Raven banner
A Viking war banner bearing a raven. Chroniclers say the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok raided England under one, and that the raven’s look in the wind was read as a sign of victory or defeat.
Meaning
The Danish encyclopedia Lex describes the raven banner as a field sign under which the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok are said to have harried England in the 9th century. When the banner unfurled in the wind, the raven seemed to fly, and that was taken as a sign of victory; when it hung slack, of defeat. By tradition, Lex adds, Cnut the Great carried a raven banner against his enemies in England in 1016.
Origin and history
The earliest mention is English. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for the year 878, records that the brother of Ingwar and Healfden landed in Devon with twenty-three ships and was killed with eight hundred of his men, “and there also was taken the war-flag, which they called the RAVEN”. The raven was Odin’s bird: in Norse myth his two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, fly over the world and bring him news.
What did the raven banner look like?
No raven banner survives, and the written accounts above describe what it bore, not its shape. The closest picture is on a silver penny struck at York for Anlaf Sihtricsson, king there in 941–944: its reverse shows what coin catalogues describe as a fringed triangular standard on a cross-tipped pole. CoinWeek calls it a “Raven” banner. The numismatist Mark Blackburn, quoted by the auction house CNG, called it a triangular banner “of distinctive Viking form”, found also in Scandinavian metalwork and on rare coins of Cnut. The banner on the coin carries an X, not a raven; the drawing here puts the raven of the written accounts on the coin's banner.
Read next
- Next in Norse and Viking symbolsDragon-head prowThe carved beast’s head on the stem of a Viking ship. In the sagas the finest warships carry a dragon’s head at the prow and a tail at the stern.
- In Bird symbolismRaven symbolismOdin’s bird in Norse myth, and a bird of death and war in Norse and later Norwegian belief. In the Bible ravens feed the prophet Elijah; in Haida tradition Raven brings the first people out of a clamshell; and at the Tower of London, legend says the kingdom will fall if the ravens leave.
See also
Huginn and Muninn, Mjölnir (Thor’s hammer), Gungnir, Sleipnir, Yggdrasil, Valknut.
Sources
- Ravnebanner (Lex), Lex, Danmarks Nationalleksikon
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Ingram translation), J. Ingram (trans.), 1823, Project Gutenberg, A.D. 878
- Hugin og Munin (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Anlaf Sithtricsson (Cuaran), York penny, Triquetra type (CNG Coin Shop), Classical Numismatic Group, quoting Mark Blackburn, Aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian York
- CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series: Coins of the Vikings, CoinWeek
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from lines or triangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 28, 2026. How we research
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