Mystical systems
Valknut
Direct answer
Valknut: The valknut is a sign of three interlocked triangles found on Viking Age stones and objects. Its name is modern, and its link with Odin and the dead is inferred from the scenes around it.
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At a glance
- Also called
- odin knot, knot of the slain, three interlocked triangles
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Mjolnir, Runes, Triquetra, Triskelion
The valknut is a sign of three interlocked triangles found on Viking Age stones and objects. Its name is modern, and its link with Odin and the dead is inferred from the scenes around it.
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What does the valknut mean?
The valknut is drawn as three triangles locked together. It appears in two forms: three separate triangles linked like rings, and a single unbroken line that folds into three points. It is carved on picture stones on the Swedish island of Gotland and on objects from the Oseberg ship burial in Norway.
No Norse text explains it. The word valknut is modern Norwegian, built from valr, the slain in battle, and knut, knot, and was attached to the sign by later scholars. Because it stands beside scenes of death, sacrifice and a figure taken to be Odin, many researchers read it as a mark of that god and of those who die in battle. That reading is reasonable, and it remains an inference.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Symbols.
What sets Valknut apart
Geometry splits the valknut into two unlike figures that share a name. In the first, three closed triangles pass through one another so that no two are linked yet the three cannot be pulled apart, the arrangement mathematicians call Borromean. In the second, one continuous line makes a trefoil knot with straight sides. Carvers used both. The sign is also unusually narrow in its company: it turns up beside warriors, horses, ships of the dead and sacrifice, and seldom elsewhere.
- Name: modern Norwegian: valr, the slain, and knut, knot
- Two forms: three linked triangles (Borromean) or one unbroken line (trefoil)
- Best known carving: Stora Hammars I picture stone, Gotland, Sweden
- Dated find: Oseberg ship burial, Norway, 834
- Possible text: Hrungnir's three-cornered heart, in Snorri's Edda, about 1220
Often mistaken for something else: The triquetra is made of three arcs and is common in Christian Insular art; the valknut is made of three straight-sided triangles and keeps to scenes of death.
The story behind Valknut
The clearest example is the Stora Hammars I stone on Gotland, where the sign hangs over what looks like a sacrifice. The Oseberg burial, dated to 834, has it on a carved bedpost. Snorri Sturluson, writing in Iceland about 1220, describes a heart with three sharp corners belonging to the giant Hrungnir, which some scholars connect with the sign. In recent decades it has been worn by modern Heathens and also adopted by some white supremacist groups.
Why Valknut matters
Valknut is a good case of a symbol whose popular meaning runs well ahead of what the sources can confirm.
How to read Valknut
Modern Heathens wear it as a sign of devotion to Odin; historians treat it as an unexplained motif tied to scenes of death.
Valknut in practice: an example
A museum visitor at a Gotland stone can see the three triangles above a scene with a spear and a bird and judge the Odin reading for themselves.
Where readings of Valknut go wrong
Some extremist groups use it, so its meaning in a given setting depends on who is showing it and why.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- valknut meaning, valknut symbol, odin knot, knot of the slain, three interlocked triangles
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does the valknut mean?
No source from the Viking Age says. From the scenes it accompanies, most scholars link it with Odin and with death in battle. Popular explanations beyond that are modern.
Is valknut an Old Norse word?
No. It is a modern Norwegian compound meaning roughly knot of the slain, applied to the sign by scholars. What the Norse themselves called it is unknown.
Is the valknut a hate symbol?
Not in itself. It is an old Scandinavian motif used by many people for religious and cultural reasons. Some white supremacist groups have adopted it, which is why anti-hate organisations list it with a note about context.
