Cultural and Economic Significance
In Norse mythology, Ratatoskr is a red squirrel who runs up and down with messages in the world tree, Yggdrasill, and spreads gossip. In particular, he carried messages between the unnamed eagle at the top of Yggdrasill and the wyrm Níðhöggr beneath its roots.
The red squirrel used to be widely hunted for its pelt. In Finland squirrel pelts were used as currency in ancient times, before the introduction of coinage. The expression "squirrel pelt" is still widely understood there to be a reference to money.
Squirrel Nutkin is a character, always illustrated as a red squirrel, in English author Beatrix Potter's books for children.
The Rareware character Conker is a red squirrel.
Read more about this topic: Red Squirrel
Famous quotes containing the words cultural, economic and/or significance:
“Unfortunately there is still a cultural stereotype that it’s all right for girls to be affectionate but that once boys reach six or seven, they no longer need so much hugging and kissing. What this does is dissuade boys from expressing their natural feelings of tenderness and affection. It is important that we act affectionately with our sons as well as our daughters.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)
“A society in which everyone works is not necessarily a free society and may indeed be a slave society; on the other hand, a society in which there is widespread economic insecurity can turn freedom into a barren and vapid right for the millions of people.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)