In an earlier post [here] we marked that what we now call "history" is in Old English rightly understood as "wyrd" a word akin to the root of the old work-word weorþan "to become"; from Proto-Indo-European *wert- "to turn" the scholars tell us. Now the unwary and un-wellread can tie themselves up in dreadful knots over this word, and can come to all kinds of wrongful understandings of what wyrd truly is, and how it worketh. The first mistake to overcome is that wyrd is something that is a law unto itself and wholly beyond our understanding. Today, as of old, we will often find such utterings put forth, but they are not only thoroughly godless things to say, but utterly wrong, as will be seen in what followeth. Wyrd is indeed often a hard thing for men to understand, but not wholly beyond our grasp. And to show that it is no more than the working out of the dooms and forethought of the gods for mankind on earth, it was said of yore to be the outcome of three gydene: the "Wyrde systres". The knowledge of them hath never been forgotten by the English, and are now well known to all from Shakespeare's play Macbeth, where, misunderstood as the three witches (even though they are called weird sisters) they have not a little to do in what happeneth everywhere in that play. "Wyrde systres" gloss the Latin tria fata "three fates" or parcæ. We find this evening in the Catholicon Anglicum, but earlier in the Epinal-Erfurt gloss parcae-parce : uuyrdae (both) (but we also find parcas: burgrunae-burgrunae "borough dern rede-givers" - is the borough here the English Ásgarðr?). Corpus gloss "parcae: wyrde" "parcas:burgrune". Leiden gloss “fatum:wyrd” “fortunam (fort.), fatum: geuiif” “Fors:uyrd”. Corpus gloss also hath “fortuna:wyrd” “fors: wyrd”. Ælfred in his awending of Bœthius writeth of “Orfeus”:
“Ða eode he furþor oþ he gemette ða graman gydena ðe folcisce men hataþ Parcas ða hi secgaþ þ[æt] on nanum men nyton nane are ac ælcum menn wrecan be his gewyrhtum , ða hi secgaþ þ[æt] wealdan ælces monnes wyrde.”
“Then he went further until he met the grim gydene that folkish men call Parcas that they say know no mildfulness to no men but to all men wreke after his deeds, and that they say wield over each man's wyrd.”
The tria fata "three fates" or parcæ were shown as spinning the thread of life, meting it as they will (or rather as they are bidden), and then shearing it to bring it to an end. Thus Isidorus, Bishop of Hispalis Origines sive Etymologiae book viii §11 De diis gentium:
“Tria autem fata fingunt in colo et fuso digitisque filum ex lana torquentibus, propter tria tempora: praeteritum, quod in fuso iam netum atque involutum est: praesens, quod inter digitos neentis traicitur: futurum, in lana quae colo inplicata est, et quod adhuc per digitos neentis ad fusum tamquam praesens ad praeteritum traiciendum est. 93 Parcas κατ᾽ ἀντίφρασιν appellatas, quod minime parcant. Quas tres esse voluerunt: unam, quae vitam hominis ordiatur; alteram, quae contexat; tertiam, quae rumpat. Incipimus enim cum nascimur, sumus cum vivimus, desiimus cum interimus.”
“The three fates shape on the distaff and spindle, and by the fingers twisting the thread from the wool, on account of the three times: the past because on the spindle it is already woven and curled up: the present, because of the weaving passing among the fingers: the time to come, by the wool which is twisted on the distaff, and because of the weaving is yet to be transferred to the spindle by the finger just as the present is drawn from the past. They call them Parcæ by antiphrasis, as they spare few. These they were wanting to be three: the first one, who begins to weave the life of man; the second, who weaves it; the third who breaks it. For we begin when we are born, we are when we live, we end when we die. ”
 |
| Above: The Triumph of Death, or The Three Fates (triumphing over Chastity). Flemish tapestry (belike Brussels, about. 1510-1520). Victoria and Albert Museum, London.ᛋ |
Varro De lingua Latina Book vi, §52:
“Ab hoc tempora quod tum pueris constituant Parcæ fando, dictum fatum et res fatales. ”
That our "Wyrde systres" also span may be gleaned from the “Rhyming Poem” Exeter Book line 70 hath “me
þæt wyrd gewæf” and from what is misput to the new god in
Bēowulf
lines 696 to 697: “...Ac him Dryhten forgeaf/ wigspeda gewiofu, Wedera
leodum ...”. But this is seemingly all.
