Winifred Hodge Rose
Modern Heathens with a religious sense more rooted in past tradition might hold the view that the Norns / Wyrd and orlog predestine the circumstances of our death, and may determine the more significant events of our lives as well. Certainly, in terms of the Norns predestining our death, this is a matter more of faith or belief than something which can be philosophically examined. Those with a less religious, more philosophical bent might also lean toward a deterministic view, but base it on orlog as a phenomenon, on cause-and-effect laying out a deterministic path of life for us.
In the beliefs of some, the Norns lay out that path for us from the beginning of our lives; in the view of others, our own past actions and perhaps transpersonal past lay out that path for us and we must follow it. Or one might see it as a combination of both: the Norns’ / Wyrd’s actions plus our own actions laying out a deterministic path for us. The influence of modern Western ideas of karma may also play a role in how one understands these matters. One way or another, with a belief in the Norns / Wyrd / orlog as real influences in the cosmos, questions about fate and predestination must arise.
In this article I am following on from another one of mine, Norns, Causality, and Determinism. I am comparing and contrasting ‘causality,’ discussed in that article, with ‘fate’ as discussed in this one.
Tending Causality, Shaping Fate
If the Norns are, so to speak, the caretakers or supervisors of causality, is that all that they do? Do they simply tend this cosmic process, weaving the countless strands spun by beings and their actions into the multidimensional Web of Wyrd? Or do the Norns also intervene in this process, bringing about events that are caused by their own independent will, choices, and decisions rather than simply arising out of orlog-as-causation?
Urð one is called, another Verðandi,
Scoring on slips of wood, Skuld is third;
There they lay layers, there life choose,
For children of aldr (mortals), speak ørlög.
(Völuspá, vs. 20-21, my translation)
This verse from the Völuspá (Poetic Edda) certainly implies that they do intervene: the Norns ‘carve on slips of wood, choose life, and speak orlog,’ as well as ‘laying layers’ of orlog. ‘Laying layers’ equates to ‘tending causality,’ in my view. ‘Speaking orlog’ may do this too: the Norns are marking the layers of orlog as ‘official’ by formally pronouncing their meaning, their significance, as the layers are laid in the Well. Perhaps orlog is not orlog, does not function as orlog, unless and until the Norns speak it? This would go along with Bauschatz’s description of significant deeds and events falling as drops of dew from the Tree into the Well, and from the Well are drawn up to nourish the Tree again, whereas insignificant deeds and events fall outside the Well and are lost (see Bauschatz Chapter IV, “Action, Space, and Time”). I believe that this ‘speaking orlog into reality’ is one of the major things the Norns are doing, and I find it profoundly meaningful for Heathen spirituality. We are mirroring this action, at the human level, when we speak our boasts in symbel.
But is this all that ‘speaking orlog’ involves, or is there more to it? Do the Norns actually create orlog by speaking it, as opposed to acknowledging and empowering the orlog laid by the deeds of others? The other two actions they are described as doing, ‘scoring on slips of wood,’ and ‘choosing life,’ imply this greater sense of agency, of intentional actions and choices on their parts.
I wrote in my article The Shapings of the Norns that I believe the first of this series of actions by the Norns involves scoring runestaves, and runework is without question something that is intended to bring about a willed action, a result or effect of some kind—something new, that would not necessarily occur without the runework causing it. ‘Choosing life,’ perplexing as this phrase may seem, clearly speaks of choice, of willed action that brings something new into existence, as runework does. It isn’t clear whether ‘choosing life’ simply means choosing for a new being to come into existence, or whether more specifics are implied. Do they also choose the life-circumstances, the major influences on that life, and the duration of it? It’s my impression that ancient Heathens did believe this: that the Norns choose for beings to come into existence, into specific circumstances that shape that existence, and that they choose the duration of that life.
Nornir / Valkyrja: Choosing Life / Choosing Death
I think, too, that the Norns ‘choose life’ in direct contrast to the Valkyries or valkyrja, fate-bearing beings who ‘choose death’ for warriors in the midst of battle, usually at the behest of Odin who gathers some of the slain as his Einherjar, his chosen warriors in Valhalla. I have no way of knowing the poet’s intention in the Völuspá verse, of course, but I believe the contrast is deliberate in the poet’s choice of words here. The words val-kyrja (Old Norse) and wæl-cyrge (Anglo-Saxon) mean ‘slain-choosers,’ the choosers of those who will die. The Norns, conversely, are first and foremost choosers of those who will live.
