The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses , Devil and Demons
(Old Norse norn=she who whispers) In Germanic mythology, spaewives who determine a person’s fate on earth the moment he or she is born; like the → Disir, they also play a part in the actual process of birth. To begin with, there seems to have been a plurality of Norns, but in the end they were reduced to a triad, perhaps under the influence of the → Parcae.
In the Völuspa they are named as Urd, Verdandi and Skuld: that is to say, the past, the present and the future, or what has been, what is and what will be. The thread of fate which the Norns are spinning is only occasionally mentioned. In essence, the Norns are closely related to the → Valkyries.
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