In the North the "Wyrde systres" are called "Nornir" and said to bear the names of: Urðr,
Verðandi, Skuld. These “skapa
mönnum aldr” “shape
the life of men” and our understanding of how they do this is helped along by the verse in Völuspá
19 to 20 (awending Bellows):
19. Ask veit ek standa, ǀ heitir Yggdrasill
hár baðmr, ausinn ǀ hvíta auri;
þaðan koma döggvar ǀ þærs í dala falla;
stendr æ yfir grœnn ǀ Urðar brunni.
20. Þaðan koma meyjar| margs vitandi
þrjár ór þeim sæ,| er und þolli stendr;
Urð hétu eina,| aðra Verðandi,
- skáru á skíði, -| Skuld ina þriðju;
þær lög lögðu,| þær líf kuru
alda börnum,| örlög seggja.
19. An ash I know, | Yggdrasil its name,
With water white | is the great tree wet;
Thence come the dews | that fall in the dales,
Green by Urth's well | does it ever grow.
20. Thence come the maidens | mighty in wisdom,
Three from the dwelling | down 'neath the tree;
Urth is one named, | Verthandi the next,--
On the wood they scored,-- | and Skuld the third.
Laws they made there, and life allotted
To the sons of men, and set their fates.
The wording "skáru á skíði" "scored on shides (bits of wood)" is markworthy and linketh North with the South. Thus Felix Martianus Capella, in his De
nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii et de septem artibus liberalibus
libri novum :
“[65] Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who by
their study of true and correct writing recorded the decisions of Jove – being
the librarians of the gods and the keepers of their archives – when they saw
that the Thunderer himself was donning his magisterial robes, sharpened their
styluses and collected their tablets to record the decisions of the president
and the deliberations of the gods.”
“Þá mælti Gangleri: "Hvar er höfuðstaðrinn eða helgistaðrinn goðanna?"
Hár svarar: "Þat er at aski Yggdrasils. Þar skulu guðin eiga dóma sína hvern dag."
...
“Clotho vero, Lachesis, Atroposque, quoniam sententias Jovis
orthographæ studio veritatis excipiunt, utpote librariæ superum archivique
custodes, quum senatum curiamque contrahi, et ipsum Tonantem exuviis indusiari
publice cernerent, magistratus in acta coelestiumque consultum stilos acuunt
cerasque componunt.”
[The
Marriage of Mercury and Philology awent
by William Harris Stahl and Richard Johnson with E.L. Burge, Columbia
University Press, 1977C.E. – Book 1, §65, lvs. 24 to 25].
The þollur which Bellows awendeth as "tree" is, needless to say, the great ash tree we wrote about at length in the last post [here]. But it is worth minning here again what Snorri Sturluson writeth in his Edda, Gylfaginning:
“Þá mælti Gangleri: "Hvar er höfuðstaðrinn eða helgistaðrinn goðanna?"
Hár svarar: "Þat er at aski Yggdrasils. Þar skulu guðin eiga dóma sína hvern dag."
...
Þá segir Jafnhárr: "Askrinn er allra trjá mestr ok beztr. Limar hans dreifast um heim allan ok standa yfir himni. ... Þriðja rót asksins stendr á himni, ok undir þeiri rót er brunnr sá, er mjök er heilagr, er heitir Urðarbrunnr. Þar eiga goðin dómstað sinn. ...
Enn er þat sagt, at nornir þær er byggja Urðarbrunn taka hvern dag vatn í brunninum ok með aurinn þann er liggr um brunninn, ok ausa upp yfir askinn til þess at eigi skyli limar hans tréna eða fúna. En þat vatn er svá heilagt at allir hlutir þeir sem þar koma í brunninn verða svá hvítir sem hinna sú er skjall heitir, er innan liggr við eggskurn, svá sem hér segir:
heitir Yggdrasils,
hár baðmr heilagr,
hvíta auri.
