Urdr
Urdr EuropeThe Golden Age in Germanic mythology ended when ‘the three giant maids came from Giantland’, because they brought with them Time. Their names were Urdr, ‘past’, Verdandi, ‘present’, and Skuld, ‘future’: collectively, these three sisters were known as the Nornir and dwelt round the well of Urdr, situated beneath the third root of the cosmic ash Yggdrasil. They were the Fates to whom Odin and the gods owed obedience. The Anglo-Saxons called Urdr by the name of Wyrd, which meant fate or destiny, and they maintained their belief in the tremendous power of the three sisters long after the arrival of Christianity. The Weird Sisters in Shakespeare's Macbeth clearly owed something to the Nornir.
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