Norns

“ There are in heaven many goodly homesteads, and none without a celestial ward. Near the fountain, which is under the ash, stands a very beauteous dwelling, out of which go three maidens, named Und, Verdaudi, and Skuld. These maidens fix the life-time of all men and are called Norns. But there are indeed many other Norns, for when a man is born there is a Norn to determine his fate. Some are known to be of heavenly origin, but others belong to the races of the elves and dwarfs ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whenever I come down the mountain side there arises tumult in the valleys; wherever I remain all day great battles are fought. The Norns have decreed all that. But now men say that the White God is about to come from the south, with great splendor, and that he will bring with him peace. I ween it will prove a lie.
Thorolf.—Decreed by the Norns! You must be an old man?
Jarngrim.—I was Ingolf's the First Settler's pilot on his journey to Iceland.
Thorolf.—I am not a book-learned man; yet must you, then, be exceedingly old and yet are not gray-haired. ”

“ Some belong to the Æsir, some to the Elves, and some are Dvalin's daughters."
"But if these Norns dispense the destinies of men," said Gangler, "they are, methinks, very unequal in their distribution; for some men are fortunate and wealthy, others acquire neither riches nor honours, some live to a good old age, while others are cut off in their prime."
"The Norns," replied Har, "who are of a good origin, are good themselves, and dispense good destinies. ”

“ A Vala, druidess, or prophetess, consulted by the priests, revealed that the Norns had decreed that whoever wielded it would conquer the world and come to his death by it; but in spite of all entreaties she refused to tell who had taken it or where it might be found. Some time after this occurrence a tall and dignified stranger came to Cologne, where Vitellius, the Roman prefect, was feasting, and called him away from his beloved dainties. In the presence of the Roman soldiery he gave him the sword, telling him it would bring him glory and renown, and finally hailed him as emperor. ”

“ They perfectly correspond to the three Norns seated under the tree, Igdrasil, of the Scandinavian legend. In two stories they take the form of dependents, and change sex, viz., as Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes. In Golden Locks they become ants, ravens, and a fish and a fly. In the Three Citrons (in part) , three giants. In another Slavonic fairy story they become identified with the four brothers themselves, and this change is beginning to manifest itself in Reason and Happiness. In the Scandinavian Norns we have the past, the present, and the future. ”

“ Like them they are generally represented as three in number, and they are said to spin, or weave, the destiny of men. Their dwelling is beside the “Spring of fate,” beneath the “world-tree,” Yggdrasil’s ash, which they water with draughts from the spring. In some cases the Norns are not easily to be distinguished from the Valkyries (q.v) . Sometimes again they appear as prophetesses (völur) at the birth of children, whose destiny they foretell. ”

“ These maidens assign the lifetime of men, and are called Norns.” [35] To their stream the gods ride every day along Bifröst to take counsel. For in the Norse creed the gods know not the hidden things of the future, nor have power to ward them off. Fate and death, the Twilight of the Gods, lies ahead for them also, as these things lie ahead of mortals.
It is possible that a trace of the rainbow bridge is to be seen in the Greek myth of the asphodel meadows, which are a part of the infernal regions. ”

“ Well have we fought, on slaughtered Goths we stand, on those fallen by the sword, like eagles on a branch. Great glory we have gained, though now or tomorrow we shall die. No one lives till eve against the Norns' decree. ”

“ King Hlothver, i.e. Louis I, King of the Franks and Emperor, 814-840.
The Saxons inhabited a large part of north-west Germany and Holland; but the name Saxland is often used in a wider sense, i.e. the German part of the Empire.
Nornagest, i.e. 'Gest (or guest) of the Norns.' The Norns were represented in Scandinavian mythology as women with the power of shaping human destiny. See Helgakviða Hundingsbana, 1, str. 2; Gylfaginning, chs. 15, 16; Saxo Grammaticus, Dan. Hist., p. 223; the Saga of Burnt Njál, ch. 156. Similar beliefs occur in Greek stories about the Fates (Κλὥθες) e.g. ”

