Vikings Symbology

by Ph03niX

Fourteen signs of the Norse world — their origins, meanings and sagas, set one plate to a page for printing.

ValknutThe knot of the fallen warrior1
VegvísirThe wayfinder, the stave against being lost2
ÆgishjálmurThe terror worn between the eyes3
MjölnirThor's hammer, the hallowing of what matters4
YggdrasilThe world tree that holds the nine realms5
Web of WyrdNine lines holding every rune ever cut6
TriquetraThree arcs, one unbroken line7
Triple Horn of OdinThe mead of poetry, stolen in three swallows8
JörmungandrThe serpent that circles the world and bites its tail9
Huginn & MuninnThe two ravens that fly the world each dawn10
SvefnþornThe stave that lays a sleeper down for years11
GungnirThe spear that never misses and binds every oath12
Troll CrossA ring of iron against unfriendly things13
SleipnirThe eight-legged horse that rides between worlds14

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 1 — The knot of the fallen warrior

Valknut

Valr + knut — “knot of the slain”

Three interlocking triangles bound in a single unbroken weave, carved beside scenes of death, sacrifice and Odin himself.

Three triangles, nine points — nine is the sacred number of the Norse cosmos.
Two forms survive: the unicursal (one unbroken line) and the tricursal (three separate triangles).
Always found in the company of Odin imagery — never alone on a domestic object.

Origins & Attestation

The Valknut appears on the Stora Hammars I picture stone of Gotland (7th–9th c.), on the Tängelgårda stone, and on the ship burial timbers of Oseberg in Norway. In nearly every surviving instance it stands beside a figure being hanged, a horse, or a warrior falling in battle — the three settings most closely tied to Odin. The modern name is a scholarly coinage: Norwegian farmers called it valknute, the knot of the slain, and the term stuck.

What it means

Nine points, three triangles, one continuous line: the number nine governs Norse cosmology — nine worlds on the branches of Yggdrasil, nine nights Odin hung on the tree, nine nights Freyr waited for Gerðr. The unicursal weave suggests that the fate of the warrior, the will of the god and the moment of death cannot be untangled from one another. Some scholars read it as the hugr, the bound mind, which Odin could loosen or fetter in battle to grant berserk fury or sudden paralysing fear.

How it was used

Carved on memorial stones raised for men who died away from home, and on the funeral gear of the highest-status burials. Its placement is always funerary or sacrificial, never domestic — it is a mark set upon the dead, not a charm worn by the living.

The sign today

Adopted widely in heathen and Ásatrú practice as a declaration of dedication to Odin. Also worn simply as a memento mori, a reminder that a life is only as good as the story left behind it.

“I know that I hung on a windy tree nine long nights, wounded with a spear, given to Odin, myself to myself.”
Hávamál, st. 138

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 2 — The wayfinder, the stave against being lost

Vegvísir

Vegvísir — “that which shows the way”

Eight ornate staves radiating from a centre, drawn so that the bearer may find the road home through weather they do not know.

First attested in writing in 1860, not in the Viking Age.
Eight arms for eight directions; each arm ends in a unique terminal glyph.
Frequently — and incorrectly — called a “Viking compass”.

Origins & Attestation

The Vegvísir is Icelandic and comparatively late: it is recorded in the Huld Manuscript, compiled by Geir Vigfússon in Akureyri in 1860, and in the Galdrabók tradition of grimoires from the 16th–19th centuries. It belongs to the world of Icelandic galdrastafir — magical staves written in a Christianised, post-Viking Iceland — rather than to the Viking Age proper. Its power in the modern imagination is undiminished by that.

What it means

The Huld Manuscript gives the instruction plainly: “Beri maður stafi þessa á sér villist maður ekki í hríðum né vondu veðri, þótt ókunnugur sé” — carry this sign and you will not lose your way in storms or foul weather, even when the way is unknown to you. Each of the eight arms terminates in a different glyph, one for each of the eight cardinal directions, so that no quarter of the horizon is left unguarded.

How it was used

Traditionally drawn in blood on the forehead, or inked on oak, and carried on the body when setting out on a journey through unfamiliar land or unpredictable sea.

The sign today

The most tattooed of all Norse signs, worn by sailors, travellers, and anyone marking a passage through a difficult season. Björk wore it inked on her upper arm, which sealed its place in the modern imagination.

