Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic culture roughly corresponding to Fate. It 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 Ørl?g.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 ørl?g is from ór "out, from, beyond" and l?g "law", and may be interpreted literally as "beyond law", or as "fundamental/absolute/primary law". The word is still used in Dutch: oorlog = war.

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. Indeed, for a true comprehension it is key for the Wyrd to be embraced as a conceptual mystery, wherein the tides and tidings of time and timelessness flow and weave always, entwining the reticulum of the fabric of being and non-being.Not only are the terms time and tide etymologically rooted, but the terms and their metaphorical accoutrement yielded the conflux: tide . The Wyrd also foregrounds 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 by the wyrds or 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""The Wanderer": "Wyrd bið ful aræd" (Fate remains wholly inexorable) and "goes as she shall"Beowulf: "Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel!" (Fate goes ever as she shall!), the fate (Norse ørl?g) 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 Ørl?g" trans. Kodratoff.Frigg, on the other hand, while she "knows all ørl?g", "says it not herself" (Lokasenna 30).ørl?glausa "ørl?g-less" occurs in Voluspa 17 in reference to trees (as opposed to humans).

Well of Wyrd

According to Wodening (2004), the Well of Wyrd (ON: Urðarbrunnr or Urðarbrunni) springs "at the base of Yggdrasil."[1] (accessed: August 20, 2007) Other sources locate it in AsgardGylfaginning 15, Prose Edda. 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 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

See also

• Qadar - similar concept within Islam
• Dharma