“ Finn Magnusen is also of opinion that the pure water with which the tree is sprinkled by the Norns means “the snow agglomerated in the northern sky,” and that “dew that falls in the dales,” signifies the ever verdant aspect of the southern parts of the earth, as well as the clear azure sky by which this perennial verdure is canopied.
Mone regards the ash as the emblem of human life. Man is born of water; the swan is therefore the infantile soul that swims on the water: but the eagle, the mature experienced mind that soars aloft ”

“ Those who have walked over a plain or table-land thickly covered with snow on a starry winter’s night, know how intensely the mind is besieged by the idea of fate and fatality. This is the feeling or idea which has dressed the fates in white, with tapers in their hands. Interwoven in these stories to the inmost core is the presence of snow and ice. Carried to a warmer climate they may have melted into Indra myths and the like no Indra myth could ever have frozen into the Norns of Father Know-All. ”

“ The variant forms are therefore often very different.
“The last lisp of a dying child” is the striking phrase applied by S. Bugge to those last remnants of Shetland Norn [1] . Of the worst mutilated fragments it will hardly be possible to give any translation or adequate interpretation. To explain isolated words and phrases with more or less probability is all that can be contemplated. This is particularly the case with the remnants of verse from Unstn (the sea-song) and Foula (the eagle-song) , which are only small, disjointed fragments. ”

“ The transition from the old to the new, in the case of the language, seems, when one compares the oldest with the youngest generation now living, to have taken place more rapidly in Foula than anywhere else in Shetland. The last man in Unst who is said to have been able to speak Norn, Walter Sutherland from Skaw, died about 1850. In Foula, on the other hand, men who were living much later than the middle of the present (19th) century are said to have been able to speak Norn. The Norn spoken towards the middle of the century and later can hardly have been of much account. ”

“ He was afterwards married to Skada, daughter of the giant Thiasse.—Niord is of a very friendly and benevolent disposition. See the articles Skada and Vaner.
NORNA, pl. NORNOR, name of the Parcæ, or Fates of the Scandinavians; they were three in number, viz. Urda, Norna, or destiny of the past; Verdandis, of the present; Skulda, of the future. They sit near the Ash Yggdrassil, the tree of time, where they weave the woof of human destiny.
ODIN is the Chief Asa, the king of gods and men, the Jupiter and Mars of the Scandinavian mythology, and the grand progenitor of the Scandinavian kings. ”

“ In North Yell I got very special help from J. Fraser, carpenter, who had a most intimate knowledge of the old dialects of the district. To him I am indebted for the variant of the “Conningsburgh Phrase”, mentioned in “Fragments of Norn”; and to his daughter Margaret Fraser for the riddle in Norn about the melting snowflakes. Mr. Sandison, the merchant at Cullivoe, with whom I stayed part of the time, gave me good indirect help. — I also received good assistance from Wm. Brown, bookseller, a native of Fetlar, settled in Mid-Yell. ”

“ The introductory word “vallilu” is L.Sc. balow, hush-a-bye, in an extended form with a change of initial b to v. This must be a later addition, as the rhyme is of Norn origin, and has commenced with some Norn equivalent of balow. That Norn equivalent is probably seen in suro [soəro] , which doubtless is the same word as No. (south-west Norw.) “su-ru”, a word with which children are hushed asleep. After balow one might expect a pet name for a little child, and siggalin suggests such a word. ”

“ This development doubtless began in the 18th century, at the time that Norn was passing out of use, and later continued during the 19th century, at which time Norn is only found mixed with Lowland Scottish. This development hardly dates further back than to the 18th century, as there are only comparatively few words with the äi form only; while i and äi alternate as a rule, “ai” gradually becomes more and more predominant. In not a few words, however, the i-form alone accurs. ”

