The Celtic knot & motif guide

Trinity knot (triquetra)

Three interlocking loops, or vesica shapes, formed from a single continuous line. It appears in Insular manuscripts and on metalwork and carved stones, and triple forms also occur in earlier Germanic art. On rings it may appear as a single central motif or repeated around the band, sometimes combined with a circle through the loops.

Common modern meanings: the Holy Trinity; three promises; past, present and future; or two partners plus the marriage itself. The Christian reading is the most long-standing, though early sources don't spell it out. Other readings are modern. Browse trinity knot rings.

Eternity or endless knot

Any interlace pattern whose strand loops back on itself without end, often a braid-like band running all the way round the ring. It is the most common design for full-pattern wedding bands.

Common modern meanings: everlasting love and an unbreakable bond. The name "eternity knot" is a modern label, but the reading is intuitive and fits a wedding ring perfectly. Note the resizing implications of an all-round pattern (see Celtic vs plain).

"Endless knot" is also the English name for a distinct symbol, one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism; some jewellery blends the two.

Claddagh

Two hands holding a heart topped by a crown. Associated with Galway since around the late 17th or 18th century, and descended from the much older European fede (clasped hands) ring. It is Irish rather than broadly "Celtic", and is not a knotwork design, though modern rings sometimes combine the two.

Traditional reading: hands for friendship, heart for love, crown for loyalty. Folk custom says that worn on the right hand with the heart pointing outward the wearer is unattached, and on the left hand pointing inward, married. These wearing customs are traditions rather than rules.

Spirals and the triskele

Spirals are among the oldest motifs linked with Ireland, carved at Newgrange around 3200 BC. That monument long predates any Celtic-speaking culture, so while the spiral is genuinely ancient, it is not strictly "Celtic". Spirals and the three-armed triskele (triskelion) also feature strongly in Iron Age La Tène metalwork and in Insular manuscripts.

Common modern meanings: growth, journey, the cycle of life, or three-fold ideas similar to the trinity knot. These are interpretations; we don't know what spirals meant to the people who carved them.

Ogham inscriptions

Ogham is an early medieval alphabet used mainly to write Primitive and Old Irish, found on several hundred standing stones in Ireland and western Britain, mostly from around the 4th to 7th centuries AD. Letters are groups of strokes and notches along a central line (on stones, usually the edge). Surviving inscriptions are mostly personal names, typically in a formula like "X son of Y".

On rings, Ogham is used to spell names, dates or words such as the Irish grá (love) or anam cara (soul friend, a phrase popularised in the 1990s). Because Ogham has no native letters for some modern English sounds, makers use conventions to transliterate; ask how yours is spelled. Browse Ogham rings. The later medieval "tree alphabet" associations of Ogham letters are a scholarly tradition from manuscripts, and the modern "Celtic tree zodiac" is a 20th-century invention.