page_title: Norns
section_title: Guðrúnarkviða II
hierarchical_section_title: Norns / Attestations / Poetic Edda / Guðrúnarkviða II
caption_attribution_description: English: The caption for this illustration reads "Norns". The artist is uncredited. Please replace with a higher quality version if possible. This version was taken from a low quality scan found in a PDF version of the source.
context_page_description: The Norns in Norse mythology are female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men. They roughly correspond to other controllers of humans' destiny, such as the Fates, elsewhere in European mythology.
  In Snorri Sturluson's interpretation of the Völuspá, Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld, the three most important of the Norns, come out from a hall standing at the Well of Urðr or Well of Fate. They draw water from the well and take sand that lies around it, which they pour over the Yggdrasill tree so that its branches will not rot. These three Norns are described as powerful maiden giantesses whose arrival from Jötunheimr ended the golden age of the gods. They may be the same as the maidens of Mögþrasir who are described in Vafþrúðnismál.
  Beside these three famous Norns, there are many others who appear at a person's birth in order to determine his or her future. In the pre-Christian Norse societies, Norns were thought to have visited newborn children. There were both malevolent and benevolent Norns: the former caused all the malevolent and tragic events in the world while the latter were kind and protective goddesses.
context_section_description: Brynhild's solution was to have Gunnarr and his brothers, the lords of the Burgundians, kill Sigurd and afterwards to commit suicide in order to join Sigurd in the afterlife. Her brother Atli (Attila the Hun) avenged her death by killing the lords of the Burgundians, but since he was married to their sister Guðrún, Atli would soon be killed by her. In Guðrúnarkviða II, the Norns actively enter the series of events by informing Atli in a dream that his wife would kill him. The description of the dream begins with this stanza:
  "Svá mik nýliga
  nornir vekja," -
  vílsinnis spá
  vildi, at ek réða, -
  "hugða ek þik, Guðrún
  Gjúka dóttir,
  læblöndnum hjör
  leggja mik í gögnum."
  39. "Now from sleep
  the Norns have waked me
  With visions of terror,--
  To thee will I tell them;
  Methought thou, Guthrun,
  Gjuki's daughter,
  With poisoned blade
  didst pierce my body."
caption: Norns in Die Helden Und Götter Des Nordens, Oder: Das Buch Der Sagen by Amalia Schoppe, (1832)
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