Odin and Freya have their chosen ones, the warriors they have selected for afterlife in their God-Halls. The Norns have their own chosen ones: all of us who enter into life in Midgard, into the realms where orlog and wyrd operate. There are ‘lesser norns’ who help in childbirth, as well as the three great ones who “choose life.” These lesser norns are referred to in the Lay of Fafnir: “Which are those norns who go to help those in need, and bring children forth from their mothers?” (v. 13, Larrington’s translation).
After choosing each of us for life, however, the Norns also choose the time of our death, our orleg-hwile or orlog-while. To summarize the Norns’ choices with respect to human life, they choose:
1) our life in the sense of being born into Midgard,
2) our life-span which includes our time of death,
3) our Aldr / Ealdor life-soul which is connected to them and serves as their ‘agent’ in our life and in Midgard, and
4) they influence the shape of our Werold, the fabric of our total life-experience.
Looking at it this way, what I see is not that the Norns are specifically focused on bringing about death, as might be implied by the frequent use of ‘orlog’ to mean ‘death,’ but rather that they choose our life-span in Midgard, which is then necessarily brought to a close by our death. But it is life that is important; death is simply a necessary consequence of mortal life. It is perhaps significant that Skuld, the Norn governing ‘what must be,’ is also named as a valkyrja in Gylfaginning of the prose Edda, where she “always rides to choose the slain” (Sturluson p. 31). Skuld herself is the link between the Powers who choose life and life-span, and those who choose death, the ultimate necessity for mortal beings.
‘Fate’ versus ‘Causality’
Now we approach the question of ‘fate,’ if fate is understood to be something that lies outside the workings of causality: fate as brought about by the deliberate action of some powerful force or Being. The word ‘fate’ comes from Latin fari, ‘to speak,’ leading to fatum, ‘that which has been spoken.’ This is remarkably similar to the speaking or the decrees of the Norns. One set of definitions for ‘fate’ is “the development of events beyond a person’s control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power. The course of someone’s life, or the outcome of a particular situation for someone or something, seen as beyond their control. The inescapable death of a person.” (Oxford Languages Dictionary online.)
Causality in a way is the antithesis of fate: it occurs as a natural, explicable process that humans can, to some extent, understand and control, whereas fate comes from outside the human and material world; it is inexplicable, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and apparently lies outside the realm of natural causality. So, how does this work, if the Norns are on the one hand the caretakers of causality, but on the other hand are beings of fate who impose their own decisions outside of the workings of causality? Isn’t that contradictory?
Wyrd and Will Together
I suggest that these apparently contradictory roles work, for the Norns, in somewhat the same way that the contradictory roles of free will versus determinism work for us as humans, as discussed in my article Norns, Causality, and Determinism. The Norns work with causality, with orlog laid as layers by the actions of many beings over eons of time, as we humans work with aspects of our lives that are determined—that lie outside of our options for free will. Both we and the Norns (and the Gods) deal with what has already been laid down as orlog, by ourselves and by others. These layers of orlog condition or shape the circumstances we deal with today. But in this moment of time, as it is coming into being, we can often choose among the paths that lie ahead of us: choose to follow our own will, which is free to an extent, and conditioned or constrained to an extent.
Beowulf provides a good example of this in his actions on the day of his death. First is an episode of reflection: Beowulf has heard about the dragon and has decided he must slay it to protect his kingdom. He and his thanes reach the cliff where the dragon’s cave is, but before proceeding Beowulf wants to ponder on his life. He knows that “Wyrd is immeasurably close;” his time of death is near. His Sefa-soul mourns, restless, ready to depart. He knows that his Feorh-soul “will not be wrapped in flesh for much longer.” (Beowulf ll. 2417-2424). Beowulf is well aware, in other words, that wyrded death waits for him in the dragon’s cave, but he continues on this path.
Beowulf then goes into the dragon’s cave, braving the flames which foreshadow his own balefire. He bears his famous shield and sword, which have never failed him before, but they do now. For the first time in his life “Wyrd did not grant him glory in battle” (l. 2574-5). Nevertheless Beowulf wealdan moste, wielded as he must. The word wealdan can mean ‘to have power over, to control, to rule or govern, to have the power to choose or decide, to have power to do, to be able’ (Bosworth Toller dictionary). This is the power of the Will, and he wields his Will both as he ‘chooses’, and as he ‘must.’
