One of the things I love most about mythology are the similarities found in so many of the legends both written and orally passed down from culture to culture, generation to generation.
Take the Norse Norns for instance—three powerful female entities with the power to shape the destiny of man and gods alike.
In Greek mythology you have the fates: Clotho, the spinner, Lachesis, the Alloter, and Atropos, the inflexible. Each fate has a specific job. Clotho spun, Lachesis measured, and Atropos cut with those famous shears. They were also associated with specific periods of time. Atropos, the past, Clotho, the present, and Lachesis, the future.
According to John Lindow’s Norse Mythology, the Norns (pronounced “norms”) were “women who shape what must be.”
Which sounds an awful lot like our Greek counterparts.
And like the Greek Fates, each Norn was linked to time. Urd (That Which Was) to the past, Verdandi (That Which is Becoming) to the present, and Skuld (She who Shall-Be) to the future. In some literature, Skuld is also the Valkyrie who chooses which warrior will die in battle.
Other Norse texts state the existence of additional Norns “who come to each child, when it is born, to shape the life, and these are related to the gods, but others are of the family of the elves, and the third one are of the dwarfs.”
It was this sentence that sparked my imagination and led to my interpretation of the Norns in Dark Truth, book 3 of the Time Bound Series, which will hopefully release this May.
For more information on Norse Mythology, check out John Lindow’s book, Norse Mythology, available at Amazon and other retailers.
Until next month,
Lora