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Three interlaced arcs forming a three-cornered knot.
Also known as: Trinity knot, Celtic triangle knot, Three-cornered knot
Three overlapping vesica shapes woven into a three-pointed knot. Genuinely old — it appears on Germanic and Insular metalwork and in the Book of Kells — and its modern meanings, Christian and neo-pagan alike, are considerably later readings of an ornamental form.
A knot of three interlaced arcs, each pair overlapping to form three points around a central opening, drawn as a continuous interlace.
Attested on Germanic and Scandinavian metalwork and runestones and in Insular manuscript art including the Book of Kells, where it appears as ornament among a large vocabulary of interlace.
Early medieval onward
Read in later Christian usage as a figure of the Trinity, and in modern neo-pagan practice as a triple goddess or as land, sea and sky. Both are later interpretations applied to an existing ornamental motif rather than its documented original meaning.
Both readings are genuine modern usages. Neither is evidenced as the meaning intended by those who first drew the form.
Three pointed oval arcs interlaced in a triangle, each passing over one neighbour and under the other, enclosing a small three-sided opening at the centre.