Winifred Hodge Rose
Modern Heathens have pursued interesting and in-depth discussions about the relationships between wyrd / orlog, and determinism, predestination, and causation. Are the Norns / Wyrd deterministic? That is, do they determine our actions and the events of our lives directly? Does orlog determine our actions in the sense of causing—even forcing—them to happen? Do the Norns, Wyrd, or orlog predestine specific things in our life, such as our luck or unluck, or the circumstances of our death? In what sense do the Norns or Wyrd ‘cause’ something to happen? Do the Norns ‘speak orlog’ as it says in the Völuspá, and then orlog takes over and directs what happens? How does all this work? How was it understood in the past, and do we see things differently today?
These are subjects that many branches of formal philosophy have pursued for ages with regard to ‘fate’; a great deal has been said and written about them, including by modern Heathens with backgrounds in philosophy. Here are some of my thoughts, beginning with musings on ‘causation,’ which seems to me the fundamental phenomenon upon which any discussion of determinism must rest. Without the phenomenon of causation, determinism could not exist.
The Norns as Caretakers of Causality
I consider causation to be a force or impetus similar to momentum in physics. It links one action or phenomenon with another into a cascading series or network of events, leading off in multidimensional directions. In the material world, causes and effects can be complex and multivariate, but are considered to be, at least in theory, predictable if one has a clear understanding of all the parameters (easier said than done!). In the ‘inner worlds’ of sentient beings—our thoughts, emotions, reactions, motivations, worldview—some believe that the same assertion holds true: if we understood all the parameters involved, we could predict the choices, decisions, actions and reactions of humans and other sentient beings. This is the basis for a deterministic view of human action as well as of the physical world. In this worldview, from a Heathen standpoint the Norns / Wyrd / orlog appear as the ultimate force that drives all events, all cause-and-effect that plays out in this world.
My view is subtly different from this. I see a difference between causality as a phenomenon, versus specific causes and effects that play out in our lives here in Midgard. I view the Norns as the caretakers of the phenomenon of causality. They ensure that causality works, that it operates, in the physical world and the metaphysical worlds of inner thoughts and feelings, as well as in other Worlds upon the Tree. They keep us and the Worlds from the chaos that would ensue if there were no such thing as cause and effect: a universe of random and meaningless phenomena. But I don’t think the Norns or Wyrd necessarily determine the content, the specific details, of every choice, decision, action, and deed.
Let’s compare this to the laws of physics. For example, the law of gravity says that here on Earth if we drop something it will fall to the ground. That’s determined; it’s a ‘law’ of the space-time where we exist in Midgard. But the law of gravity says nothing about whether we decide to drop something and why, what we decide to drop, where we decide to drop it from, how we react to the thing having been dropped, how other people react to us dropping the thing, etc. That is a list of subjective causes and effects that arise from that specific instance of the workings of gravity, but none of those things are ‘determined’ by gravity itself. The only thing that is determined is that if a thing is dropped, it falls to the ground. The rest of what I just listed are what people make of it.
So it is with the Norns: under their charge, ‘causes’ have ‘effects.’ They are attending to the right functioning of cosmological processes, in particular the process of orlog which is the foundation of continuity in Time, and of the way that Time influences all life in Midgard. The Norns / Wyrd direct the process of weaving Time and Space together, maintaining a cosmological environment where Midgard life can thrive.
Without the phenomenon of orlog, of cause and effect that take place in Time and Space, there would be no processes that depend on a series of phenomena occurring in any particular order: nothing happening that we would recognize as chemistry, biology, life, history, evolution, growth and development of living beings. In a ‘causeless’ universe, either there would be nothing at all, because no primal cause brought anything into existence, or everything would exist perpetually in an unchanging state, or else there would be a chaotic situation of random events, actions, and phenomena popping up and disappearing, bearing no relationship to one another in space or in time.
Some philosophers and physicists contend that this is how reality is: a situation of completely random events that only the human mind sees as being connected to each other through causality. I can’t wrap my mind around this idea: for example, how would biology work, if the complex processes that make our bodies function occurred totally randomly? If the nerves that make our heart beat sometimes worked, sometimes not, sometimes went very fast, other times extremely slowly, flipped around randomly…that’s heart-attack country, when the complex neurology and biochemistry that regulate the heartbeat within carefully controlled parameters cease to follow their own signals, their own processes of cause and effect.
