish. You then ask them if they have any examples of people who have actually seen Fersensporn, and they give you this weird little hand motion, which you can interpret as "wave goodbye".
So there you have it: examples of how to use German to talk about Fersensporn. In my next article, I'll be looking at exactly how to say the phrase in proper form (I'm sure it's more complicated than this, but we're working on getting you conversational, right?) and how you can apply this knowledge to your own life. Be sure to stay tuned!