The Norns: The Ladies of Destiny, or Metaphor for Fate Itself?
Vǫluspá 7-8 mentions a time in the primordial past when the gods shaped their realm and lived carefree, until three powerful maidens from Jotunheim appeared. It is implied that their arrival marks the end of the blissful beginning of the world.
The poem does not name them, but they are usually considered to be the norns, the beings who govern or embody the destiny of the universe. Snorri’s Edda (Gylfaginning 15) names the three great norns: Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld.
These names are often translated “Past, Present, and Future,” but this is not quite the most accurate way to think of them.
Both Urðr and Verðandi have names that are forms of the verb verda, which is often translated as “to be” but specifically means “to become; to come into being.” Ultimately derived from the PIE root *wert- “to turn,” it is more dynamic than vera, the usual verb for “to be.” Urdr specifically means “that which has come into being; that which has happened,” whereas verdandi simply means “coming into being; becoming; happening.” Skuld (OE scyld) is related to English “should.”
It implies that something will happen because it must or needs to. In fact, it literally means “debt,” which is something that was incurred in the past but must be paid in the future.
Judging by their names, Urdr and Skuld embody aspects of both past and future (Bek-Petersen, The Norns in Old Norse Mythology, pp. 76-82). Urðr embodies past actions that are significant enough to have consequences, and Skuld embodies the future obligations that have been created by those past actions, while Verðandi is the balancing point between the two.
It’s worth noting that Skuld is explicitly said to be a valkyrie, as well as a norn.
Vǫluspá 30 lists her with valkyries, and Gylfaginning 36 explicitly states that “Guðr and Rota and the youngest norn, who is named Skuld”
Ask veit ek standa, heitir Yggdrasill,
hár baðmr, ausinn hvíta auri;
þaðan koma dǫggvar, þærs í dala falla,
stendr æ yfir grænn Urðarbrunni.
fiadan koma meyjar margs vitandi
flrjár ór fleim sæ, er und flolli stendr;
Urd hétu eina, adra Verdandi,
—skáru á skíði,— Skuld ina þriðju;
þær lǫg lǫgðu, þær líf kuru
alda bǫrnum, ǫrlǫg seggja.
I know an ash tree stands, called Yggdrasil,
A tall tree sprinkled with white mud;
From it come dews that fall in valleys,
It ever stands, green, over Urd’s well.
From there come maidens, knowing much,
Three from the hall that stands under the tree;
One is named Urd, the second Verdandi—
They carved on planks—Skuld the third;
They laid down laws, they chose lives
For the children of men, to speak their destiny.
always ride to choose the slain and govern battles.”
This might suggest that Skuld is somewhat like the Greek goddess Nemesis, who ensures that all obligations are paid, with one’s life if need be (Bek-Petersen, The Norns in Old Norse Mythology, pp. 78-79).
The Old Norse word Urdr is not only the name of the first Norn, but also means something like “fate.”
It’s not common in Old Norse, where the more common word for “fate” or “destiny” is ørlǫg—but its Old English cognate, wyrd, is very well known indeed.
For the present, wyrd may be defined as “the web of causes and effects by which past actions shape every present moment.” The mythic image that expresses this is the Well of Wyrd, a great spring at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree that holds all that is. The Norns live at the Well and nourish the Tree, and they determine destinies, as is told in Vǫluspá 19-20:
Hon sér at lífi lǫst né vissi
ok at aldrlagi ekki grand,
vamm flat er væri eda vera hygði;
gengu fless á milli grimmar urðir.
She had known no wrongdoing in her life,
And no harm that would cause loss of life,
Nothing that would be disgraceful or suspicious;
Grim norns [urdir] intervened in this.
Belief in the norns as independent beings seems to have extended to England as well.
Latin texts copied in England often write Old English equivalents to unfamiliar Latin words (“glosses”) above the Latin text.
Under this name, the Norns even make an appearance in the Old Saxon Heliand (4580-4582), a long epic poem that retells the life of Jesus using many pre-Christian cultural references. As Jesus foretells how Judas will betray him, he says:
That im thoh te harme scal
uuerthan te uuite; bi that hie thia uuurth gisihid
endi hie thes arƀedes endi scauuođ. . .
But grief shall come to him,
punishment come about; he shall see the Wurd,
and he shall see the end of care [for him]. . .
