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Wyrd

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Wyrd is a concept in Old English and Old Norse culture roughly corresponding to Fate or Karma. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, which has acquired a very different signification. The cognate term in old Norse is Urðr, with a similar meaning, but also personalized as one of the Norns, Urðr (anglicized Urd). The concept corresponding to "fate" in Old Norse is Ørlǫg.

The Well of Urd is the holy well, the Well Spring, the source of water for the world tree Yggdrasil.

Etymology

Old English Wyrd is, derived from Proto-Germanic *wurþiz, Proto-Indo-European *wrti-, a verbal abstract from the root *wert- "to turn" (Latin vertere), related to the Old English verb weorþan, meaning "to grow into, to become" (compare German werden). In its literal sense, it refers to "that which turns out, that which comes to pass".

Modern English weird developed its sense from weird sisters for the three fates or Norns (Shakespeare in Macbeth has the three witches so called). They were usually portrayed as odd or uncanny in appearance, which led to the adjectival meaning (first recorded 1815).

The term ørlǫg is from ór "out, from, beyond" and lög "law", and may be interpreted literally as "beyond law", or as "fundamental/absolute/primary law". It should not be confused with the Old Norse word "ørlygi" (war), a word still found in Dutch (oorlog) and Swedish (örlog).

Concept

In a simple sense, Wyrd refers to how past actions continually affect and condition the future, but also how the future affects the past. The concept of Wyrd highlights the interconnected nature of all actions and how they influence each other. Wyrd, though conceptually related, is not congruent with predestination. Unlike predestination, the concept of Wyrd allows for one's wyrd or agency: albeit agency 'constrained' (Proto-Germanic: Naudiz) by the wyrds (the intentions and activities) of others, but nevertheless capable of weaving reality. This view is also prominent in the concept of Karma, as used in Indian religions. Wyrd is "inexorable and "goes as she shall, the fate (Norse ørlǫg) woven or scored by the Norns. Indeed, the term's Norse cognate urðr, besides meaning "fate", is the name of one of the Norns, closely related to the concept of necessity (skuld). The name of the younger sister, Verðandi, is strictly the present participle of the verb cognate to weorþan.

According to Voluspa 20, the three Norns "set up the laws", "decided on the lives of the children of time" and "promulgate their Ørlǫg. Frigg, on the other hand, while she "knows all ørlǫg", "says it not herself" (Lokasenna 30). ørlǫglausa "ørlǫg-less" occurs in Voluspa 17 in reference to trees (as opposed to humans).

In Mythology

The Old English poem The Wanderer states that "Wyrd bið ful aræd": "Fate remains wholly inexorable". The poem Beowulf tells us that "Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel!": "Fate goes ever as she shall!". Wyrd is the fate (Norse ørlǫg) woven by the Norns, the female personifications of fate or destiny in Norse mythology. The term's Norse cognate urðr, besides meaning 'fate', is the name of one of the Norns, closely related to the concept of necessity (skuld). According to Voluspa 20, one of the poems of the Poetic Edda, the three Norns "set up the laws", "decided on the lives of the children of time" and "promulgate their Ørlǫg.

The Well of Wyrd

According to Wodening (2004), the Well of Wyrd (ON: Urðarbrunnr or Urðarbrunni) springs "at the base of Yggdrasil. Other sources locate it in Asgard. According to Wodening, two other wells lie also below the World Tree: Mímisbrunnr or "Mimir's Well", where Wóden gained wisdom and the Runes either by paying an eye to drink from it or by hanging bound on Yggdrasil upside-down over the well for nine days; and Hvergelmir or "the roaring cauldron," the well from which all waters of the Nine Worlds flow and to which they ultimately return. These three wells are often conflated, and some affirm that, just as the three Norn are one, so the three Wells of Wyrd are one (Bauchatz p?, 1982).

The Well of Wyrd feeds the taproot of Yggdrasil the World Tree. It is guarded and tended by the three Norn, who dwell in a hall by the well. It is said that they scry the Bindrunes of Fate in the Well and carve them onto the living trunk of Yggdrasil.

Notes

References

Bauchatz, Paul (1982). The Well and the Tree. Amherse: University of Massachuetts Press.
Wodening, Swain (revised by Eric Wodening) (2004). Wyrd. Source: (accessed: August 20, 2007)

External links

What is Wyrd by Arlea Æðelwyrd Hunt-Anschütz
Wyrd by Swain Wodening Canote (englatheod.org)
Wyrd 2 The Wiki! a collaboratively evolving ontology of wiki sprouted from "wyrd"