“He who carries this sign with him will not lose his way in storms or bad weather.”
Huld Manuscript, 1860

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 3 — The terror worn between the eyes

Ægishjálmur

Ægishjálmr — “helm of awe”

Eight tridents thrust outward from a single point — a weapon of the mind, worn to break the courage of an enemy before the first blow lands.

Fáfnir the dragon says he wore it and no one dared approach him.
Eight staves, mirroring the eight arms of the Vegvísir but weaponised.
Also called “the helm that goes before”, worn between the eyes.

Origins & Attestation

The Helm of Awe is named in the Poetic Edda, in Fáfnismál, where the dragon Fáfnir claims it as the source of his invincibility. Its drawn form as eight barbed staves comes from later Icelandic grimoires, where it is one of the most powerful and most frequently copied galdrastafir.

What it means

Ægishjálmur is not armour but dread made visible. The eight arms, each tipped with a trident and crossed with barred rungs, project outward in every direction — a field of fear surrounding the wearer. The Old Norse word ægir means both terror and the sea, so the name carries a double sense: the helm of the overwhelming, of that which cannot be resisted.

How it was used

Pressed in lead onto the forehead between the brows before battle, or drawn on the inside of a helmet, so that the enemy would meet the sign before he met the man.

The sign today

Worn as a sigil of protection and inner resolve — held by many practitioners to guard the mind rather than the body, a defence against being dominated.

“The helm of awe I wore before the sons of men, in defence of my treasure.”
Fáfnismál, st. 16

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 4 — Thor's hammer, the hallowing of what matters

Mjölnir

Mjǫllnir — “the grinder” or “lightning”

The short-hafted hammer forged by the dwarves Sindri and Brokkr — the single most commonly worn amulet of the Viking Age.

The dwarf Brokkr's bellows were bitten by Loki as a fly — hence the short handle.
Mjölnir always returns to the hand that throws it.
Hammer amulets multiplied in direct response to the Christian cross.

Origins & Attestation

Over a thousand Mjölnir amulets have been excavated across Scandinavia, England, Russia and Iceland, in silver, bronze, amber and iron. Their numbers surge sharply in the 10th century — exactly as Christian missionaries pressed north and the cross became a common pendant. The hammer became a statement of allegiance as much as a charm.

What it means

Mjölnir is the boundary weapon: it stands between the ordered world of gods and men and the giants of chaos beyond the fence. But it is not only destructive. Thor's hammer hallows — it blesses marriages, sanctifies boundaries, consecrates the newborn and the dead. In Þrymskviða the hammer is laid in the bride's lap to sanctify the wedding, and that is the moment Thor seizes it back.

How it was used

Worn at the throat on a cord or chain, raised over the marriage bed, over the pyre, and over land claimed as one's own. Iron rings hung with tiny hammers were kept at temple doors as oath-rings.

The sign today

The primary identifying symbol of contemporary Norse heathenry, recognised as a religious symbol by several national militaries and by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for use on headstones.

“Bring the hammer to hallow the bride, lay Mjölnir on the maiden's knee.”
Þrymskviða, st. 30

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 5 — The world tree that holds the nine realms

Yggdrasil

Yggdrasill — “Odin's steed”

An immense ash whose branches arch over every world and whose three roots drink from three wells at the base of existence.

Three roots, three wells: fate, wisdom, and the primordial source.
Ratatoskr the squirrel runs the trunk carrying insults between eagle and dragon.
It shivers before Ragnarök but is not destroyed by it — two humans survive inside it.

Origins & Attestation

Yggdrasil is described in Vǫluspá and Grímnismál in the Poetic Edda and expanded in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. Tree-cult is far older than the texts: Adam of Bremen describes an evergreen of vast size standing beside the temple at Uppsala in the 11th century, beneath which sacrifices hung.

What it means

The name means Odin's horse — the gallows on which he hung himself for nine nights to seize the runes. The tree is therefore not scenery but the axis of sacrifice and knowledge. Its three roots reach Urðarbrunnr, where the Norns weave fate; Mímisbrunnr, the well of wisdom for which Odin gave an eye; and Hvergelmir, the roaring cauldron of Niflheim. It is constantly being eaten — by the dragon Níðhǫggr at the root, by four stags at the crown — and constantly healed by the Norns with white clay from the well.