As Vǫluspá tells, the Norns act by sprinkling Yggdrasil with water and mud, and by carving their decrees on planks. Some interpreters see the norns as weaving humans’ fates, or as spinning them like threads, as the Moirai in Greek mythology are said to do.
While there are a number of passages in the lore that equate fortune with thread or weaving, the Norns themselves are never depicted as doing the actual weaving or spinning.
In Helgakvida Hundingsbana I they fasten the ørlǫg-threads of the hero Helgi to the sky, extending over all the lands that he will rule, but Karen Bek-Petersen has pointed out that their actions sound more like braiding (Bek-Petersen, The Norns in Old Norse Mythology, pp. 127-132).
The poem Darradarljód in Njáls saga 157 depicts women weaving a grisly tapestry and, it is implied, sealing the fate of the fighters, but these women are specifically called valkyries, not norns.
Lesser Norns
Besides the three “greater norns” who embody cause and effect on a cosmic level, Snorri claims that there are norns who come to every child when it is born and speak its destiny (Gylfaginning 15). These do not seem to be the same beings as the “cosmic norns” who tend Yggdrasil, although as always, it is difficult to make hard and fast distinctions between these beings. Perhaps their actions are fundamentally the same on different scales. In Fáfnismál, the hero Sigurðr asks the dying Fáfnir about norns:
hverjar ro flær nornir, er nauðgǫnglar ro
ok kjósa mæðr frá mǫgum.
who are the norns, who go to those in need
and separate the mother from the baby?
Fáfnir answers that
Sundrbornar mjǫk segi
ek nornir vera,
eigu-t þær ætt saman;
sumar eru áskunngar,
sumar alfkunngar,
sumar dætr Dvalins.
I say that the norns
are of very different origins,
they are not all of the same kindred;
some are of the kindred of Æsir,
some of the kindred of álfar,
some are daughters of Dvalin [i.e. dwarves].
Snorri’s Edda quotes this verse. When Gangleri points out that the norns give some people much better lives than others, Hár adds, “Good norns of fine kin shape good lives; but those who end up ill-fated, that is ruled by wicked norns” (Gylfaginning 15). On the other hand, rune graffiti in Borgund stave church in Norway, dated to around 1180, includes the complaint “The nornir did both good and evil; for me they have created much suffering” (Bek-Pedersen, The Norns in Old Norse Mythology, p. 34).
For the carver, there was no difference between good and wicked norns; the norns could shape either sort of fate, for their own inscrutable reasons.
Nornagests fláttr, a tale preserved in Flateyjarbók (vol. 1, pp. 346-359), suggests that these norns were sometimes personified by human women, as Norna-Gestr relates:
In those days, seeresses traveled through the land, who were called spae-wives and prophesied about the lives of men. For that reason, men invited them and held feasts for them and gave them gifts when they left. My father also did so, and they came to him with a troop of people, and they had to foretell my fate. I lay in a cradle, so that they might speak about my situation. Two candles were burning over me.
Then they spoke over me and said that I would become a most fortunate man, more than my forefathers or than the sons of the chieftains in that land, and they told everything that should happen in my life.
The youngest Norn thought that she was little valued next to the other two, who didn’t ask her about such prophecies, which were of great worth. There was also a great throng of uncouth people who pushed her out of her seat, and she fell to the ground. This made her quite out of sorts. She shouted loudly and angrily and ordered them to leave off such good prophecies about me—“because I ordain for him that he shall not live longer than that candle burns, which is lit up next to the boy.”
After that the oldest seeress took the candle and extinguished it, and ordered my mother to preserve it and not light it before the last day of my life. After that, the seeresses want away, and they tied up the youngest Norn and took her away, and my father gave them good gifts when they left. When I was grown, my mother gave me that candle for safekeeping. I have it with me now.
Saxo Grammaticus has a similar story concerning Fridleif and his son Olaf, although the story is set in a temple, and Olaf is said to be three years old at the time (History of the Danes VI.181; transl. Fisher, p. 169):
It was a custom among the ancients to consult the oracles of the Fates concerning the future lives of their children. Fridleif intended to investigate the fortunes of his son by this ritual, and having offered solemn vows approached the goddesses’ temple in prayer; here, peering into the shrine, he recognised the three maidens sitting in their respective seats. The first indulgently bestowed on the boy a handsome appearance and a plentiful share of men’s good-will. The second presented him with abundant generosity. The third, a woman of rather petulant and jealous disposition, spurned the unanimous favors of her sisters and, in a wish to mar their blessings, implanted the fault of meanness in the boy’s future character.
