Norns- Norse GroupCollective"Weavers of Fate"

The End of the Golden Age

Before the Norns came, the gods lived without fate. They built halls on Iðavöllr, forged treasures, and played board-games with golden pieces. The Völuspá says three mighty maidens came from Jötunheim, and the golden age ended. After them, every action carried consequences.

The three are Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld. Urðr is what has already happened and cannot be undone. Verðandi is what is happening now. Skuld is what must follow: the debt the past creates and the future pays. They answer to no one, not even Odin.

The Well and the Tree

The Norns dwell at the Well of Urðr, beneath the root of Yggdrasil that reaches into the heavens. Snorri says the well's waters turn anything dipped in them white as the film inside an eggshell. Two swans live there, and from them descend all swans in the world.

Each day the gods ride across Bifröst to hold council at this well. They come to the Norns' dwelling. The Norns do not go to them.

Each day the Norns draw water and pour it over Yggdrasil's roots, mixing it with the white clay that lies around the well's edge. This heals the damage done by Níðhöggr and the serpents who gnaw at the roots from below. They carve fates into the bark of the tree, writing in the sacred script that Odin hung nine nights to learn.

The Loom at Clontarf

The Darraðarljóð, preserved in Njáls saga, shows fate-weaving at its most visceral. Before the Battle of Clontarf, a man named Dörruðr saw twelve women working at a loom. The warp was strung with human intestines. Severed heads hung as loom-weights. Swords and arrows served as heddle-rod and shuttle. As they wove, they chanted which warriors would fall and which would survive. Then they tore the cloth from the loom and rode away, six north and six south, carrying the woven fates with them.

Helgi's Threads

When Helgi Hundingsbani was born, norns came in the night to shape his fate. The Helgakviða Hundingsbana I says they twisted golden threads and fastened them beneath the moon's hall, stretching them east and west to mark the limits of his life. One norn flung a thread northward and bade it hold forever.

Not only the three great Norns attend to fate. Fáfnir, dying beneath Sigurd's blade, tells him that norns of various lineage come to every birth: some descended from gods, some from elves, some from dwarves. The fates they assign vary with their own natures.

The Candle of Nornagestr

In the Nornagests þáttr, three völur came to a newborn's cradle. The first two gave generous gifts: he would be handsome, he would be fortunate beyond other men. The third, jostled from her seat by the crowd, grew angry. She declared the child would live only as long as a candle burning by his cradle. The eldest norn snuffed the flame and gave the stub to the boy's mother.

Nornagestr carried that candle through three hundred years, through courts of kings and the company of heroes. When at last he showed the stub to King Óláfr Tryggvason, the king persuaded him to be baptized and lit the candle. It burned to nothing. Nornagestr died. A whole life measured by an inch of tallow.