Galdrastaves of Iceland

 Most people might have heard about those. Or at least seen the Ægishjálmur or Vegvísir symbols circulating around. On shirts, on jewelry, tattooed on people...

They are galdrastaves. Galdrastafir. Magic symbols, but not Viking symbols. No. Those are the Icelandic version of sigil magic that was a hot thing back in the Renaissance era. We of course do not know when the tradition actually started, but most symbols we know were recorded circa 1600-1800. Viking may or may not have used them, and thus calling them Viking symbols is inaccurate.

My interest in galdrastaves started around 2001 when I read Margit Sandemo's Witchmaster-series. Sandemo was an enormous influence in my writing and worldview, pointing me towards folklore and history, but now I digress, and more of that maybe later. I searched with the limited internet access and limited English skills a 13-year-old Finnish teenager had, but somehow that special interest has stayed with me all these years. I visited Iceland back in 2017 and bought some translations of the historical manuscripts to use in my world-building. Yes, this project has been brewing for ages.

Now the galdrastaves are a thing on the internets. But there is a lot of misinformation too. One particular case I stumbled upon recently, and that is what I'll talk about today, Stafur til að vekja upp draug especially here in Wikipedia. And just regular Google image search.

Little do they know they might infringe on someone's copyright. 

How can you infringe a copyright of a centuries old symbol?

Because it isn't centuries old...

Source: Sorcerer's Screed,
J. Eggertsson, page 46.

The symbol on Wikipedia (and circulating on the internet, printed on shirts, mugs and the like) is actually created by Jochum Eggertsson, an eccentric Icelander who under the penname Skuggi published a collection called Galdraskræða (Sorcerer's Screed) in the 1940s. He died in the 1960s, so his works are still under copyright protection in most countries. He claimed it was copied from old manuscripts, any many of those symbols are like, or almost like, some staves found in historical manuscripts. But almost only count with horseshoes and hand grenades. Not with copyright. And some of them can't be traced back to a certain manuscript.

I was looking for galdrastaves I could use in my own graphic design, and since I am a perfectionist (and I don't want to find myself in a scandal where I have chosen a symbol for a logo and it turns out to be copyrighted) so I took it upon myself to find the original source of the symbol.

I didn't find it. But almost.

Now I don't have access to all the manuscripts listed on handrit.is (the collection of those ancient manuscripts), and admittedly, my Icelandic is rusty (or more likely nonexistent, but I try), so researching these manuscripts is naturally a blast. But this is where modern technology comes in. 

Many of those manuscripts are scanned and downloadable from handrit.is and modern AI can Transcribe and translate them with moderate accuracy. Furthermore, image searches can be performed directly from the downloaded PDFs. Going through the thousands of pages I have saved burns through tokens like nothing else, but it is for a good cause! Right? 

Source: Lbs 4375 8vo

I found something, though. 

It is not the symbol, but a similar symbol that Skuggi most likely used as inspiration when creating his own. This is from Lbs 4375 8vo 

The text says, "Fyrir þessum staf er eingin forskrift."

There is no specification for this character.

Unknown stave. Skuggi added a few lined to make the box complete and a cross inside it. 

Then gave it a name Stafur til að vekja upp draug.

That is completely allowed, mind you. Artists can make new symbols. However, his claim that they originated from old manuscripts caused them to be copied and used as original staves, and now his descendants are complaining, since those symbols are being used without care for the copyright they hold.

Rightfully so. This likely started to spread because it was on the Icelandic Museum of Witchcraft webpage years ago (though it no longer is), and those archived webpages are still accessible, and links to them can even be found on Wikipedia.

Funnily, when I researched this, I stumbled upon this Russian magazine from 2016 that has the exact same conclusion. The author of that also traced it to Rún - Stafabók too and traced back the spoken incantation Skuggi also used. I didn't go that far, surprising as it might be. 

There is another symbol in Lbs 4375  8vo that can raise the dead, though. It is also in Galdraskræða, heavily altered. 

Source: Sorcerer's Screed,
J. Eggertsson, page 124

The text says: 

Source: Lbs 4375 8vo

"Stafur til að vekja upp með" meaning A staff for raising [the dead].

As you can see, Skuggi's version is altered and thus copyrighted.

Be careful what you spread out there and what you copy from the internet. Imagine, it's not always the truth. Or free to use.

The modernised graphics in the book Sorcerer's Screed are made by Arnar Fells Gunnarsson in 2013, who used Skuggi's original hand-drawn symbols as reference.

I am practicing the right to reference copyrighted art as images given to me by Sections 22 and  25(1)(1) of the Finnish Copyright Act (404/1961) when I took photos of those symbols in the book. Don't copy and use them unless you reference the source as well.

Regads

The Author