That was how Olaf, when the others’ benefits had been vitiated by the mischief of a gloomier destiny, received a name from the two types of offering. . . this blemish, conferred as part of the gift, upset the sweetness of the earlier kindnesses. Hotherus meets “Fates” who tell him how to kill Balderus, in a scene from Saxo’s History of the Danes. The chapter is titled “About the Fatal Sisters and Nymphs.” Olaus Magnus, Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555).
Similar beliefs seem to have circulated in continental Germany, although it’s not clear whether the norn-like beings were personified by human women or not.
The 11th-12th-century German Church Corrector’s Penitential, which is basically a long list of things that people are not supposed to do, mentions that “Some think that those commonly known as the ‘fates’ (parcae) have special powers. When a man is born, they have the power to designate for him what they please, and can give a man the power to transform himself into a wolf, which is called a werewulff in Teutonic” (trans. Chisholm, Grove and Gallows, p. 75). It demands further: “Did you do as certain women do during a certain time of the year? Did you set two tables and fix two meals in your house? Did you put a drink on the table along with three knives in case the ‘three sisters’ arrive? Previous generations called them the ‘fates’ (parcae) out of ignorance. Did you do these things so that the fates could be refreshed?” (transl. Chisholm, pp. 75-76)
A remembrance of this practice lives on in the folktale motif of the “fairies” who bring blessings (or curses, if slighted) to a newborn child, as in “Sleeping Beauty.” This belief may also be related to the Sámi goddesses, Sárahkká, Juksáhkká, and Uksáhkká, who helped women with menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth, watched over the growth of children, and were associated with divinations to find out the child’s future (Grundström, “Sarakagrot,” pp. 203-205; DuBois, Nordic Religions in the Viking Age, pp. 51-52). Today, when a child is born to a Heathen family, it may be appropriate to hold a feast at which three members of the community who have some gift of foresight personify the Norns and come to a celebration of the birth to speak of the child’s ancestry and foretell the child’s future.
We see the norns at birth, but we also see them at death.
In fact, when norns are mentioned in poetry, they are very often said to be responsible for a person’s death, whether this is welcome or tragic. Just to give a fewvexamples: When Kveldúlfr hears that his son Thorolf is dead, he lamentsvhis death with a verse that includes the line norn erum grimm, “a nornvwas fierce to us” (Egils saga 24, ÍF 2, p. 60). When Torf-Einar successfully avenges Rognvaldr’s death in Haralds saga inn hárfagri 30 (IF 26, p. 132),vhe speaks a verse that begins Rekit hefk Rǫgnvalds dauða, rétt skiptu því nornir, “I have avenged Rognvald’s death; the norns arranged that rightly.” Norna dómr, “judgment of norns,” is used several times as a poetic figure of speech for death. In fact, the norns’ workings are often described using legal terminology (Bek-Pedersen, The Norns in Old Norse Mythology, pp. 22-24).
For example, Hamdismál 30 has the hero Sǫrli say:
góðs hǫfum tírar fengit,
þótt skylim nú eða í gær deyja;
kveld lifir maðr ekki
eftir kvið norna.
We have gained good glory,
Whether we must die now or tomorrow;
No man lives till evening
Once the norns have spoken the verdict.
People sometimes grieve or complain of the harshness of the norns’ decisions, as when Guðrún says grǫm vark nornom, “I was furious with the norns” (Gudrunarhvót 13). Undesirable fates are said to be wrought by an aumlig norn, “wretched norn” (Reginsmál 2) or ljótar nornir, “ugly norns” (Sigurdarkvida in skamma 7). This seems to be the difference between “lesser norns” and dísir; although their roles overlap, dísir will usually defend their living kin unless their kin have severely alienated them, whereas norns get blamed for working ill fates.
There is no evidence that the three “great norns” were ever worshipped, asked for anything, or thanked for anything.
It is sometimes possible for a person dogged by misfortune to respin and reweave one’s wyrd by both ritual and “mundane” actions with the help of the norns; Winifred Hodge Rose’s “Ninefold Rite of Life Renewal” is one way to work this, described in her article “Threads of Wyrd and Scyld.” But this is not easy; the Norns, like gravity, simply do what they do, and they’re not likely to be swayed by a simple request to fix everything for you.