Norns- Germanic GroupCollective"Weavers of Fate"

At the Well

Before the Norns came, the gods lived without fate. They built halls, forged treasures, played chess with golden pieces. Then three women arrived from beyond the world the gods knew, and the golden age ended.

The Völuspá says they came "from the hall that stands under the tree." They settled at the Well of Urðr beneath Yggdrasil's roots, and there they set down laws, chose lives for the children of men, and spoke their fates. Three women: Urðr, whose name means "that which has become"; Verðandi, "that which is becoming"; and Skuld, "that which shall be." Even the gods ride across Bifröst each day to hold council at the Norns' well. They come to where fate is decided, not the other way around.

The Tending of the Tree

The Norns draw water from the well and pour it, along with the white clay that lies around it, over the roots of Yggdrasil. This keeps the world tree from rotting. Snorri describes the well as so holy that everything emerging from it turns white as the membrane inside an eggshell. The dew that falls from the watered tree onto the earth is what people call honeydew. Two swans are nourished in the well, and from that pair all swans descend.

Without this daily tending, the tree would decay and the nine worlds it holds would collapse. The Norns are gardeners before they are judges.

Their fate-work takes several forms across the sources: they weave on a loom, carve marks into wood, or speak destinies into being. In the Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, Norns attend the birth of the hero Helgi, twisting golden threads and fixing them beneath the moon's hall, stretching the strands east and west to mark the boundaries of his fate. Snorri says Norns come from various origins: some divine, some elfin, some dwarven. Good Norns grant good fates. Evil Norns bring misfortune.

The Dragon's Warning

In the Fáfnismál, the dying dragon Fafnir tells Sigurd that the Norns who come to mortals at birth are of sundry lineage, not all alike in kind. Some bring fortune. Others bring sorrow. He speaks of the Norns who sit by Urðarbrunnr, severing the threads of men's lives, and declares that fate rules all. No wisdom and no foreknowledge can avert what the Norns have decreed.

Sigurd dismisses the warning. Every man must die, he says, and he will enjoy the gold while he lives. The cursed gold destroys him, as Fafnir said it would. The Norns had already carved his end.

The Shaking Tree

The Norns' knowledge extends to the end of the world. They have woven Ragnarök into the pattern. The world tree will shake. The gods will fall. Even Odin, who hung on that tree for nine nights to win wisdom, cannot escape what the Norns have set down. The Völuspá itself may be a Norn's utterance: the seeress who speaks claims to remember the beginning of all things and to see the end.

After Ragnarök, a new world rises from the sea, green and fertile. Whether the Norns continue their work at the well, or whether the tree grows on without them, the sources do not say.