How it was used

Carved on chests, bedposts and portal beams; a household and dynastic sign of continuity and rooted lineage.

The sign today

A symbol of ecological interdependence and of ancestry — the awareness that everything living is connected along a single trunk.

“An ash I know there stands, Yggdrasil is its name, a tall tree, showered with shining loam.”
Vǫluspá, st. 19

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 6 — Nine lines holding every rune ever cut

Web of Wyrd

Skuld's Net — the matrix of fate

A lattice of nine staves in which the shape of every rune of the Elder Futhark can be found — fate as a woven, not written, thing.

Contains every shape in the Elder Futhark within nine straight lines.
Wyrd shares a root with the English word “weird” — originally meaning fated.
Three Norns, three tenses: past, present, and debt owed to the future.

Origins & Attestation

The Web of Wyrd is a modern reconstruction rather than an excavated artefact, built from the Anglo-Saxon and Norse concept of wyrd (Old Norse urðr) — that which has turned, that which has become. The idea it encodes is thoroughly ancient even if the grid itself is not.

What it means

Fate in Norse thought is not a script laid down in advance but a fabric under constant weaving. The three Norns — Urðr (what has become), Verðandi (what is becoming), Skuld (what shall be owed) — work at the loom, and every action pulls a thread that shifts the whole cloth. Because every rune can be traced within the nine lines, the web asserts that all possible outcomes are already latent in the weave; the choice is which line you pull.

How it was used

Used as a meditative and divinatory frame — a field on which runes are cast or traced when seeking the shape of a situation.

The sign today

Worn by those who hold to a middle path between fatalism and free will: the loom is fixed, the weaving is not.

“Laws they made there, and life allotted to the sons of men, and set their fates.”
Vǫluspá, st. 20

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 7 — Three arcs, one unbroken line

Triquetra

Þríhyrningr — the trinity knot

A three-lobed knot of interlaced vesicae, cut on Norse memorial stones and later absorbed wholesale into insular Christian art.

Predates Christianity in northern Europe by several centuries.
Its unbroken line makes it a protective knot — evil is said to become trapped following it.
Often enclosed in a circle to bind the three into a single sealed unity.

Origins & Attestation

The triquetra appears on Germanic and Norse objects from the 7th century onward — on the Funbo runestone in Uppland, on coins of Olaf Guthfrithsson of Northumbria, and on Norwegian church portals carved in the surviving stave-church idiom. It travelled easily between pagan and Christian hands because it argued for the same thing in both: three that are one.

What it means

Three is the structural number of Norse thought: three Norns, three roots of Yggdrasil, three sons of Borr, the triple death of sacrifice. The knot has no beginning and no terminus, so it renders eternity as a geometry. Read alongside a goddess it is often taken as maiden, mother, crone; read alongside the cosmos, as earth, sea and sky.

How it was used

Carved on grave markers, doorframes and drinking horns; also worked into the borders of runestones as a protective closure of the inscription.

The sign today

Extremely common in Celtic-Norse jewellery, frequently used to mark a bond between three — a family, a vow, a lineage.

“Thence come the maidens, mighty in wisdom, three from the lake that stands beneath the tree.”
Vǫluspá, st. 20

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 8 — The mead of poetry, stolen in three swallows

Triple Horn of Odin

Þríhyrnd horn — the three draughts

Three interlocking drinking horns: Óðrœrir, Boðn and Són, the vessels holding the mead that makes a poet of whoever drinks it.

The three vessels: Óðrœrir, Boðn, and Són.
Odin drank all three in three draughts and fled as an eagle.
A few drops spilled on the way home — the “poetaster's share”, given to bad poets.

Origins & Attestation

The triple horn is found on Gotlandic picture stones and on the Snoldelev Stone from Denmark (9th century), where three horns interlock in a triskelion. The myth behind it is told by Snorri in Skáldskaparmál: the mead brewed from the blood of the murdered wise being Kvasir, mixed with honey.

What it means

Odin won the mead by boring through a mountain in serpent form, spending three nights with the giantess Gunnlǫð, and drinking all three vessels dry in three swallows before escaping as an eagle. The horns therefore signify inspiration bought at a price — the god of poetry is also the god who cheats, seduces and steals to get it. Poetry, in this reading, is never given; it is taken.