If there were no cause and effect and everything was random, then eating a large amount of a deadly poison would be like Russian roulette: sometimes it would kill us, other times have no effect. Really? I have my doubts, and I doubt that those who claim there is no such thing as cause and effect would want to try that experiment! At least when it comes to living beings, I simply can’t concede that causation does not exist: no complex living beings could function without minutely ordered systems of cause and effect maintaining their life-functions.
But let’s pursue a hypothetical situation for a moment as an interesting thought-experiment: how might a scenario where reality consists entirely of random events affect how we experience our lives? In terms related to our subject matter here: what if we were orlog-less?
Verses 17-21 of the Völuspá (Poetic Edda) tell us that three Æsir ‘find on land’ Ask and Embla (elsewhere they are called ‘trees / logs’ although here we simply have their names) who are without orlog and without other gifts that add up to life and human-ness. I find this lack of orlog fascinating, because it implies that having orlog is an essential part of what it is to be human. After the Gods give Ask and Embla the gifts of human life, the next verses tell us about the Norns and their action of ‘speaking orlog’ for children of Aldr: human beings. I think this is all part of the same event: the Gods give their gifts of spirit, breath, speech, behavior, appearance, but the transformation into humans is not complete until the Norns ‘speak orlog’ for them. Orlog is an essential part of what it is to be fully human.
What would it mean for us to be without orlog? Being without orlog would mean that there is no such thing as a meaningful sequence of events, layer building on layer, that leads to the existence of ‘history,’ ‘experience,’ ‘precedent,’ and all that derive from them. Cause and effect would only be understood in an immediate sense, not in terms of long, complex patterns.
If we did not each possess orlog as a dynamic force shaping our lives, then our lives and deeds would be random. There would be no pattern to our lives, no history, no non-random impacts on the world and on each other. Any significance associated with a deed would evaporate after it was done, because it would be left behind in time, not stored as a layer within the substance of orlog. There would be no reasons for our deeds and choices other than the impulses of the moment: neither past nor future would matter.
For example, let’s say you got so mad you punched a hole in the wall. Your fist would hurt, the hole would have to be repaired at a cost of time and money, but you would not realize any connections between these events. Even less would you understand any connections between whatever event made you mad and all your personal characteristics and personal history that made you likely to get so mad about that event, and then how that is linked with the hole in the wall and the pain in your fist. From a psychological standpoint, the experience of cause-and-effect would be missing, depriving you of self-awareness, awareness of the world outside you, the opportunity to learn from your experience, and the spiritual strength—the might and main—that an understanding of personal responsibility would give you.
This is a condition of psychological disorder that mirrors the physical disorder which would occur in the outside world under a situation where cause-and-effect did not exist. As another example: the process of digestion in living beings who consume material substances as food depends on a highly complex, ordered cascade of enzymes, biochemicals, autonomic muscular actions, microbial activities, all of them facilitated by other things such as neurotransmitters, nervous system activity, pH values, and much more: each of these are the result of certain causes and the cause of certain effects. If that minutely ordered process became random and unrelated to causes triggering effects and then those effects becoming the causes of following effects, digestion simply would not happen…and I flinch from imagining the results!
How much of what we know as ‘civilization’ would even develop without the primal layers of knowledge, experience, learning, crafts, arts, sciences, technology, engineering, and all the rest forming the foundation for the next layer of culture, generation after generation over centuries? Civilization itself can be understood as an accumulation of layers, building upon itself over time, just as orlog is. Culture is orlog in action, civilization is orlog in action, and we participate in these collective orlogs as well as in our own personal and familial orlogs. All of these accumulations that are the foundations of human life, along with analogous processes in Nature, are expressions of orlog, and they depend on the phenomenon of causality.
But how does this relate to determinism and free will as we humans experience these things? Does orlog control everything? Or does it, instead, create the conditions under which we ourselves can learn to use causality to enact our own Will?
