The Norns in Old Norse Mythology (review)

This is a lucid, thorough investigation of supernatural women associated with human destiny as they occasionally act, but more often are sensed, in the background of Old Norse myths and tales. The allusive evidence for nornir and their sisters, scattered through time and literary genres, is carefully weighed with no preconceived notions and little critical jargon. Three questions have guided the investigation: 1) why is fate so often represented in feminine guise? 2) what is the connection between nornir and textile-related work? and 3) what does it mean to regard fate as a kind of law? (xiv).

Chapter 1 reviews literary sources. Here the Poetic Edda, Snorra-Edda, and skaldic poetry have the majority of references although the nornir are rarely at the focal point of narrative. The sagas of the Icelanders, kings’ sagas, and fornaldarsögur are more sparing. Testimony is also found in the work of Saxo Grammaticus and Adam of Bremen although the differing ideological agendas put the supernatural beings in a less ominous but more negative light. The author cautions: “The Old Norse belief system should probably be conceived of in the plural, as several systems, all of which were variations on similar themes” (10). Chapter 2 addresses the central issue “What is a Norn?” in distinction to dísir, valkyrjur, or fylgjur. All are associated with “transitional situations” (15), chiefly battle and violent death. We never see the nornir determining a human fate; it is rather men of action (the nornir appear to have sex-specific interests) who voice their awareness of such a determined fate. Here, Bek-Pedersen, well aware of the absence of sentimentality, might have been more attuned to irony and understatement on the part of fighters and poets and to that vague middle ground between active belief and familiar turns of speech that may have continued after the conversion to Christianity. We also see evidence of the perhaps universal human tendency to attribute good fortune to one’s own efforts and misfortune to an impersonal fate. The author identifies a major context for allusions to the nornir: conflicted situations where, for example, the dictates of honor are at odds with those of personal safety, family ties, or greater loyalties. Yet we never witness a fate in the making and cannot assess the criteria, if such exist, that shape the determinations of the nornir. Are human destinies like randomly generated numbers? Bek-Pedersen sees the nornir as decision-makers. They could as well be mediators communicating with some higher power. The chapter goes on to make plausible distinctions between the nornir and other supernatural women while admitting much overlapping in function and affective charge. Of these, the valkyrjur are identified as “female supernatural battle spirits deciding who will be slain battle” (49). The evidence points rather to supernatural women who chose, from among the slain, those who merit entry to Valhalla—and commemoration in poems and tales.

Chapter 3, entitled “The Women in the Well,” associates fate with creation and birth and draws on Vo˛luspá and Gylfaginning. The names Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld may not all have the same historical depth and the easy interpretation as the fated Past, Present, and Future, and the author may err in emphasizing temporality and chronology over inevitability. An important subsection here is “Fate and Time.” They are not equivalents, and fate may be said to stand outside time. Another is the discussion of the dyngja, an apsidal room off the main hall, where women worked with textiles. This prepares for the familiar pan-European concept of fate as spun thread or warp and weft, motifs more fully treated in chapter 4, “Fate and Threads.” Bek-Pedersen concludes that the image of destiny as a length of thread spun by supernatural women may not be native to the North. Representations of the nornir engaged in spinning and weaving are rare and equivocal. On the other hand, the action of plying three strands of spun thread may lie behind some...