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Norns
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Norns (Old Norse: norn, plural: nornir) of Norse mythology are three dísir by the names of Urð ("weird, fate"), Verðandi ("what is emerging / the present moment") and Skuld ("debt, necessity"). They are also known as the Weird Sisters, (sometimes Wyrd Sisters or Three Weird Sisters), after Urd, the first of the Norns, whose name means itself "fate".
The Norns live beneath the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree at the center of the cosmos (although some accounts have it that they dwell above the arch of the Bifrost Bridge), where they weave the tapestry of fate. Each person's life is a string in their loom, and the length of the string is the length of the person's life.
Thus everything is preordained in the Norse belief system: even the gods have their own threads, though the Norns do not let the gods see those. This clear subjection of the gods to a power outside their control and the implication that they, too, will have an End are major themes of the literature surrounding Norse mythology.
The counterparts of the Norns among the Greeks were the Moirae, known to the Romans as the Parcae.
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Norse mythology |
|---|---|
| List of Norse gods | Æsir | Vanir | Giants | Elves | Dwarves | Troll | Valkyries | Einherjar | Norns | Odin | Thor | Freyr | Freyja | Loki | Balder | Týr | Yggdrasil | Ginnungagap | Ragnarök | |
| Sources: Poetic Edda | Prose Edda | The Sagas | Volsung Cycle | Tyrfing Cycle | Rune stones | Old Norse language | Orthography | Later influence | |
| Society: Viking Age | Skald | Kenning | Blót | Seid | Numbers | |
| People, places and things |