Wyrd
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Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, whose meaning has drifted towards an adjectival use with a mo
Poster for the Norwegian magazine Urd by Andreas Bloch and Olaf Krohn
The Three Witches by Henry Fuseli (1783)
The Norns by Johannes Gehrts (1889)
Norns
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The Norns are a group of deities in Norse mythology responsible for shaping the course of human destinies. The Norns are often represented as three goddesses known as Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld, who we
Wyrd
…unexpected". The cognate term to wyrd in Old Norse is urðr, with a similar meaning, but also personified as a deity: Urðr (anglicized as Urd), one of the Norns in Norse mythology. The word also appears in the name of the well where the Norns meet, Urðarbrunnr. The Old English term wyrd derives from a Proto-Germanic…
The Norns spin the threads of fate at the foot of Yggdrasil, the tree of the world. Beneath them is the well Urðarbrunnr with the two swans that have engendered all the swans in the world.
Fresco of the Norns in Neues Museum, Berlin
Mímer and Balder Consulting the Norns (1821–1822) by H. E. Freund