Appeal: Wyrd,
Past, Present, Future, Destiny
These three Goddesses, known
as Urd
(past or fate), Verdnadi (present
or being) and Skuld (future or necessity) are more
than mere Goddesses; they are personifications of the vastly powerful universal
force variously described as Fate, Wyrd, Kismet and Karma. They may very well be the same beings known as
the Fates in Greco-Roman mythology. While
there may be only three Norns with a capital 'N,' there are countless norns
with a lowercase 'n' – norn is an Old Norse word for a generic practitioner of
magic.
The Norns are often depicted as very old women who hide their
appearances underneath a hooded cloak, and are able to see the past, the
present and all possible futures with ease. Others describe them as three
maidens and their carvings consist of runes or weavings. They most likely cycle through ages just as
the Well does. They live around the Well of
Urdr in Asgard, and see to it that the fates of mortals and Gods alike are
weaved according to plan. Thus, the
Norns are said to wield tremendous power that is respected even by God Odin.
In Norse mythology, there are
two swans that drink from the sacred Well of Urdr in the realm of Asgard, home
of the Gods. According to the Prose
Edda, the water of this Well is so pure and holy that all things that touch it
turn white, including this original pair of swans and all others descended from
them.
According to Sturluson's interpretation of the Voluspa, the three Norns, Urd, Verdnadi and Skuld
come out from a hall standing at the Well of Urdr (Well of Fate) and they draw
water from the well and take sand that lies around it, which they pour over Yggdrasil
so that its branches will not rot. The Norns
also visited each newly born child to allot his or her future. The length of the thread or carve is how long
the child will live.
A common misconception is that
the destiny woven or carved by the Norns is final and unalterable, as in the
Greek concept of fate. The Norse model
of destiny, however, is far more dynamic and volatile than this, and leaves
ample room for an individual in the shaping of destiny.
The
starting point for understanding the Germanic view of destiny is the
mythological image of Yggdrasil and the Well of Urdr. Yggdrasil is a tree that stands at the center
of the cosmos and holds the Nine Worlds, the dwelling-places of humans, Gods,
and all other beings, in its branches and roots. It grows from the Wells. Water is central to the image; the waters of
the wells nourish the tree, whose evergreen leaves then shed dewdrops into the
well.
The water cycle in this image
expresses a circular passage of time.
The Urdr Well, which corresponds to the past, influences the growth of
the tree, which corresponds to the present.
But then, unlike in our modern, linear conception of time, the present
then returns to the past – even retroactively changing it. This is the significance of the dewdrops that
fall back into the Well. That dew which falls from it
onto the Earth is called by men honey-dew and thereon bees are nourished, which
makes honey and men make the sacred mead.
Time is cyclical rather than
linear. The present returns to the past,
where it retroactively changes the past.
The new past, in turn, is reabsorbed into a new present, whose
originality is an outgrowth of the give-and-take between the waters of the well
and the waters of the tree.
Destiny cycles through the
image, following the course of the water.
In the Well of Urdr live the Norns, three wise women who carve or weave
into the tree the lives and destinies of children. All of the beings who live in the Nine Worlds
of Yggdrasil, from humans to Gods to salamanders, are subject to these
carvings. However what the Norns carve
into the tree is the earliest
form of the destinies of the beings who inhabit the Nine Worlds, but not
their only possible form. The words of
the Norns are not absolute.
The Norns may be the shapers
of destiny par
excellence, but they are far from the only beings capable of
altering the course of destiny as it flows through the Well of Urdr and
Yggdrasil. All life is an interconnected
web, where the slightest thrumming of one strand can cause the whole web to
tremble.
Norns feature in the prologue of Richard Wagner's opera
Gotterdammerung. Viking death metal band
Amon Amarth has an album titled Fate
of Norns. The band itself has
many songs involving Norse mythology.
In the name of
Urd, That Which Is, may I use my orlog wisely.
In the name of
Verdande, That Which Becomes, may I strengthen my maegan and hamingja.
In the name of
Skuld, That Which Must Be, may I bravely accept my wyrd.
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