Þaðan koma döggvar
er í dali falla.
Stendr hann æ yfir grœnn
Urðarbrunni.
Sú dögg er þaðan af fellr á jörðina, þat kalla menn
hunangfall, ok þar af fœðask býflugur. Fuglar tveir fœðask í
Urðarbrunni, þeir heita svanir, ok af þeim fuglum hefir komit þat
fugla kyn er svá heitir.”.
Awending Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur:
“Then said Gangleri: "Where is the chief abode or holy place of the gods?"
Hárr answered: 'That is at the Ash of Yggdrasill; there the gods must give judgment everyday."
...
Then said Jafnhárr: "The Ash is greatest of all trees and best: its limbs spread out over all the world and stand above heaven. ...
The third root of the Ash stands in heaven; and under that root is the well which is very holy, that is called the Well of Urdr (Urðarbrunnr); there the gods hold their tribunal. ...
It is further said that these Norns who dwell by the Well of Urdr take water of the well every day, and with it that clay which lies about the well, and sprinkle it over the Ash, to the end that its limbs shall not wither nor rot; for that water is so holy that all things which come there into the well become as white as the film which lies within the egg-shell,--as is here said:
I know an Ash standing | called Yggdrasill,
A high tree sprinkled | with snow-white clay;
Thence come the dews | in the dale that fall--
It stands ever green | above Urdr's Well.
That dew which falls from it onto the earth is called by men honey-dew, and thereon are bees nourished. Two fowls are fed in Urdr's Well: they are called Swans, and from those fowls has come the race of birds which is so called.”
Before going on we might wander a little here to see how J. R. R. Tolkien borroweth Urðarbrunnr into his The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) Book II, chap. 7:
“Even as he spoke, they saw, as if she came in answer to their words, the Lady Galadriel approaching. Tall and white and fair she walked beneath the trees. She spoke no word, but beckoned to them.
Turning aside, she led them toward the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon, and passing through a high green hedge they came into an enclosed garden. No trees grew there, and it lay open to the sky. The evening star had risen and was shining with white fire above the western woods. Down a long flight of steps the Lady went into a deep green hollow, through which ran murmuring the silver stream that issued from the fountain on the hill. At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree, stood a basin of silver. wide and shallow, and beside it stood a silver ewer.
With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. `Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,' she said. 'I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.'
The air was very still, and the dell was dark, and the Elf-lady beside him was tall and pale. 'What shall we look for, and what shall we see? ' asked Frodo, filled with awe.
`Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,' she answered, `and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look? '
Frodo did not answer.”
“Then said Gangleri: "Where is the chief abode or holy place of the gods?"
Hárr answered: 'That is at the Ash of Yggdrasill; there the gods must give judgment everyday."
...
Then said Jafnhárr: "The Ash is greatest of all trees and best: its limbs spread out over all the world and stand above heaven. ...
The third root of the Ash stands in heaven; and under that root is the well which is very holy, that is called the Well of Urdr (Urðarbrunnr); there the gods hold their tribunal. ...
It is further said that these Norns who dwell by the Well of Urdr take water of the well every day, and with it that clay which lies about the well, and sprinkle it over the Ash, to the end that its limbs shall not wither nor rot; for that water is so holy that all things which come there into the well become as white as the film which lies within the egg-shell,--as is here said:
I know an Ash standing | called Yggdrasill,
A high tree sprinkled | with snow-white clay;
Thence come the dews | in the dale that fall--
It stands ever green | above Urdr's Well.
That dew which falls from it onto the earth is called by men honey-dew, and thereon are bees nourished. Two fowls are fed in Urdr's Well: they are called Swans, and from those fowls has come the race of birds which is so called.”
Before going on we might wander a little here to see how J. R. R. Tolkien borroweth Urðarbrunnr into his The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) Book II, chap. 7:
“Even as he spoke, they saw, as if she came in answer to their words, the Lady Galadriel approaching. Tall and white and fair she walked beneath the trees. She spoke no word, but beckoned to them.
