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