Free Will and Determinism
Orlog is the necessary cosmic process upon which causality is based. As I view it, the Norns oversee the process of causality, in particular the phenomenon of causes and effects following each other in sequence—not always necessarily in linear sequence, but in multidimensional networks of relationship to one another. By the Norns’ establishment of cause and effect, they create the conditions under which we humans can be effective in our own lives. We can make choices, form intentions, take actions, perform deeds, be aware of the results and their causes, and take responsibility for them—and we can do this because causality exists.
Because causality exists, we can learn about how actions and choices have results, have consequences. When we have little life-experience, those consequences are frequently not the ones we wanted or expected. As our experience and wisdom grows, the links between our choices and actions and their consequences begin to clarify. Life in Midgard is so complex that we never gain full understanding of consequences and their connection to our actions and choices, but gradually we approach some approximation of this. And more: we grow the moral and spiritual strength to take responsibility for our actions and choices, even when the consequences are not what we expected or intended.
Causality—and our understanding, however partial, of how it works—allows us to have real effects on our world. It allows our actions to have power and efficacy, and it gives us the essential opportunity to learn from experience: without these things we would go precisely nowhere!
The Norns are not programming us to do specific things, to make specific choices and decisions, except perhaps those that are most life-changing—the major turning points of our lives. On an everyday level they are making it possible for us to do these things ourselves by providing the Worlds with the phenomenon of orlog, the structure of cause and effect that makes life in Midgard possible and gives it meaning.
When we are conceived, they ‘score on slips of wood, lay layers, choose life, speak orlog’ for each of us, which weaves us each into the Web of Wyrd, the multidimensional field of orlog that they maintain. They attach to us the threads of orlog that arise from the history of our kin, our genes and heritage, the culture and circumstances we are born into, perhaps our past lives, too. The past is part of who we are and has an ongoing influence on us, but what we do with these threads in the present time depends upon our own choices and actions as well as the tuggings of these strands of orlog from the past and from our surroundings.
This leads us back to questions of determinism and free will. It is probably clear from what I just wrote that in my view both determinism, in the form of orlog, and free will play important roles in who we are and what we become as we live our lives. Complete, ‘pure’ free will would lead, I believe, to a state of inner and outer chaos. Our Will itself is shaped by our experiences, circumstances, our thoughts, emotions and reactions, and by our consideration of consequences, of cause and effect: in other words, by an understanding of orlog to the best of our ability.
If our Will guides our actions when that Will is unconstrained by any considerations of orlog in the world and in our own lives, that would indeed lead to chaos. Free will that is unshaped by considerations of orlog is simply ‘impulse,’ with no impulse control. In ‘considerations of orlog’ I include an understanding of cause and effect upon ourselves and others around us, an understanding of our motivations and where they come from, an understanding, and acceptance, of the consequences of acting according to our Will and taking responsibility for this.
For wisdom to rule in our lives, we need to blend the actions of our Will with the understanding of orlog that life experience and participation in Midgard matters gives us. Some of our circumstances, and certain constraints upon our actions, are indeed determined for us, and so is the fact that death will happen. In other ways we have choices about how to act, what course to take, what to think, what stance to take. Our lives are not purely determined, nor purely free; they are a complex, shifting combination of both, and wisdom lies in understanding that and charting the best course possible each day as we live our lives and make our choices. By doing so, we lay our share of good orlog to shape our next day’s actions, and the next generation’s courses. We participate in our own small way with the shapings of the Norns in Midgard.
Significance: Making it Personal
In my studies I’ve seen plenty of evidence of various kinds for an ancient Heathen belief that Wyrd or the Norns shape the general course of people’s lives and predestine their deaths, but as I’ve discussed, I’ve seen no evidence in ancient Heathen belief that this ‘shaping’ or influence applies to every tiny detail of our lives. Rather, the focus of the Norns’ work is on the significant events and major turning points of our lives. Significant events have the power to shape our lives; insignificant events pass by with little impact on the overall pattern and shape of our lives.