Turning aside, she led them toward the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon, and passing through a high green hedge they came into an enclosed garden. No trees grew there, and it lay open to the sky. The evening star had risen and was shining with white fire above the western woods. Down a long flight of steps the Lady went into a deep green hollow, through which ran murmuring the silver stream that issued from the fountain on the hill. At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree, stood a basin of silver. wide and shallow, and beside it stood a silver ewer.
With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. `Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,' she said. 'I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.'
The air was very still, and the dell was dark, and the Elf-lady beside him was tall and pale. 'What shall we look for, and what shall we see? ' asked Frodo, filled with awe.
`Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,' she answered, `and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell. Do you wish to look? '
Frodo did not answer.”
But getting back to the path, we can see that what the gods deem in their doom-stead, the Northern "Wyrde systres" write down on bits of wood as if this made them steadfast laws. From this alone it doth seem to me a great unlikelihood that the gods are under the "Wyrde systres". And the whisper of this becometh ever louder the more we look southward. Thus Capella again, in his De
nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii ... I.
3 writeth:
“... poetaeque praecipue Oeagrium citharistam secuti,
caecutientisque Maeonii suaviloquam senectutem, epica vulgo lyricaque
pagina consonarent: nec aliquid dulcius Jovi inter aethereas
voluptates una conjuge loquerentur: hisque accederet promtior fides,
quae suadente aruspicio grandaevos pontifices in testimonium
convocat, quum quid Jupiter hominum votis trepida curarum ambage
suspensis multa implacabilis hostia denegaret, exorata ejus matrona
provenire, et' quicquid ille ex promta sententia Parcarum pugillo
asservante dictaverit, delinitum svadae conjugis amplexibus jussuque
removere.”
“...The
poets, who were disciples of the Thracian lyre player [Orpheus] and
the blind Maeonian [Homer], old and eloquent, published epic poems
and lyrics about the marriages; they sang that amongst the delights
of heaven nothing pleased Jove more than his wife alone. Old
priests are encouraged by ready credence to give their message when
the omens suggest it; and ready credence was given to the message of
the poets that when Jupiter, unappeased despite many sacrifices,
denies anything to the hesitant prayers of men worried by doubts and
fears, it comes to pass, when prayer is addressed to his wife, when
he has with dispatch passed a sentence and the hand of the Parcae is
waiting to carry out his order, he cancels it when his wife gently
persuades him and mollifies him with her embraces.”
[The
Marriage of Mercury and Philology awent
by William Harris Stahl and Richard Johnson with E.L. Burge, Columbia
University Press, 1977C.E. – Book I. 3, lf. 5].
They
are not at all greater than the gods as some have badly thought.
Pausanias Guide
to Greece,
vol. I, Book I (Attica), chapitle 40 §4,
lf.113, writing of Megara:
“μετὰ
ταῦτα ἐς τὸ τοῦ Διὸς τέμενος ἐσελθοῦσι
καλούμενον Ὀλυμπιεῖον ναός ἐστι θέας
ἄξιος: τὸ δὲ ἄγαλμα οὐκ ἐξειργάσθη
τοῦ Διός, … τῷ δὲ ἀγάλματι τοῦ Διὸς
πρόσωπον ἐλέφαντος καὶ χρυσοῦ, τὰ δὲ
λοιπὰ πηλοῦ τέ ἐστι καὶ γύψου: … ὑπὲρ
δὲ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ Διός εἰσιν Ὧραι
καὶ Μοῖραι: δῆλα δὲ πᾶσι τὴν πεπρωμένην
μόνῳ οἱ πείθεσθαι καὶ τὰς ὥρας τὸν
θεὸν τοῦτον νέμειν ἐς τὸ δέον. ”
“After
this when you have entered the precinct of Zeus called the Olympieum
you see a note worthy temple. But the image of Zeus was not finished,
…
The face of the image of Zeus is of ivory and gold, the other parts
are of clay and gypsum. … Above the head of Zeus are the Seasons
and Fates, and all may see that he is the only god obeyed by Destiny,
and that he apportions the seasons as is due. ”
[Pausanias.
Description of Greece with an English awending by W.H.S.
Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA,
Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.]
