TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

408 WISE WOMEN.
qvi&r, Saem. 273 b ; liotar nornir skopo oss langa }?ra, dirae parcae
creaverunt nobis longum moerorem 217 a
; nornir heita )?o3r er
nauS skapa, Skaldskaparmal p. 212. a In the same sense nornir
visa, Ssem. 88 b , they give us to wit judgment, and are wise. Hence to
them, as to judges, a seat is given : a norna stoli sat ek niu daga
127 a . They approach every new born child, and utter his doom ;
at Helgi s birth, it is said in Saem. 149 :
nott var i boe, nornir qvamo,
)?cer er 6 olingi aldr um skopo :
}?ann baSo fylki froegstan verSa,
>ok BuSlunga beztan ]?yckja.
snero J?cer af afli drlogpdtto,
7
J>a er borgir braut i Bralundi :
J?cer um greiddo gidlinsimo,
ok und manasal miojan/esfo.
]?oer austr ok vestr enda falo,
land a milli :
J?ar atti loffiungr
bra nipt Nera a norftrvega
eiumfesti. ey ba5 hon halda.
This important passage tells us, that norns entering the castle at
night spun for the hero the threads of his fate, and stretched the
golden cord (fidttr = daht, docht, = simi) in the midst of heaven ;
one norn hid an end of the thread eastward, another westward, a
1
third fastened it northward; this third one is called sister of Neri .
Their number, though not expressly stated, is to T)e gathered from
the threefold action. All the region between the eastern and
western ends of the line was to fall to the young hero s lot ; did
the third norn diminish this gift, when she flung a band northward,
and bade it hold for aye ? (see Suppl.).
It seems the regular thing in tales of norns and fays, for the
advantages promised in preceding benefactions to be partly neutral
ized by a succeeding one.
The Nornagestssaga cap. 11 says : There travelled about in the
OHG. scuof, OS. sctip, from the same root. The AS. word metten I connect
with metod (creator, see p. 22). In Boeth. p. 101 (Rawlinson) a varia lectio
lias
)?a gramaii mettena, 3
the unkind fates the ;
*
metodo giscapu in Hel. 66,
19. 67, 11 answer to those wyrda gesceapu, and the gen. plurals metodo,
wyrda imply that not one creator, but several are of. spoken Vintler calls
them diernen, die dem menschen erteilen, maids that dole out to man.
1 Conf. nipt Nara, Egilssaga p. 440.