The meaning of the Valknut symbol
The Valknut symbol is a noble and mysterious Germanic symbol. Its true meanings partially lost in the records of time, and remembered only in the hearts of the truest Germanic warriors who give this meaning symbol. The Valknut is a symbol of folk-remembrance, sacrifice, honour, dedication, even love, for the act of dying in battle for our people is a true act of love.
The Valknut symbolises all this and more, the Valknut is the knot of our fallen heroes, worn both in honour of our kin-folk and in anticipation of our own willingness to give our all, including our life for our people. The Knot of the Fallen, the Valknut ties together the bonds of our slain warriors and those still alive, in memory, honour and spirit.
- The Valknut in its internal linguistic components is formed directly from Old Norse.
- Valr (the “Val” component) refers directly to the honour of the valour warriors or “slain warriors”, warriors who have proven their valour. The word Valr evidently formed the ancient foundation of the English, Danish, German and Norwegian word Valour, which is identical in all our languages, although Norwegian uses “Valor”, which is what caused the Vinland English spelling.
- Knut (the “knut” component) evidently means Knot, its meaning and linguistic purity is almost perfectly preserved in English, Danish, Norwegian, German and Dutch. Knut is perfectly unaltered in modern Swedish, having retained its linguistic form without foreign corruption or pollution.
- This is symbolised by the three interlocking Triangles, representing these aspects. The Valknut name in and of itself is simply the modern, that is Old Norse meaning for what is truly a pre-Old Norse ancient and ethereal Germanic symbol of courage, love, nobleness and a willingness to die for those principles.
- The Valknut is a symbol that should only adorn the armour, body or apparel of the most dedicated Asatro folk, for its meaning is tearfully sincere and deep beyond all modern conceptions of the word. The Valknut is worn with sincere pride and integrity by those worthy of adorning themselves with it.
Encoded within Snorri’s (although altered) version of Skáldskaparmál there is a depiction of Hrungir’s Heart as being configured “with three sharp-pointed corners just like the carved symbol hrungnishjarta.". There exists a possible link between Hrungnis-hjarta and the Val-Knut. Although Snorri the corrupted Christian scholar was and still is renown for fabricating small facts to embellish his Prose Edda, so this link cannot be known for sure.
Hilda Roderick Ellis: an English woman and expert in Nordic cosmology postulated a correlation connecting the Valknut and Odin:
“Beside the figure of Odin on his horse shown on several memorial stones there is a kind of knot depicted, called the valknut to symbolize the power of (Odin) to bind and unbind (in relation to Seidr), mentioned in the poems and elsewhere. Odin had the power to lay bonds upon the mind, so that men became helpless in battle, and he could also loosen the tensions of fear and strain by his gifts of battle-madness, intoxication, and inspiration.”
The Valknut is related to many Germanic symbols, including the Tri-Horn symbol of the Soldelev Stone in Denmark. The Valknut is an ancient Germanic superior form of Borromean rings, it is possible that the Valknut was the earliest form of Borromean rings, the Valknut has been used in varying forms and depictions all around Europe, where Germanic peoples settled, from Italy to France, showing the true exploratory prowess of the Germanic folk who carried with pride this most ancient symbol.
The Valknut has two distinct forms, one unicursal^, which is formed of a continuous path where all the triangles are a part of the same line and the tricursal^^ format where each triangle is its own separate entity that elegantly align, instead of being forged from the same continuous line.
The Tängelgårda Stone^^^ depicting Odin or an archetypical Nordic Warrior on a horse with a version of the Valknut between the 4 legs is one of the most prominently identified unicursal or continous valknuts. Tängelgårda Stone is on the island of Gotland in Sweden.
Gotland has numerous Valknuts including thee Valknut inscribed upon the Lärbro stone or Stora Hammars Image Stone 1^^^^ of the more frequent tricursal Valknut configuration, close up picture of the Vaknut scene segment below:
The Valknut of varying forms can be found all over our Germanic lands, from a Valknut inscibed upon a post within the Oseberg ship burial in Norway to a Valknut ring found in the River Nene in England. Valknuts are also inscribed on Anglo-Saxon burial urns found in East Anglia complimented by sacred Germanic symbols of Wolves and Ravens. These are all symbols related to Wotan/Woden/Odin. Suggesting that the Valknut is a dedication to Wotan/Woden/Odin and that those warriors who died bearing a Valknut demonstrate their willingness to noble sacrifice on behalf of their folk and a willingness to join the sacrificial Einherjar of Woden (Anglo-Saxon variant), who all give their lives again for their people and the entire universe upon Ragnarok.
There are undeniably hundreds of Valknut adorned artifacts that remain undiscovered, buried with the noble warriors who wore them, and it is there that they shall remain as eternal symbols of their noble sacrifices, most notably in the resistance against Christianity and the rule of its unjust, illegitimate slave-kings.
Valknuts were also worn by Anglo-Saxon folk in our war of reclamation in England against also the Mediterranean immigrants known as Celts, (the area known as “Celtica” to the Romans in Northern Spain for example and all over central Europe was from where Celts migrated) who scaled their way up the Western Edge of Europe, due to their own failure to stand their ground, as illustrated by the later Roman expansions Germania withstood and held back centuries earlier with ease by Hermann the Great. Eventually these Celts came to occupy these Islands, which belonged to a prior proto-Germanic population (that some archaeologists incorrectly classify as ‘broadly-celtic’ due to a crude similarity in items, when these folk can only have been genetically Germanic, who merely traded with Celts), it is these proto-Germanic folk (who merely traded with Celts and were distinct racial groups even from each other) who constructed the ancient monuments of England.
The Anglo-Saxons reclaimed almost all the land of in a glorious era, an era in which the Valknut was worn proudly by the most dedicated Anglo-Saxon warriors, both in life and in death as verified by the Valknuts in East Anglia among hundreds of others yet undiscovered.
The Valknut was worn with pure dedication by Germanic folk in every struggle in the defence of Germanic folk from Scandinavia to Wessex and all Anglo-Saxon, mainland Germanic and Viking settlements in England and Germany against foreign races and creeds: Christian Semitic missionaries and Celtic Mediterranean immigrants alike, until their leaders were bought out. This is self evident from the Valknuts inscribed upon burial urns and rings in East Anglia and from Scandinavia up until even as late as the 9th century and later the Valknut was used in life, war and in death. The Valknut was invoked and utilised by Germanic warriors and in Germanic burial rituals and sacrificial rituals, sacrifice in war and ritual format alike.
In this day and era the Valknut is a symbol that must be worn in eloquent and meaningful defiance, worn only by the most dedicated Asatro folk who truly know its meaning. Although knowing its meaning is not enough, you must be able to embody its meaning of a willingness to defend with valour our Germanic folk to be worthy of wearing a Valknut, to honour all our fallen Germanic folk before us, to continue their legacy and to bring honour upon our Germanic folk in our contemporary war.
The Valknut is an eternal symbol that has meaning in all eras of our folk’s struggle and all times of war, worn by warriors who have the valour to realise their dedication to their folk.