How it was used

Cut on memorial stones for poets and law-speakers, and carved on the horns themselves, which were passed at the sumbel — the ritual round of toasts and oaths.

The sign today

Used in modern heathen ritual to mark the sumbel, and worn by writers and musicians as a claim on the poetic craft.

“Gunnlǫð gave me on a golden seat a drink of the precious mead.”
Hávamál, st. 105

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 9 — The serpent that circles the world and bites its tail

Jörmungandr

Jǫrmungandr — “the vast monster”

The Midgard Serpent, thrown into the ocean by Odin, grown so large it encircles the earth and grips its own tail in its jaws.

One of Loki's three monstrous children, with Fenrir and Hel.
Thor and Jörmungandr meet three times; the third time both die.
Its release from its own tail is the signal for Ragnarök.

Origins & Attestation

Jörmungandr is central to the Prose Edda and appears in Hymiskviða, where Thor hooks the serpent with an ox-head. It is carved on the Altuna runestone in Sweden — Thor fishing, hammer raised, the serpent below — and on the Gosforth Cross in England, where pagan and Christian scenes stand side by side.

What it means

As an ouroboros the serpent is the boundary of the known world and the boundary of time itself: while it holds its tail, the world stands. When it lets go, Ragnarök begins. It is Thor's appointed enemy and his death — he will kill it and walk nine paces before the venom takes him. The serpent therefore encodes a hard Norse idea: the thing that defines you and the thing that ends you are the same thing.

How it was used

Coiled into the borders of runestones and shield bosses, where its body becomes the frame containing the inscription — the world-serpent as literal boundary.

The sign today

A symbol of cycles, of the eternal return, and of holding an inevitable fate without flinching from it.

“Thor walks nine paces, then falls dead to the ground, poisoned by the serpent's venom.”
Gylfaginning, 51

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 10 — The two ravens that fly the world each dawn

Huginn & Muninn

Huginn ok Muninn — “thought and memory”

Odin's ravens, sent out at daybreak over all nine worlds, returning at meal-time to whisper what they have seen into his ears.

Huginn = thought (hugr), Muninn = memory (munr).
Odin's raven banner was said to predict the outcome of a battle.
The ravens' names first appear together in Grímnismál, st. 20.

Origins & Attestation

Ravens flank Odin on the Vendel-era helmet plates from Sweden, on gold bracteates, and on the Oseberg tapestry fragments. Raven banners — the hrafnsmerki — were carried by Danish and Norse fleets, described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Encomium Emmae Reginae, where the raven on the cloth was said to flap before a victory and hang limp before a defeat.

What it means

Huginn is thought; Muninn is memory. Odin sends both out and admits, in Grímnismál, that he fears for the return of thought but fears more for memory — the god of wisdom is afraid of forgetting. The pair render the two faculties on which all knowledge stands, and the corvid's carrion nature ties them to the battlefield: what the ravens see, they see over the dead.

How it was used

Worked in pairs on brooches, helmet crests and standards; always mirrored, always facing one another or the figure between them.

The sign today

Worn by writers, scholars and those in the memory trades — and as a reminder that thinking and remembering are two different labours.

“I fear for Huginn, that he come not back, yet more am I anxious for Muninn.”
Grímnismál, st. 20

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 11 — The stave that lays a sleeper down for years

Svefnþorn

Svefnþorn — “sleep thorn”

Four hooked staves used in the sagas to cast a sleep so deep the sleeper cannot be woken until the thorn is removed.

Odin used it on the valkyrie Brynhildr for defying him.
The Huld Manuscript gives at least three distinct drawings of it.
Sleep lasts until the thorn is physically removed from the sleeper.

Origins & Attestation

The sleep thorn appears in the Vǫlsunga saga, where Odin pricks the valkyrie Brynhildr with it as punishment for granting victory to the wrong king; in the Gǫngu-Hrólfs saga; and in the saga of King Hrólfr Kraki. The drawn stave itself comes from Icelandic grimoires, which give several competing forms.

What it means

This is one of the few Norse signs whose function is unambiguously hostile — it removes a person from the world without killing them. Brynhildr sleeps ringed in fire until Sigurðr cuts the mail from her body. The thorn thus carries a double sense: enforced stillness as punishment, but also as preservation. What sleeps is not lost; it waits.