As Jacob Grimm insightfully pointed out, the fairy godmothers and similar figures in fairy tales of European cultures are the ‘descendants’ of the ancient Norns. We see these fairy godmothers ‘shaping’ the lives of newborns during their naming or christening ceremonies through the gifts or curses that they give the babies. And sure enough, the words of the fairies come true: the princess is beautiful and sweet and loved by everyone per the gifts, and pricks her finger on a spindle on her 16th birthday and falls asleep so no one can wake her for years, per the curse, etc. But the fairy godmothers certainly didn’t control how many times the child sneezed on the first day of February when she was five years old, or whether she got a pebble in her shoe when she went out to play on June fourteenth, or whatever. The godmothers shaped the significant events of her life but did not affect the daily details.
As another example, I’m guessing that if you were taking a walk with an ancient Heathen and he stumbled and stubbed his toe, and you asked him ‘did the Norns make you stumble just now?’ he would look at you rather blankly. (Though he might easily say that his Fylgja or Hamingja, or someone else’s Fylgja or Hugr, or an ‘onflyer’ or a wight or a hag or other unluck-causing being made him stumble…but I don’t believe he would blame the Norns or Wyrd.) He might well agree that the Norns ‘shaped’ him to be a rather clumsy person who frequently stumbles, but that they reached out just now to make him stumble, or that they predestined him to stumble at that very minute in that exact place–I think this ancient Heathen would find that idea very unlikely. Unless, of course, that stumble led to some significant outcome: he dropped his weapon just at the moment that a lurker leaped out to attack and badly injure him, or the arrow that was shot at him out of hiding passed harmlessly over him as he was bent over his stubbed toe. That, obviously, would show the Norns’ involvement!
But not every tiny, meaningless action or event of every minute of one’s life is so significant, and it’s the significance, not the event itself, that tells a Heathen that the Norns are involved. ‘Significance’ is the cue, the significator, of the Norns’ involvement in our lives: their involvement is shown not just by any ‘event’ happening, but by a significant event. And that significance can be internal, personal, idiosyncratic, known and meaningful only to ourselves, or it can be something that is externally obvious to others as well as to ourselves. It might, at the time it happens, be significant only to the Norns, but in hindsight we may realize its significance ourselves.
I would add that the more aware we are of the Norns and their influence in our lives, the more clearly we see significance in the events and actions of our lives. Eventually we might reach a sort of mystical state where we perceive almost everything as significant, and at that point, the deterministic conception of the Norns might make a lot of sense based on this experience. But I’d add a caveat: in this scenario, it seems to me that the ‘significance’ we’re detecting is due to our perception of the Norns’ involvement in the details of our life: we feel that the Norns’ attention to us is the significant thing, not the minor and otherwise meaningless event itself.
In this ‘mystical’ scenario, is every meaningless event (such as dropping the toothbrush as we start to put toothpaste on it, or for that matter, not dropping the toothbrush) something that really was programmed by the Norns from the moment we were born? Or was the real programming by the Norns our own state of mind that pursues this sense of significance through the details of our lives and thus perceives our connection with the Norns?
In this mystical or devotional state of mind, I would say that the nature of each little event doesn’t matter, to us or to the Norns; it only matters because of the interpretation and significance we place on it as evidence of the Norns’ attention to us and what that means for us. In a case like this, the Norns might have ‘shaped’ us generally as a person who perceives such significance in daily events and connects it with the Norns, rather than the Norns deliberately causing every tiny event and action of our lives.
For each of us (mystics or not), when we are born and the Norns ‘lay layers, choose life, speak orlog’ for us, I do not believe they are determining every detail of our lives. Fundamentally, they are weaving us into the already existing web of wyrd, the orlog of our place and time in this world. They are shaping a space for us to fill, but the details of that space, its color, shape, texture, sounds, its personalization into the unique being that is our Self—this work is ours.
The Norns give us a place to belong in time and space and social context. They link us to the past, maintain the orderly processes of cause and effect in Midgard, and—essentially—they offer possibilities for us to take effective action and thus influence what is coming into being. They also shape the most significant events and turning points of our lives. All this provides context for our own work of laying worthy orlog throughout our lives and using our understanding of this process to live wisely and well.
Note: This article is included in my book Orlog Yesterday and Today: The Shapings of the Norns.
Book-Hoard
Larrington, Carolyne, transl. The Poetic Edda, revised edition. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Grimm, Jacob. Teutonic Mythology, Vol. 1. Transl. James Stephen Stalleybrass. London: George Bell and Sons, 1882.