Also called Helm of Awe, Helm of Terror, Aegishjalmur
An Icelandic magical stave of eight trident-tipped arms around a central point, drawn to make the bearer fearsome to enemies and shielded from harm.
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Take care: Never handle or press lead against skin; use water, oil or ink. Burn papers only in a fireproof dish, away from anything flammable.
Long before the drawn symbol, the dragon Fáfnir boasts that he wore the helm of awe over his hoard and so no one dared face him. Here it is a power of terror, not an object with a design, and scholars treat it as distinct from the later stave.
The Galdrabók, a seventeenth-century Icelandic collection, includes a simpler helm with only four arms and no cross-lines. It sits among other staves for protection, winning disputes and harming enemies, written in a mix of runes, Latin and Christian names.
Jón Árnason's great folktale collection preserves a working in which the helm is cast or cut in lead and pressed between the eyebrows while the bearer declares he carries the helm of awe. It was meant to let a man face his enemies sure of winning. Lead is toxic, so the safe version above uses water or oil.
Iceland has the richest surviving body of written magic in the Nordic world. Its galdrabækur, or books of magic, date mainly from the seventeenth century onward and mix runic signs, Christian prayers and learned Latin. Owning such books could be deadly: between 1625 and 1685 about twenty-one people were burned for sorcery in Iceland, nearly all of them men. The surviving manuscripts are now mostly in the National Library in Reykjavík.
The phrase ægishjálmr appears in Old Norse poetry, but the eight-armed drawing familiar today comes from much later manuscripts, including the nineteenth-century Huld collection. Stephen Flowers translated the Galdrabók in 1989, and the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft at Hólmavík, opened in 2000, displays the staves and their history. The modern popularity of the sign as a tattoo and emblem owes much to these sources.
A five-by-five Latin word square that reads the same in every direction, written on walls, plates and paper for nearly two thousand years against fire, illness and bewitchment.
Compass-drawn flowers, interlaced lines and Marian VV marks scratched near doors, windows and hearths to block evil from entering a building.
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