How it was used

Carved on the head of a bed, on oak, or pressed under the pillow of the one to be put down. In the sagas it is placed by a god or a sorcerer, never casually.

The sign today

Read now as a sign for rest, for the deliberate closing of a chapter, and for anything held in suspension until its proper time.

“Odin stung her with the sleep-thorn, and said she should never again win victory in battle.”
Vǫlsunga saga, ch. 21

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 12 — The spear that never misses and binds every oath

Gungnir

Gungnir — “the swaying one”

Odin's spear, forged by the sons of Ívaldi, carved with runes on its point, incapable of missing its mark or of stopping short.

Runes cut into the spearhead make its oaths unbreakable.
Odin cast it to begin the war between Æsir and Vanir.
Hanging and spear-wounding together formed the classic sacrifice to Odin.

Origins & Attestation

Gungnir is described in Skáldskaparmál as one of the treasures made by the dwarves in the great wager with Loki. Spear-marks and spear deposits are among the most common ritual finds in Scandinavian bogs, and the practice of casting a spear over an enemy army to dedicate them to Odin is recorded in Vǫluspá and in Styrbjarnar þáttr.

What it means

The spear is the instrument of oath and of dedication. Odin wounded himself with it on the world tree; he casts it to open the first war in the world; oaths sworn on its point cannot be broken. Where Mjölnir defends the enclosure, Gungnir declares intent — it is the weapon of the sovereign, the sworn word made iron.

How it was used

A spear was thrown over an opposing army before battle with the cry “Óðinn á yðr alla” — Odin owns you all — giving the enemy dead to the god in advance.

The sign today

A symbol of precision, of the binding word, and of committing fully to a chosen course.

“Odin hurled his spear and shot it over the host — that was the first war in the world.”
Vǫluspá, st. 24

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 13 — A ring of iron against unfriendly things

Troll Cross

Trollkors — the bent iron

A simple odal-shaped loop of bent iron, hung at the threshold and worn at the belt to turn away trolls and malicious spirits.

Made from cold-bent iron — the metal itself is the working part.
Its shape derives from the Óðal rune of ancestral land.
A Swedish farm tradition, documented in Dalarna.

Origins & Attestation

The trollkors comes from Swedish folk tradition, particularly Dalarna, and was popularised in its current form by the smith Kari Erlands, who reproduced it from a design found on her parents' farm. It belongs to the long post-Viking continuity of Scandinavian folk magic rather than to the Viking Age itself.

What it means

Its power lies in the material as much as the shape: cold iron was held throughout northern Europe to be intolerable to the hidden folk. The loop echoes the rune Óðal (ᛟ), the rune of inherited land, homestead and ancestral property — so the sign reads as a fence around what belongs to the family.

How it was used

Hung over the door of house and barn, at the gate, and on the person when walking out after dark or crossing wild ground.

The sign today

Worn as a straightforward protective charm and as a token of home and inheritance.

“Iron at the door, and nothing ill-meant crosses it.”
Swedish folk saying

Vikings Symbology — Ph03niX

Plate 14 — The eight-legged horse that rides between worlds

Sleipnir

Sleipnir — “the slipper”

Odin's grey steed, born of Loki and the stallion Svaðilfari, able to run over sea and air and down into the realm of the dead.

Son of Loki, who bore him while shapeshifted into a mare.
Eight legs — sometimes read as the four bearers of a funeral bier.
Leapt the gates of Hel without breaking stride.

Origins & Attestation

Sleipnir is carved on the Tjängvide and Ardre VIII picture stones of Gotland (8th–9th c.), unmistakable with its four extra legs. His parentage is told in Gylfaginning: Loki, in the form of a mare, distracted the giant builder's stallion and later bore the foal.

What it means

Eight legs mean unmatched speed — but also the four men who carry a bier. Sleipnir carries Hermóðr down the road to Hel to bargain for Baldr's return and leaps the gate of the dead; he is the vehicle of passage between conditions. The horse belongs to a shamanic layer of Odin's character: the god who travels out of the body and comes back with news.

How it was used

Depicted on memorial stones carrying a rider toward a welcoming figure with a horn — the arrival of the dead in the hall.

The sign today

A symbol of journeys, transitions and safe passage through the hardest crossings.

“Sleipnir is the best of horses; he is Odin's, and he has eight legs.”
Grímnismál, st. 44