Vegvísir: the sign from the Huld manuscript
The vegvísir is a drawn sign from the Huld manuscript, ÍB 383 4to, compiled by Geir Vigfusson in Akureyri in 1860. Page 60 carries the sign and a line beside it. If one carries this sign, one will not lose their way in storm and bad weather, even when the way is not known. That line is the whole early record, and it is worth more than any legend built over it. The sign is drawn strokes, not runes. No earlier witness carries it, and «viking compass» is a name that stuck to it much later.
Where this comes from
first appearance in print Huld Manuscript, ÍB 383 4to · 1860 · Geir Vigfusson, Akureyri
The Huld manuscript is the earliest witness we can name, and its line is quoted in the lead. The sign also stands in later Icelandic collections, the Galdrakver manuscripts Lbs 2917 a 4to and Lbs 4627 8vo among them. The shelfmarks stay as the catalogues write them: they are addresses, not names. Nothing earlier carries the sign, and this page says so plainly instead of guessing upward.
What the poems say
The four witnesses know nothing of this sign: they describe the runes, and the vegvísir is not made of runes. The twenty-four the poems do describe are gathered here, rune by rune.
Ægishjálmur: the word and the drawing Rune magic: what is attested, piece by piece