Ælfred in his awending of Bœthius mindeth us that Wyrd is only the name we give to the forethought and day to day working of the highest god, and is one of many "tools" this god hath to bring things to the wished for end. Thus xxxix §5 [Bœthius book 4, prosa vi] awending Samuel Fox:
“Ða ongon he sprecan swiþe feorran ymbuton. Swilce he na þa spræce ne mænde 7 tiohhode hit þeah þiderweardes 7 cwæþ. Ealle gesceafta gesewenlice and ungesewenlice, stillu 7 unstillu onfoþ æt þæm stillan 7 æt þam gestæþþigan 7 æt þam anfealdan Gode, endebyrdnesse 7 andwlitan 7 gemetgunge 7 forhwæm hit swa gesceapen wæs forhwæm he þat þy he gesceop eall þ[æt] he gesceop. Nis him nan wuht unnyt þæs ðe he gesceop. Se God wunaþ simle on þære hean ceastre his anfealdnesse 7 bilewitnesse. Ðonan he dælþ manega 7 mistlice gemetgunga eallum his gesceaftum and þonon he welt eallra. Ac þ[æt], þ[æt]te we hataþ Godes foreþonc 7 his foresceawung, þ[æt] biþ ða hwile þe hit þær mid him biþ, on his mode, ærþam þe hit gefremed weorþe ða hwile þe hit geþoht biþ. AC SIÐÐAN HIT FULLFREMED BIÞ, ÐONNE HATAÞ WE HIT WYRD. Be þy mæg ælc mon witan þ[æt] hi sint ægþer ge twegen naman ge twa ðing: foreþonc 7 wyrd. Se foreþonc is sio godcunde gesceadwisnes. Sio is fæst on þam hean sceopppende þe eall forewrat hu hit geweorþan sceal ær ær hit geweorþe. Ac þ[æt], þ[æt] we wyrd hataþ þ[æt] biþ Godes weorc þe ælce dæg wyrcþ, ægþer ge þæs þe we geseoþ, ge þæs þe us ungesewenlic biþ. Ac se godcunda foreþonc heaþeraþ (restrains) ealle gesceafta þ[æt] hi ne moton toslupan of heora endebyrdnesse. SIO WYRD ÐONNE DÆLÞ EALLUM GESCEAFTUM ANDWLITAN 7 STOWA 7 TIDA 7 GEMETGUNGA. Ac sio wyrd cymþ of þam gewitte 7 of þam foreþonce þæs ælmihtigan Godes. Se wyrcþ æfter his unasecgendlicum foreþonce þonne swa hwæt swa he wille.
§6 swa swa ælc cræftega þencþ 7 mearcaþ his weorc on his Mode ær ær he it wyrce, 7 wyrcþ siððan eall. Þios wandriende wyrd þe we wyrd hataþ færþ æfter his foreþonce, 7 æfter his geþeahte, swa swa he tiohhaþ þ[æt] hit sie. Þeah hit us manigfealdlic ðince, sum god, sum yfel, hit is þeah him anfeald god. Forþam he hit eall to godum ende bringþ, 7 for gode deþ eall þ[æt] þ[æt] he deþ. Siþþan we hit hataþ wyrd, syððan hit geworht biþ, ær hit wæs godes foreþonc 7 his foretiohhung. Ða wyrd he ðonne wyrcþ, oððe þurh ða godan englas, oððe þurh monna sawla, oððe þurh oððe oþerra gesceafta lif, oððe þurh heofones tungl, oþþe þurh ðara scuccena. Mistlice lotwrencas, hwilum þurh an þara, hwilum þurh eall ða. Ac þ[æt] is openlice cuþ, þ[æt] sio godcunde fore teohhung is anfeald 7 unawendendlic 7 welt ælces þinges endebyrdlice, and all þing gehiwaþ. Sume þing þonne on ðisse worulde sint underþied þære wyrd, sume hire nane wuht underþiede, ne sint. Ac sio wyrd 7 eall þa þing þe hire underþied sint, sint underþied þam godcundan foreþonce.
