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An eight-armed Icelandic stave with trident-like terminals.
Also known as: Helm of Awe, Helm of Terror, Aegishjalmur
Eight arms radiating from a centre, each ending in what looks like a trident or a barred fork. Like the Vegvísir it comes from post-medieval Icelandic manuscript magic, though unlike it the *name* does appear in medieval literature — attached to something that is not this design.
An eight-armed stave from the Icelandic galdrastafir tradition, each arm ending in a barred trident-like terminal, attested in post-medieval Icelandic manuscripts.
Iceland
The name Ægishjálmr does appear in medieval Norse literature, in the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga saga, where it belongs to the dragon Fáfnir and is described as something worn or possessed that causes terror. Nothing in those sources describes a design, and the drawn stave is far later.
The name and the drawing have separate histories. A medieval attestation of the word is not an attestation of the symbol.
Name medieval; design post-medieval
Eight straight arms radiating evenly from a central point, each arm crossed by short bars and ending in a three-pronged fork.