Collapsing under the flaming attack of the dragon, Beowulf uses the utmost power of his will for his final strokes. He breaks his sword on the dragon, wounding but not killing it. Then after his young thane Wiglaf weakens the dragon further, dying Beowulf draws his knife and gives the fatal blow. (Beowulf lines 2545ff.)
Here is the point. Wyrd laid out the time and events leading to Beowulf’s death; Beowulf knew this and followed it as he must. But he had a choice at the very end: to collapse in failure under the deadly attack of the dragon, or to rise for one final moment and wield his knife and his will against the dragon. The Norns ordained his death at that time and place, but the final blow he dealt the dragon, with his shattered shield and sword in pieces around him, was Beowulf’s choice. (An interesting exercise is to look at orlog from the dragon’s point of view…I leave that for the interested reader to explore!)
This is what I mean by ‘Wyrd and Will together.’ Wyrd / the Norns lay out conditions that constrain our lives, but within those conditions there is always a place for our own will to act. This is a great mystery of Wyrd and the Norns:
Even when we must deal with necessity, with a determined situation that we can’t get out of, we can merge our free will with that necessity, accepting the reality of what orlog has already laid down. We thereby choose to walk our necessary path with greater power, achieving and learning far more than we would if we dragged ourselves whining and moaning along that path because of necessity alone, unwillingly, without bringing the full power of our Will to bear on what we must do.
This mystery of wyrd and will together is one that I believe Odin models for us very profoundly with his choices and deeds, as well as other Deities, heroes, and unsung wise folk living everyday lives. The stronger our Will, the might and main of our spirit and character, our wisdom and understanding of the operations of orlog, the more able we are to expand the field of options for our free will—even within the layers of necessity that constrain us. When faced with necessity, adding the power of our Will to the actions we must take raises us to greater heights of achievement and of Being.
This is the situation of the Norns as well: their wills, their might and main, their wisdom and understanding, their power overall, far exceed our own. While they work continually with causality and orlog, they are also able to find or create opportunities for the exercise of their will, their choices, their designs, and work them organically into the layers of orlog that are coming into being.
The ‘workings of fate’ that the Norns engage in are, for them, comparable to the ‘free will’ that we humans can operate under to some extent in our lives. Orlog is there, it exists, and the Norns, like everyone else, have to work with ‘what is there’ unless they decide to, and are capable of, tearing it all up and starting over! (Even Ragnarök doesn’t completely do that….) Orlog places conditions on what can and cannot be done by the Norns, the Deities, humans, and everyone else, though it may be that orlog can only do this once the Norns have ‘spoken it.’ That’s the deterministic side of things. On the other side, humans have some free will and we choose how to use it. Norns apparently do this too: they carve runes, they ‘choose lives,’ they speak decrees that lay out new elements to be woven into orlog that is now coming into being. This seems, to me, like actions of free will on their part.
Their ‘free will’ actions of carving and choosing and speaking, however, have the opposite effect on humans and other beings. When they exercise their ‘free will’ and set fate or wyrd in motion, it sets boundaries around the exercise of our own free will. We have some ability to lay orlog of our own: some of the orlog we lay by our actions results in shaping our lives the way we want. But if the Norns have spoken otherwise, have decreed something to happen or not happen in our lives, then our free will is overridden by their decisions. When this happens I believe, as I wrote earlier, that we gain by adding the power of our own Will to the impetus of necessity laid by the Norns, and trust that this path will ultimately take us in a worthwhile direction.
When the Norns are simply ‘tending the processes of causality’ and nothing more, then there is some room for us to shape things our own way by using those processes in our favor. The Norns do not arrange every detail and event of our lives. They leave us a good deal of space to forge our own paths, and to work with our Holy Ones to shape our paths as truly worthy ones.
Note: This article is included in my book Orlog Yesterday and Today: The Shapings of the Norns.
Book-Hoard
Bauschatz, Paul C. The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture. The University of Massachusetts Press, 1982.
Chickering, Howell D. Jr., transl. Beowulf. Doubleday, 1977. (Dual language edition)
Larrington, Carolyne, transl. The Poetic Edda, revised edition. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Sturluson, Snorri, transl. Anthony Faulkes. Edda. Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1995.