V. Then began he to speak very far about, as if he intended not that discourse, and nevertheless approached thitherward, and said : All creatures visible and invisible, still and moving, receive from the immovable, and from the steadfast, and from singly-existing God, order, and form and measure; and therefore it was so ordained, because he knew wherefore he made all that he made. Nothing of that which he has created is useless to him. God dwells always in the high city of his unity and simplicity. Thence he distributes many and various measures to all his creatures, and thence he governs them all. But that which we call God's providence and foreknowledge, is such while it is with him, in his mind, before it is fulfilled, and so long as it is designed; BUT AFTER IT IS FULFILLED, THEN WE CALL IT FATE [WYRD]. Hence may every man know that these are both two names, and two things, providence and fate. Providence is the divine intelligence which is fixed in the high Creator, who foreknows all, how it shall come to pass, before it happens. But that which we call fate, is God's work which he every day works, both what we see, and what is invisible to us. But the divine providence restrains all creatures, so that they cannot slip from their order. FATE, THEN, DISTRIBUTES TO ALL CREATURES, FORMS, AND PLACES, AND TIMES, AND MEASURES. But fate comes from the mind, and from the providence of Almighty God. He, therefore, works after his unspeakable providence, whatsoever he wills.
VI. As every artificer considers and marks out his work in his mind before he executes it, and afterwards executes it all; this varying fortune which we call fate, proceeds after his providence and after his counsel, as he intends that it should be. Though it appear to us complicated, partly good, and partly evil, it is nevertheless to him singly good, because he brings it all to a good end, and does for good all that which he does. (Afterwards, when it is wrought, we call it fate; before, it was God's providence, and his predestination.) He therefore directs fortune, either through good angels, or through the souls of men, or through the life of other creatures, or through the stars of heaven, or through the various deceits of devils ; sometimes through one of them, sometimes through them all.] But this is evidently known, that the divine predestination is simple and unchangeable, and governs everything according to order, and fashions everything. Some things, therefore, in this world are subject to fate, others are not at all subject to it. But fate, and all the things which are subject to it, are subject to the divine providence.
For that things happen against what many might ween to be what the highest god should wish the outcome to be, the widespread mistake hath arisen that wyrd is working against this god, or is somehow free of his wieldship. Neither of which are rightly said. The sooth is as Ælfred wrote in chap. X [Bœthius book 4, prosa 6]:
"Ðæt we ðonne hataþ wyrd; ðonne se gesceadwisa God ðe ælces monnes ðearfe wat hwæt wyrcþ oððe geþafaþ þæs ðe we ne wenaþ."
"This then we call fate [wyrd]; when the wise God, who knows every man's necessity, does or permits anything which we expect not."
That we men, from our low, time-bound and earthfast, outlook on the world, should have made a mistake about the high god, is, needless to say, much more likely than that he doth not know what he is doing, or that he is seemingly so weak as to be sometimes overcome by wyrd.
“Ða ongon he sprecan swiþe feorran ymbuton. Swilce he na þa spræce ne mænde 7 tiohhode hit þeah þiderweardes 7 cwæþ. Ealle gesceafta gesewenlice and ungesewenlice, stillu 7 unstillu onfoþ æt þæm stillan 7 æt þam gestæþþigan 7 æt þam anfealdan Gode, endebyrdnesse 7 andwlitan 7 gemetgunge 7 forhwæm hit swa gesceapen wæs forhwæm he þat þy he gesceop eall þ[æt] he gesceop. Nis him nan wuht unnyt þæs ðe he gesceop. Se God wunaþ simle on þære hean ceastre his anfealdnesse 7 bilewitnesse. Ðonan he dælþ manega 7 mistlice gemetgunga eallum his gesceaftum and þonon he welt eallra. Ac þ[æt], þ[æt]te we hataþ Godes foreþonc 7 his foresceawung, þ[æt] biþ ða hwile þe hit þær mid him biþ, on his mode, ærþam þe hit gefremed weorþe ða hwile þe hit geþoht biþ. AC SIÐÐAN HIT FULLFREMED BIÞ, ÐONNE HATAÞ WE HIT WYRD. Be þy mæg ælc mon witan þ[æt] hi sint ægþer ge twegen naman ge twa ðing: foreþonc 7 wyrd. Se foreþonc is sio godcunde gesceadwisnes. Sio is fæst on þam hean sceopppende þe eall forewrat hu hit geweorþan sceal ær ær hit geweorþe. Ac þ[æt], þ[æt] we wyrd hataþ þ[æt] biþ Godes weorc þe ælce dæg wyrcþ, ægþer ge þæs þe we geseoþ, ge þæs þe us ungesewenlic biþ. Ac se godcunda foreþonc heaþeraþ (restrains) ealle gesceafta þ[æt] hi ne moton toslupan of heora endebyrdnesse. SIO WYRD ÐONNE DÆLÞ EALLUM GESCEAFTUM ANDWLITAN 7 STOWA 7 TIDA 7 GEMETGUNGA. Ac sio wyrd cymþ of þam gewitte 7 of þam foreþonce þæs ælmihtigan Godes. Se wyrcþ æfter his unasecgendlicum foreþonce þonne swa hwæt swa he wille.
§6 swa swa ælc cræftega þencþ 7 mearcaþ his weorc on his Mode ær ær he it wyrce, 7 wyrcþ siððan eall. Þios wandriende wyrd þe we wyrd hataþ færþ æfter his foreþonce, 7 æfter his geþeahte, swa swa he tiohhaþ þ[æt] hit sie. Þeah hit us manigfealdlic ðince, sum god, sum yfel, hit is þeah him anfeald god. Forþam he hit eall to godum ende bringþ, 7 for gode deþ eall þ[æt] þ[æt] he deþ. Siþþan we hit hataþ wyrd, syððan hit geworht biþ, ær hit wæs godes foreþonc 7 his foretiohhung. Ða wyrd he ðonne wyrcþ, oððe þurh ða godan englas, oððe þurh monna sawla, oððe þurh oððe oþerra gesceafta lif, oððe þurh heofones tungl, oþþe þurh ðara scuccena. Mistlice lotwrencas, hwilum þurh an þara, hwilum þurh eall ða. Ac þ[æt] is openlice cuþ, þ[æt] sio godcunde fore teohhung is anfeald 7 unawendendlic 7 welt ælces þinges endebyrdlice, and all þing gehiwaþ. Sume þing þonne on ðisse worulde sint underþied þære wyrd, sume hire nane wuht underþiede, ne sint. Ac sio wyrd 7 eall þa þing þe hire underþied sint, sint underþied þam godcundan foreþonce.
V. Then began he to speak very far about, as if he intended not that discourse, and nevertheless approached thitherward, and said : All creatures visible and invisible, still and moving, receive from the immovable, and from the steadfast, and from singly-existing God, order, and form and measure; and therefore it was so ordained, because he knew wherefore he made all that he made. Nothing of that which he has created is useless to him. God dwells always in the high city of his unity and simplicity. Thence he distributes many and various measures to all his creatures, and thence he governs them all. But that which we call God's providence and foreknowledge, is such while it is with him, in his mind, before it is fulfilled, and so long as it is designed; BUT AFTER IT IS FULFILLED, THEN WE CALL IT FATE [WYRD]. Hence may every man know that these are both two names, and two things, providence and fate. Providence is the divine intelligence which is fixed in the high Creator, who foreknows all, how it shall come to pass, before it happens. But that which we call fate, is God's work which he every day works, both what we see, and what is invisible to us. But the divine providence restrains all creatures, so that they cannot slip from their order. FATE, THEN, DISTRIBUTES TO ALL CREATURES, FORMS, AND PLACES, AND TIMES, AND MEASURES. But fate comes from the mind, and from the providence of Almighty God. He, therefore, works after his unspeakable providence, whatsoever he wills.
VI. As every artificer considers and marks out his work in his mind before he executes it, and afterwards executes it all; this varying fortune which we call fate, proceeds after his providence and after his counsel, as he intends that it should be. Though it appear to us complicated, partly good, and partly evil, it is nevertheless to him singly good, because he brings it all to a good end, and does for good all that which he does. (Afterwards, when it is wrought, we call it fate; before, it was God's providence, and his predestination.) He therefore directs fortune, either through good angels, or through the souls of men, or through the life of other creatures, or through the stars of heaven, or through the various deceits of devils ; sometimes through one of them, sometimes through them all.] But this is evidently known, that the divine predestination is simple and unchangeable, and governs everything according to order, and fashions everything. Some things, therefore, in this world are subject to fate, others are not at all subject to it. But fate, and all the things which are subject to it, are subject to the divine providence.
For that things happen against what many might ween to be what the highest god should wish the outcome to be, the widespread mistake hath arisen that wyrd is working against this god, or is somehow free of his wieldship. Neither of which are rightly said. The sooth is as Ælfred wrote in chap. X [Bœthius book 4, prosa 6]:
"Ðæt we ðonne hataþ wyrd; ðonne se gesceadwisa God ðe ælces monnes ðearfe wat hwæt wyrcþ oððe geþafaþ þæs ðe we ne wenaþ."
"This then we call fate [wyrd]; when the wise God, who knows every man's necessity, does or permits anything which we expect not."
That we men, from our low, time-bound and earthfast, outlook on the world, should have made a mistake about the high god, is, needless to say, much more likely than that he doth not know what he is doing, or that he is seemingly so weak as to be sometimes overcome by wyrd.
The careful reader will have already seen wyrd being linked to "tida" "tides" will have something to do with the "Wyrde systres" being three. Thus Aristotle On the Heavens (Greek: Περὶ οὐρανοῦ, Latin: De Caelo or De Caelo et Mundo) book 1, chapitle 1:
“Καθάπερ γάρ φασι καὶ οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι, τὸ πᾶν καὶ τὰ πάντα τοῖς τρισὶν ὥρισται· τελευτὴ γὰρ καὶ μέσον καὶ ἀρχὴ τὸν ἀριθμὸν ἔχει τὸν τοῦ παντός, ταῦτα δὲ τὸν τῆς τριάδος. Διὸ παρὰ τῆς φύσεως εἰληφότες ὥσπερ νόμους ἐκείνης, καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἁγιστείας χρώμεθα τῶν θεῶν τῷ ἀριθμῷ τούτῳ. ”
“For, as the Pythagoreans say, the world and all that is in it is determined by the number three, since beginning and middle and end give the number of an 'all', and the number they give is the triad. And so, having taken these three from nature as (so to speak) laws of it, we make further use of the number three in the worship of the Gods.”
[Awending J. L. Stocks].
And in Plato Laws Book 4, 715e to 716a you will see how Zeus was sometimes thought of as threefold among the Greeks of yore from the same inting. And this would be another way of outfolding the meaning of the three eyes of the Zeus in the Larisaean citadel of Argos (see Paus. 2.24.3). The two things being truly the same. And we minn that the Northerners say Óðinn, our Wōden, is one of three brothers ( Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga 3: “Óðinn átti tvá brœðr, hét annarr Vé, en annarr Vili; ...). And in Grímnismál we find as nicknames for Wōden, Þriði (v.46), Hár. (v. 46), Jafnhár (v.49), which three names are brooked by Snorri Sturluson for the three kings the Gylfi talketh to in the Gylfaginning.
Before leaving this here, it is worth marking Ælfred's words which make me to think of an English Ásgarðr again:
" Se God wunaþ simle on þære hean ceastre his anfealdnesse 7 bilewitnesse. Ðonan he dælþ manega 7 mistlice gemetgunga eallum his gesceaftum and þonon he welt eallra."
"God dwells always in the high city of his unity and simplicity. Thence he distributes many and various measures to all his creatures, and thence he governs them all. "
Or Hliðskjálf?
Grímnismál:
"Óðinn ok Frigg sátu í Hliðskjálfu ok sáu um heima alla."
"Othin and Frigg sat in Hlithskjolf and looked over all the worlds."
Gylfaginning 9:
"Þar er einn staðr, er Hliðskjálf heitir, ok þá er Óðinn settist þar í hásæti, þá sá hann of alla heima ok hvers manns athæfi ok vissi alla hluti, þá er hann sá."
"There is one abode called Hlidskjálf, and when Allfather sat in the high-seat there, he looked out over the whole world and saw every man's acts, and knew all things which he saw."
Farewell.
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