United States or Tunisia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then came the Norns, who spin the thread, and weave the woof, of every man's life; and they held in their hands the web of his own destiny. And Urd, the Past, sat on the tops of the eastern mountains, where the sun begins to rise at dawn; while Verdanda, the Present, stood in the western sea, where sky and water meet.
Clinging to each other, Eric and Skallagrim saw the sight of fear that was written on the loom of the Norns. They saw it for a breath. Then, with a laugh like the wail of wolves, the shapes of fire sprang up and rent the web asunder.
And now others came across the Rainbow Bridge. They were Frigga and Sif and Nanna, the wives of Odin and Thor and Baldur. Frigga looked upon the Norns. As she did, she turned a glance of love and sadness upon Baldur, her son, and then she drew back and placed her hand upon Nanna's head. Odin turned from gazing on the Norns, and looked upon Frigga, his queenly wife.
For nine years they all lived on the shores of the lake, and no people in the world were as happy as these six: till one morning the three wives stood before their husbands and said with weeping eyes: 'Dear lords, the time has now come when we must bid you farewell, for we are not allowed to stay with you any longer. We are Norns or, as some call us, Valkyrie.
And they stretched the web between them, and its ends were hidden in the far-away mists. Then with all their might the two Norns span the purple and golden threads, and wove the fatal woof. The next morning, at earliest break of day, the youth sought Regin, and made known his errand. "I have come for charcoal for my master Mimer's forges.
In the prologue of the Dusk of the Gods we find the Norns spinning in the dark near Brunnhilda's cave; the rope they are at work on breaks, and they learn that the end is near. They disappear; day breaks, and Siegfried and Brunnhilda enter.
Fleay separates the portions of the play which are undoubtedly to be assigned to witches from the parts he gives to his Norns, and attributes them to different characters; the other mixes up the witch and Norn elements in one confused mass.
So Sigmund became a mighty King and far-famed, wise and high-minded: he had to wife one named Borghild, and two sons they had between them, one named Helgi and the other Hamund; and when Helgi was born, Norns came to him, and spake over him, and said that he should be in time to come the most renowned of all kings.
And their bright armor glittered in the sunlight, and their burnished shields shone like so many golden mirrors. A fairer sight had the folk of Isenstein never seen. Long and earnestly Queen Brunhild gazed, and then, turning away, she burst into tears; for she knew that she had been again outwitted, and that it was vain for her to struggle against the Norns' decrees.
"Why so sad, as if thy heart were heavy with care? Has any one spoken unkindly, or has aught grievous happened to thee?" "Oh, no, dearest mother!" said Kriemhild. "It is nothing that saddens me, nothing but a foolish dream. I cannot forget it." "Tell me the dream," said her mother: "mayhap it betokens something that the Norns have written for thee."
Word Of The Day