The Norns’ Web
The Norns sometimes wove webs so large that while one of the weavers stood on a high mountain in the extreme east, another waded far out into the western sea. The threads of their woof resembled cords, and varied greatly in hue, according to the nature of the events about to occur, and a black thread, tending from north to south, was invariably considered an omen of death. As these sisters flashed the shuttle to and fro, they chanted a solemn song. They did not seem to weave according to their own wishes, but blindly, as if reluctantly executing the wishes of Orlog, the eternal law of the universe, an older and superior power, who apparently had neither beginning nor end.
Two of the Norns, Urd and Verdandi, were considered to be very beneficent indeed, while the third, it is said, relentlessly undid their work, and often, when nearly finished, tore it angrily to shreds, scattering the remnants to the winds of heaven. As personifications of time, the Norns were represented as sisters of different ages and characters, Urd (Wurd, weird) appearing very old and decrepit, continually looking backward, as if absorbed in contemplating past events and people; Verdandi, the second sister, young, active, and fearless, looked straight before her, while Skuld, the type of the future, was generally represented as closely veiled, with head turned in the direction opposite to where Urd was gazing, and holding a book or scroll which had not yet been opened or unrolled.
These Norns were visited daily by the gods, who loved to consult them; and even Odin himself frequently rode down to the Urdar fountain to bespeak their aid, for they generally answered his questions, maintaining silence only about his own fate and that of his fellow gods.
“Rode he long and rode he fast.
First beneath the great Life Tree,
At the sacred Spring sought he
Urdar, Norna of the Past;
But her backward seeing eye
Could no knowledge now supply.
Across Verdandi’s page there fell
Dark shades that ever woes foretell;
The shadows which ’round Asgard hung
Their baleful darkness o’er it flung;
The secret was not written there
Might save Valhal, the pure and fair.
Last youngest of the sisters three,
Skuld, Norna of Futurity,
Implored to speak, stood silent by,—
Averted was her tearful eye.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones).