The symbol of The Right Hand/The Bloodied Hand/The Red Hand has a long history.

But why? Whose hand?

 

I’ve lived in Ulster…twice…and often asked the locals what the Red Hand of Ulster meant. Every answer was somewhat different.

It is also associated with the Roman Legions, sitting atop their standards.

 

 

The Native American Tribes used the image of the Red Hand. The Janissary guards carried standards with a bloodied imprint of their Right Hand. There is supposedly a column in the Hagia Sophia that still carries the Bloody Hand-print of Mehmed the Conqueror. The Prophet Mohammed had a Palm-print on his military banner.

 

 

Whilst in prison, just before his execution in 1185, Emperor Andronicus I Comnenus had his right hand severed by an axe.