The Norns

The norns dwell beside the Well of Urd, beneath the world tree Yggdrasil: Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld, names that roughly answer to 'what became', 'what is becoming', and 'what shall be'. The Voluspa describes them coming out of the hall by the well to carve on wooden slips, lay down laws, and allot life and fate to the children of men. Each day they draw water from the well and mix it with the white clay of its banks to pour over the tree, keeping the gnawed and rotting ash evergreen. The gods hold their daily court of judgement at this same well, seating their council at the source of fate itself; neither Odin's wisdom nor Thor's strength can amend the sisters' decrees, and Ragnarok is simply one of them.

Gylfaginning adds that besides these three there are many lesser norns of varied descent, some of the gods, some of the elves and dwarfs, and that norns attend every birth to shape the child's life: the kindly ones grant good lives, and misfortune is the work of the malicious ones. In the first lay of Helgi Hundingsbane, norns come to the stronghold on the night of the hero's birth, twisting golden strands and fastening the threads of his fate to the quarters of the sky. Saga characters speak of what cannot be undone in one phrase: so the norns have woven.