In the Norse world even the gods are subject to fate. Odin knows the end that awaits him, and the twilight of the gods, Ragnarök, cannot be avoided. The figures who more than any others embody this force are the Norns, nornir in Old Norse: powerful women who determine the lot of beings. The sources that speak of them are few but dense, and they allow us to reconstruct an image of fate quite different from simple fatalism.
The three maidens beneath the tree
The most famous stanza on the Norns is found in the Völuspá, the Eddic poem of the seeress. It tells that from a lake beneath the world tree come three maidens, full of wisdom. Their names are:
| Name | Most common interpretation |
|---|---|
| Urðr | what has happened, fate fulfilled |
| Verðandi | what is coming into being |
| Skuld | what must be, what is owed |
The stanza says that they «carved on a slip of wood», laid down laws, chose life for the children of men and spoke their fate. The verb of carving recalls runic writing: fate is incised, like a sign in wood.
Interpreting the three names as past, present and future is widespread, but it should be treated with caution. Urðr is linked to the verb verða, «to become, to happen», as is Verðandi; Skuld recalls duty, debt. Rather than three abstract tenses, the names seem to describe a process: what has already been determines what is coming into being, and from this an obligation arises.
The well of Urðr
In Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Gylfaginning describes the ash Yggdrasill with its three roots. Beneath one of them, in the sky, lies the well of Urðr, Urðarbrunnr, where the gods hold their council every day. The Norns live there, and each day they take water from the well and the mud that surrounds it and pour them over the ash so that its branches will not rot.
The image is powerful: the same figures who determine fate take care of the world tree. Fate is not only a sentence, but also what upholds the cosmos.
Many norns
Snorri adds that there are other norns too, who come to every child that is born to allot its life. Some are of divine descent, others of the race of elves, others of dwarves. Good norns give a happy life; when a life is unfortunate, it is the work of malevolent norns. The same idea appears in the Eddic poem Fáfnismál, where the dying dragon Fáfnir explains to Sigurðr that norns are of many origins.
At Helgi's birth
The first lay of Helgi the slayer of Hundingr, in the Poetic Edda, opens with a night scene: the norns come to the dwelling where Helgi has been born and fix his destiny. They twist the threads of his fate, stretch them from east to west and fasten one towards the north. They foretell that he will be the most renowned of princes.
Here fate is a woven fabric, an image that recurs in many Indo-European cultures.
The candle of Norna-Gestr
The short tale Norna-Gests þáttr, preserved in a later Icelandic saga, tells of an extraordinarily old man who arrives at the court of King Olaf Tryggvason. He relates that at his birth some seeresses came: two foretold great fortune for him, but the third, offended, declared that he would live only until the candle burning by the cradle was consumed. The first seeress at once put out the candle and gave it to his mother to keep. Gestr thus lived for centuries, carrying the candle with him. At the king's court he accepts baptism, lights the candle and dies when it burns out.
The tale fuses the ancient motif of the birth norns with a Christian atmosphere, and shows how belief in fate survived in the imagination.
Norns and wyrd
In Anglo-Saxon poetry the word wyrd appears, meaning fate or the course of events. It is linguistically related to Urðr. In Beowulf we read that fate always goes as it must. The kinship shows that the idea of a force governing destiny, tied to «becoming», was common to the Germanic peoples.
An active conception of fate
Norse fate does not excuse one from acting. The heroes of the sagas often know their own end, but they face it with courage: what matters is not escaping fate but the way it is lived. Honour and fame depend on the choices made within the limits that have been set. From this perspective, fate is the warp, but the pattern also depends on the one who moves through it.
Studio Esoterico Cornelio finds in this vision a theme for reflection: accepting what cannot be changed and taking full responsibility for what remains in one's own hands.
In short
- The Norns are the figures who in Norse mythology determine the fate of beings.
- The Völuspá names three maidens, Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld, who carve the lot of humankind.
- Snorri places them at the well of Urðr, from which they draw water to tend the ash Yggdrasill.
- Other norns, of divine, elvish or dwarvish origin, allot fate at every birth.
- Norse fate does not rule out action: what counts is how the hero faces his destiny.
