In the literary sources, Odin and his attendant spirits such as the valkyries often use magic that is described in terms of binding and unbinding, tying up the mind or untying it. Odin was also one of the most powerful of all magicians and shamans. To find associations with both death and Odin together should come as no surprise, since Odin was, among many, many other things, a psychopomp – that is, a figure who ferries the spirits of the dead to the underworld and then back to the world of the living – as well as the leader of various hosts of the dead, such as the warriors of Valhalla and of the Wild Hunt. For example, the Anglo-Saxon urns feature depictions of horses and wolves, two animals that are often the companions of Odin in the Norse mythological tales. Even in instances where he’s not present directly alongside the Valknut, we often find other symbols that are closely associated with him. In most of these cases, Odin is also present. Similar-looking symbols can also be found on the cremation urns of the Anglo-Saxons, another Germanic people closely related to the Norse linguistically, ethnically, and in terms of their pre-Christian worldview and religion. In the archaeological record, the Valknut appears only in connection with the cult of the dead, as in the aforementioned runestones and ship burial. The longer answer is: The Valknut on the Stora Hammars I stone, Gotland, Sweden What, then, was the meaning of this symbol? Its name isn’t mentioned in any period sources valknut is a modern Norwegian compound word that means “knot of those fallen in battle” and was introduced by Norwegians who lived long after the Viking Age. Archaeologically, it appears on several runestones and pictorial memorial stones that date from the Viking Age and stand on the Swedish island of Gotland, as well as on grave goods from the Oseberg ship burial in Norway. Visually, it’s comprised of three interlocking triangles. The Valknut (pronounced “VAL-knoot”) is one of the most widely-discussed yet enigmatic of all of the symbols that appear in connection with Norse mythology.
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Thus, the simple fact that something is found in the Huld manuscript is no guarantee that the pre-Christian Norse and/or other Germanic peoples knew anything about it, let alone embraced it as part of their religion. While some of its material may date from the time when the pre-Christian Norse religion was still a living tradition, much of the rest of it is heavily influenced by Christianity and magical practices imported from more southerly parts of Europe.
The Huld manuscript was compiled during the nineteenth century – about eight centuries after the end of the Viking Age. That book has nothing more than this one sentence to say about it: “If this sign is carried, one will never lose one’s way in storms or bad weather, even when the way is not known.” The Vegvisir (Icelandic Vegvísir, “That Which Shows the Way ” pronounced “VEGG-vee-seer”) is a symbol described only in one modern Icelandic collection of spells, the so-called Huld manuscript.
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