Winifred Hodge Rose
‘Luck’ and ‘orlog’ are not the same thing. As a simple indicator, look at some words in Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon pertaining to luck: hamingja, saell, heill, speed. These are not the same words as orlog, orlaeg, or wyrd.
The salient point is that luck is something that can be gained or lost, and that it is ‘contagious’. It acts as a kind of power that can be transferred between persons, for example by a luck-filled king or chieftain to his followers. Our Hamingja-spirit or Fylgja funnels luck to us, while ill-intentioned (ill-Hugr’d) persons and wights with magical powers can steal it from us or turn it from good to bad. Heirlooms and property inherited from powerful, luck-filled ancestors add to our luck, as do gifts from lucky and powerful people as well as personal contact with them. Involvement with a doomed enterprise, with evil-doers or unlucky individuals has a harmful effect on our own luck, and certain objects, contaminated by contact with an evil-doer or unlucky individual, may carry bad luck with them. The same can be said about lucky or unlucky places, affected by the events that occurred there and the people who lived there.
There are innumerable folk and religious practices, ‘superstitions’, forms of divination, gambling as a test of luck, and so forth, common among all the Germanic peoples, which focus on gaining and growing luck, avoiding its loss or corruption, and testing the flow of one’s luck at a given point in time, in order to guide one in appropriate action. These beliefs and practices have continued into modern times.
Orlog, and in Anglo-Saxon orlay (orleg / orlaeg) and wyrd, was in ancient times understood primarily as being the circumstances and timing of one’s death, set by the Norns or Wyrd when one was born. We can see that, at least in this conception of orlog, there is not much room for the ebb and flow of luck and unluck in our lives to have a great deal of impact on our actual orlog, which is already set in motion at the beginning of our life. It is more likely to work the other way around. If the orlog laid down for us by the Norns calls for us to be afflicted by bad luck or blessed by good luck at a given point in our life, then orlog or wyrd will nudge the flow of circumstances to bring this about.
In a way, we can see that this ancient concept of wyrd or orlog works backwards in time: orlog needs to arrange our life in such a way that we arrive at the time and circumstances of our death per schedule! Events and actions that will lead us toward our wyrd are significant or ‘wyrded’; the rest are not (for our personal wyrd; they might be significant in the larger scheme of things, including their impact on our gefrain or reputation). Wyrd echoes backwards through our life-time and draws us towards our wyrded end, and along the way it may influence the flow of our luck at certain key turning points.
Some people or other beings we read about in the lore are completely unlucky; their lives are wholly characterized by bad luck. Andvari the dwarf, unhappy warder of the cursed treasure of the Nibelungs, complains bitterly that ‘a wretched norn shaped my fate in the early days’ (Reginsmal v. 2, Poetic Edda). This isn’t the normal ebb and flow of daily luck; this is a specific orlog laid for that person by the Norns.
This is why an ordeal is very different from a gamble. A gamble, on a metaphysical level, simply tests which way the luck is flowing at that point in time, though many people will try all sorts of tricks, wishes and curses to try to alter it! An ordeal is not a gamble or a matter of luck; it is a showing-forth of the hidden weavings of wyrd, bringing wyrd or orlog into manifestation through the challenge of the ordeal. Luck has nothing to do with the ordeal itself, though the course of one’s luck may shift later on (if one survives the ordeal), depending on what the outcome of the ordeal is. If one wins or succeeds in the ordeal, luck is likely to change for the better, if one fails or loses, it likely changes for the worse.
The concept of orlog has been deeply analyzed and has evolved under the influence of modern scholarship and Heathen practice, in a way that brings it more in tune with modern currents of thought. I’m referring in particular to Bauschatz’ contributions and the modern Heathen thinkers who have built on these ideas. (Disclosure: Bauschatz’ book is so meaningful to me that it was the impetus for my full conversion to Heathenry many years ago.)
The two main changes I see are (1) modern Heathens believe that we have a good deal more power and influence over our own orlog than was generally the case in ancient times, when the Norns or Wyrd were mostly the ones driving the train; and (2) orlog is not only the time and manner of our death, and the crucial events that lead up to this, but also shapes our whole life-time, our Werold.
As the idea of orlog has evolved, it seems to me it has converged more closely with the idea of luck than it originally stood. In the past, orlog was mainly the ‘big picture,’ the beginning and end, while the various forms of luck flowed around in the middle, influencing the daily details of our lives. Now, with the more modern idea of we ourselves ‘laying orlog’ during the course of our lifetime, orlog becomes more easily confused with the luck whose playground is the details of our everyday lives.
For more discussion about orlog / orlay, see my articles: “A Short Blog on Orlog and Wyrd,” “Threads of Wyrd and Scyld”, “Images of Orlay,” and “Aldr and Orlay: Weaving a World”.
Bookhoard
Bauschatz, Paul. The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1982.
Larrington, Carolyne, translator. The Poetic Edda. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014.