“ Life-size figures of Lord and Lady Norris lie beneath an elaborate canopy supported by marble pillars, and they are surrounded by kneeling effigies of their children.
‘Although himself of a meek and mild disposition,’ Norris was father of ‘a brood of spirited, martial men’ (Camden) . His six sons all distinguished themselves as soldiers, fighting in France, Ireland, or the Low Countries. Norris outlived five of them; Edward, who, with John, the second son, and Thomas, the fifth son, is separately noticed, alone survived his parents. ”

“ The people of the island are lively and intelligent. Here I collected some fragments of Norn; but the Hildina-ballad, recorded by Low in 1774, was irrevocably lost.
The present Foula-dialect is not in any special way more old-fashioned than that of the Westside, in the main; but conversation with the old people in the Islands soon convinced me that ancient modes of life and language had been maintained longer here than on Mainland, — indeed, than in all the rest of Shetland. ”

“ The original Celtic element in the Islands was, as the place-names show, predominantly Cymric (Pictish) ; but of Cymric there is almost nothing left in the speech itself.
That Norn was able to gain so strong a foothold and to maintain itself so long in Orkney and Shetland is due, in great part, to the fact that the stretch of country on the mainland of Scotland, lying opposite to Orkney, that is Caithness, was also peopled by Northmen, and that Norn was the prevailing speech in the eastern parts of Caithness. ”

“ As he was of an enthusiastic and poetic temperament, he did not soon weary of life, and while other heroes grew wrinkled and old, he remained young at heart and vigorous in frame. He therefore witnessed the stirring deeds of the heroic ages, was the boon companion of the ancient warriors, and after living three hundred years, saw the belief in the old heathen gods gradually supplanted by the teachings of Christian missionaries. Finally Nornagesta came to the court of King Olaf Tryggvesson, who, according to his usual custom, converted him almost by force, and compelled him to receive baptism. ”

“ As Norris drew towards the innermost wall of granite, there was a quick rustle all across its face as though the screen of shrubs and flowers had been fluttered by a draught of wind. Norris drew himself erect with a distinct appearance of relief, loosened the clench of his fingers upon his rifle, and began once more to search the bushes for the buffalo. ”

“ I can bring myself to believe honestly that it is all a matter of indifference to me; but none the less my spirits change like the clouds of heaven according as the wind blows from this direction or from that, or the soundings show the depth to be increasing or not, or the observations indicate a northerly or southerly drift. When I think of the many that trust us, think of [312] Norway, think of all the friends that gave us their time, their faith, and their money, the wish comes that they may not be disappointed, and I grow sombre when our progress is not what we expected it would be. ”

“ And, even in cases where the words did not follow the phonetic rules of Shetland Norn, but were Lowland Scottish in form, doubt might exist, as Norn has been exposed, during so many centuries, to a strong influence from Lowland Scottish, on account of which approximations to the latter speech have occurred, both in the meanings and in the forms of the words.
Several Shetlandic words, although they are English (L.Sc.) in form, must be regarded as of Norse origin on account of their diffusion in Northern languages, especially in Norwegian, Færoese and Icelandic ”

“ Then the gods, seating themselves upon their thrones, distributed justice, and bethought them how the dwarfs had been bred in the mould of the earth, just as worms are in a dead body. It was, in fact, in Ymir's flesh that the dwarfs were engendered, and began to move and live. ”

“ I look on Norna as a woman of very extraordinary abilities, which are very often united with a strong cast of insanity; and I consider her as better skilled in the signs of the weather than any woman in Zetland. ”

“ Of the Norn words that are not in general use throughout Shetland, some belong to certain larger portions of the Islands, as, for example, North Shetland, more strictly, the North Isles; the Westside; South Shetland; but many are limited to a single district or to a single island.
Of the great mass of words that have become antiquated, some cannot be said to have perished, as they are still used by old people, though often only in certain islands, districts or neighbourhoods; they are not to be heard in the speech of younger people. ”