However as a death in battle did not consign the warrior to Hel, it is usually Hild or Wig who is represented as ravishing away the doomed hero. Hel was no desired object, to be introduced into the epic as the portion of chieftains and kings.
FATES.—The Northern creed, and, as it now seems established, the German also, admitted the intervention between man and the gods, of subordinate deities or Fates. I call them subordinate from their peculiar position in the fragmentary portions of mythology that survive; in their nature we must believe them to be of a higher order than the gods, who themselves are doomed one day to perish, and who can probably as little avoid their doom as men, the frailer creatures of their power. It may be that in this, different views prevailed among different classes of men; the warlike princes and their followers, who exulted in tales of battle and feasting, may have been willing to see in Oþinn the supreme disposer of events, while a deeper wisdom lurked in the sacerdotal songs that told how Urðr, Werðandi and Skuld (the Norns of the Past, the Present and the Future) bore inevitable sway over the inhabitants of heaven and earth, and slowly waited for the period which was to confound gods, man and nature in one vast destruction[[731]]. The Norse view admits however of more than three Norns, though it names those only who have been mentioned; and from the extraordinary relation of those three, it can hardly be doubted that the others are of a different order; moreover it attributes human passions to them which are hardly consistent with the functions of the venerable Fates; in this case it is possible that the Valkyriur, a race of beings whose functions might in some respects be confounded with those of the Nornir, have been so mixed up with them. Man, dealing with the daily affairs of troubled life, thinks more of the past than of the future: to him the present is the child of the past, the past the excuse for or cause of all he does and suffers; his intellect comprehends the events that are completed or in course of completion, but not the indefinite, illimitable probabilities of the undiscovered to be; hence perhaps Urðr is considered the oldest and most powerful of the Fates; her work is done, the others are doing or yet to do. Through this progress of opinion it became possible for the conception of the older Fate to include and finally supersede those of the others, as soon as the living belief in their personal agency became weakened. I do not know that any certain trace of these Fates can be found in the High-german countries[[732]], but in the Low-german the eldest Norn still survives long after the introduction of Christianity, in a sense little removed at times from that of Necessity itself. That this should still have been coupled with a lively feeling of personality only proves how deeply rooted the old Heathen creed had been. In the following instances from the Oldsaxon Héljand[[733]], Wurth might almost in every case be replaced by dód, mors: “Thiu Wurth is at handun, dód is at hendi;”—the wierd[[734]], or death, is at hand, i. e. so near that she might lay hold of the doomed. “Thiu Wurth nahida thuo,”—the weird drew nigh. “Wurth ina benam,” Wierd, i. e. the goddess of death, ravished him away; as in Anglosaxon we have Swylt benam, Deáð benam, and similar expressions.
The Anglosaxon equivalent is Wyrd, an expression of the very commonest and most frequent occurrence. It should however be borne in mind that there are two separate uses of this word, one a more abstract one, in which it is capable of being used in the plural, and which may generally be rendered eventus[[735]], another more personal, similar to the Oldsaxon Wurth, and in which it never occurs but in the singular[[736]]. In the following most remarkable passage the heathen and Christian thoughts are strangely mingled, Wierd being placed in actual apposition with God,
swá he hyra má wólde
nefne him witig God,
Wyrd forstóde,
⁊ ðæs mannes mód[[737]].
“As he would more of them had not wise God, Wierd forstood him, and the man’s courage.” How very heathen the whole would be, were we only to conceive the word God an interpolation, which is highly probable; nefne him witig—Wyrd forstóde[[738]]! The following examples will show the use of Wyrd:—“hine Wyrd fornam,”—him Wierd ravished away[[739]]: just as in other passages we have guð fornam[[740]], Wíg ealle fornam[[741]], swylt fornam[[742]], deað fornam[[743]]. “Wyrd ungemete neáh[[744]],”— Wierd was immeasurably near him; as in the Oldsaxon passages above cited, and as Deað ungemete neáh[[745]]. “Ac unc sceal weorðan æt wealle, swá unc Wyrd geteóð, métod manna gehwǽs[[746]],”—it shall befal us as Wierd decideth, the lord of every man. “Swá him Wyrd ne gescráf[[747]],”—Wierd did not appoint. “Ealle Wyrd forsweóp[[748]],”—Wierd has swept away. “Ús seó wyrd scýðeð, heard and hetegrim[[749]],”—us doth Wierd pursue, hard and grim in hate.
These examples will suffice to show how thoroughly personal the conception of Wierd remained; and in this respect there is no difference whatever between the practice in Beówulf and in the more professedly Christian poems of the Exeter and Vercelli codices, or Cædmon. But one peculiarity remains to be noticed, which connects our Wierd in the most striking manner with the heathen goddesses generally, and the Scandinavian Nornir particularly. We have seen that Wierd opposes, that she stands close to the doomed warrior, that she ravishes him away, that she sweeps away the power of men, that she decides or appoints the event, that she is hard and cruel and pursues her victims. But she also weaves, weaves the web of destiny, as we can say even to this day without violence. It is necessary to give examples of this expression: “Me ðæt wyrd gewæf[[750]],”—Wierd wove that for me; similar to which is, “Ac him dryhten forgeaf wígspéda gewiofu[[751]],”—but the Lord gave him the weft of victory; where undoubtedly an earlier weaving Wyrd was thought of. “Ðonne seó þrag cymeð, wefen wyrd-stafum[[752]],”—when the time cometh, woven with wierd-staves, or letters, probably runes. There is a remarkable passage in the same collection[[753]], “Wyrmas mec ne áwǽfon, Wyrda cræftum, ða ðe geolo godwebb geatwum frætwað,”—Worms wove me not, with the skill of Wierds, those namely which the yellow silk for garments beautifully form. Here weaving is especially put forward as that in which Wierd excels, her own peculiar craft and business[[754]].
Spinning and weaving are the constant occupation of Teutonic goddesses and heroines: Holda and Bertha spin[[755]], and so do all the representatives of these goddesses in popular tradition even down to the fairies. But the Valkyriur or Shieldmays also weave, and in this function, as well as their immediate action in the battle-field, as choosers of the slain[[756]], they have some points of contact with the Norns and Wyrd[[757]]. Gray has transferred to our language from the Nials Saga a fine poem[[758]] which throws some light upon the weaving of the Valkyriur, the wígspéda gewiofu. The Anglosaxon belief in the Shieldmaidens comes to us indeed in a darkened form, yet we can hardly doubt that it survived. The word Wælcyrge occurs in glossaries to explain Bellona, the goddess of war, and one gloss calls eyes Wælcyrigean, gorgonei, terrible as those of Gorgo; the flashing of the eyes was very probably one mark of a Wælcyrge in the old belief[[759]], as she floated or rode above the closing ranks of battle. In the superstitions of a later period however we find a clear allusion to these supernatural maidens. A spell preserved in a Harleian manuscript[[760]] contains the following passages: