Protection

The Witch's Knot

Also called witches knot, witch's charm, magic knot, quadrangular knot

An endless interlaced knot of four loops, drawn, carved or tied as a protective sign over doors and worn as a pendant. The design is popular in modern witchcraft, but its specific witch's-knot lore is recent; the older relative is the Nordic looped square called Saint John's arms.

TraditionModern witchcraft, drawing on older Nordic and European protective marks

RegionEurope and North America

EraName and lore late 20th century; looped-square marks much older

Moon☾ Waning moon

DaySaturday · Saturn

ElementSpirit

Difficulty●○○ Simple

Time20 minutes

Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.

The working

Practise drawing the knot on paper: four overlapping pointed loops (like four leaves) woven through a circle, or the simpler looped square, in one continuous line without lifting the pencil.
When you can draw it smoothly, decide where it will go: inside the front door frame, on a small wooden plaque, or on a card for your wallet.
Draw or carve the knot slowly in one unbroken line. As you trace it, say that anything harmful that reaches the door will lose its way in the loops.
For a tied version, form four loops in the cord and pass the ends through so it locks into a square, then knot the ends.
Hang or place it facing outward.
Refresh a chalk knot when it fades. Untie and retie a cord knot on the waning moon if it feels slack.

Take care: Take care with wood-burning tools and carving knives. Chalk marks on rented property should be easy to remove.

Versions across time and place

Saint John's arms (looped square)

Nordic and Finnish folk protection · Iron Age to 20th century

The looped square, the same shape as the Mac command key, appears on a Gotland picture stone from Hablingbo dated 400 to 600 AD. In Finland it was painted or carved on houses, barns and tableware to keep away evil spirits and bad luck; a roughly 1,000-year-old ski carries it. This is the best-documented ancestor of the protective knot idea.

Recorded in: Wikipedia, Saint John's Arms (citing Ilmar Talve, Suomen kansankulttuuri, and Finnish museum records)

Four-vesica witch's knot pendant

Modern Wicca and witchcraft jewelry · Late 20th century to present

The popular pendant shape weaves four pointed ovals through a circle. Sellers tie it to the four elements, four directions and four seasonal festivals, and call it a charm for binding and protection. These meanings are modern and widely repeated without evidence of older use.

Recorded in: Modern jewelry and practitioner descriptions; no early printed source found

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Knot magic in cord

European folk magic generally · Recorded from medieval times onward

Tying and untying knots to bind or release was common European folk magic, from sailors' wind knots to knotted cords against illness. The tied witch's knot borrows this older logic, even though the specific shape is a newer choice.

Recorded in: General folklore of knot magic; see witches' ladder and wind knots

History

If you search for the history of the witch's knot, most of what you will find is jewelry copy claiming Celtic or ancient pagan roots. No folklore study or archaeological report has been found that names a four-looped witch's knot before the modern witchcraft revival. The pendant design, four pointed loops woven through a circle, seems to have become popular in the late 20th century alongside the triquetra and the pentacle, and its meanings of binding, protection and the four elements are modern teaching.

That does not make the idea rootless. The looped square known as Saint John's arms, or Sankt Hans kors, is genuinely old: it appears on a Gotland picture stone from Hablingbo dated 400 to 600 AD, and Finnish households painted or carved it on buildings and tableware against evil spirits and bad luck. Knot magic in general, from wind knots to witches' ladders, runs through European folklore. The modern witch's knot is best understood as a new symbol built on that older instinct.

Sources

Saint John's Arms · Wikipedia contributors, 2025
Suomen kansankulttuuri · Ilmar Talve, 1979

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The Pentagram and the Pentacle

Greek, Christian medieval, Renaissance occult, modern Wicca · c. 3500 BCE to present

The pentagram is a five-pointed star drawn in one unbroken line; a pentacle is that star set inside a circle, or, in ritual magic and Wicca, a disc engraved with it. Used for thousands of years for health, protection and the five elements, it only gained its sinister reputation in the 19th century.

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The Triquetra

Insular (Irish and Anglo-Saxon) Christian art; modern Celtic revival and Paganism · 7th to 9th century art; Trinity meaning prominent since the 19th century

A knot of three interlaced arcs, common in early medieval Irish and Anglo-Saxon art such as the Book of Kells, later read as a symbol of the Christian Trinity and today worn as a Celtic and Pagan sign of threefold protection and unity.

◐ Any moon3 versionsProtection

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The Troll Cross

Modern Swedish craft jewelry and neopaganism · Late 1990s (jewelry); older iron and house-mark lore up to the early 20th century

A ring of iron bent so its ends cross and curl, sold as an ancient Scandinavian charm against trolls and evil magic. The jewelry form is a modern invention by a Swedish smith in the late 1990s, though iron charms and protective house marks in Sweden are genuinely old.

☾ Waning moon3 versionsProtection

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