THE NORNS AND OUR DESTINY

by Robert Blumetti

I have often been asked about the place of predestination and free will within the belief structure of the Folk Faith. Any discussion dealing with destiny and fate immediately brings us to the Norns and their place in the cosmological structure of the universe. They rule over the role that we, the Children of the Gods, play in the great scheme of life.

The Norns are female supernatural figures. The reason they are conceived as female is because of their nurturing nature. They weave the destiny of each individual. This creative forces, like all creative forces in the universe, are female in nature. Their weaving process is like that of the embryo being nurtured and obtaining form within the woman's womb. It is giving life and determining the nature of all individuals. This means that they are associated with our DNA and genes. From our past we are formed, and what we inherit will give form to the life we lead and thus shape the future. Past, present and future are interconnected. It is the gene pool of our Folk. The Norns are both the spiritual force that constructs a road that we will journey down, as well as the physical link between our ancestors and descendants, from which we inherit the abilities needed to make the right decisions, persevere and achieve success.

Our genes speak to us, and they will influence us by shaping the way we react to situations that will arise. This happens on both the group level and the individual level. It is through our genes that the Gods communicate to us, and it is because of our genes and DNA that we might be chosen by the Gods for a special mission or task in life.

There are three primary Norns: Past, Present and Future (Urd, Verdandi and Skuld). They live by the well of Urd, but they are not the only Norns. There are other Norns as well, both benevolent and malevolent, who could assist or reverse a person's fortunes. In fact, each of us has an individual Norn that guides us through our journey through life. This is the origin of the Christian concept of a guardian angel.

The Norns are said to cut wood, which means that they carve the Runes that will control the life of each individual. At birth, Norns visit each child as it is born and will cut Runes to determine the events that the child will face in its life as it grows and matures. Some of the Norns might find favor with the Elves while others are closely associated with the Dwarfs. This can determinate the nature of each child. This can explain why some individuals excel at whatever they try and while others are constantly faced with defeat and disappointment. Some individuals will live lives of toil and hardship, while others experience charmed lives. The Greeks and Romans called the Norns the Fates, and the Romans had a Goddess that was native to Rome , named Fortuna. She was the Goddess of luck, and if she smiled on you, you would experience good fortune throughout you life, but if she ignored you, bad fortune would follow you throughout your live. All our Indo-European ancestors believed in female forces that controlled the destiny of our lives.

Odin knows what roads that each of us will travel because he has given an eye so that he could drink from Mimir's well. He might chose us for a task, but it is up to each and everyone of us to decide if we are worthy to carry out a task or overcome an obstacle, but we must prove ourselves worthy. The Norns might weave a road for us to travel, but will we have to make the decisions that will determine in what direction we will travel. The road they weave for us is not straight and direct, but has many crossroads along the way.

As I mentioned before, each of us has an individual Norn that weaves the path that we travel in life. As a child growing up in Catholic school, I remember the nuns telling us that each of us has a good guardian angel, as well as a bad angel. The former is constantly leading us down the straight and narrow path, while the latter is trying to convince us to do evil. I even remember the nuns telling us to sit on the left side of our desk-seats to let the good guardian angel sit with us, because our good guardian angel is always on our right side.

Today there is a growing fascination with angels. The shelves of your local bookstore is filled with books about angels. Angel-lore tells us that angels are not cute, little creatures with wings, sweet faces and delicate features, but are often great warriors and fierce beings. They are usually represented as a combination of male and female features. Even fierce warrior-angels like Michael and Gabriele are depicted with female-life features. The reason is simple - what our ancestors understood about the Norns was incorporated into the lore of angels.

Norns are female entities, but they are also fierce. One should not seek contact with one's Norn. The Norns are a powerful force and we should respect them and honor them, but to actually see one is a frightening experience. If you should see your Norn, it will be depicted as a terrible beast, and it will mean only one thing - danger! It could very well mean that you will soon die or suffer great harm.

Twenty years ago, when I was first involved in my study group, exploring the Norse religion, led by Robert Zoller, I had an interesting and frightening experience. One night, I had a horrible nightmare. I was dreaming that I was swimming in a black ocean. I was under water and the water was black as pitch. I could see nothing, but I had a terrible sense that some great danger was after me. I could not see it and all I could do was desperately swim as fast as I could. I could not see the surface either, but I tried to swim in the direction that I thought was upward. As I struggled, I sense that the danger that was following me was fast approaching, catching up to me. It was then that I look down, behind me I saw a great white shark racing toward me with jaws open wide. I continued to struggle, desperately trying to reach the surface, but my efforts were futile. In seconds the huge jaws engulfed me and snapped closed about me waist. The next thing I knew, i was sitting up right in bed, covered with sweat and screaming. I woke my entire family that night and I could not get back to sleep.

In the nights that followed, I continued to have nightmares about sharks, though nothing as terrible as what I experience that first night. Even today, twenty years later, I still fear having dreams about sharks. Now there is a point to this story - or two points to it.

First, exactly one year to the day I had that dream, I was crossing Park Avenue in New York City . It was night and it was raining and when I reached the corner, I did not want to try cross the avenue on a red light, as some people were doing. So I waited for the light to turn green. The light changed and proceeded to cross, making it half way across the avenue, to the island that runs down the center of Park Avenue . When I stepped off the island to finish crossing the street, being as careful as I could because it was raining, I was suddenly engulfed by the headlights of a van that was turning onto the avenue. The van hit me straight on and I went flying fifteen feet through the air, landed on the asphalt and rolled until I finally came to a stop. As I laid there in the rain I heard people rushing toward me. I opened my eyes and saw the driver getting out of his van, and without thinking, I tried to leaped up, screaming bloody murder how I wanted to rip him apart. Everyone was startled at first by my incredible "resurrection." They must have thought I was seriously hurt from the collision and did not think I was able to move, let alone try and jump up. Well, they were eventually able to restrain me, and convinced me to remain still, as I could have internal injuries. When the ambulance finally arrived, I was still sitting on the wet street. The medics told me that I should not have gotten up and walked around. I told them I did not walk about and that I had landed right here. They looked at where the van was, then at where I landed and then at each other and could not believe that I was throw so far without any visible injuries. Needless to say, I agreed to go to the hospital for x-rays. I was released later than night because I was uninjured. Except for some minor pain in my right arm, (I landed on it and rolled) I was completely uninjured.

It was not until I told my study group, several of weeks later, that they reminded me that it was exactly one year to the day when I had that terrible dream with the shark. After discussing the incident, we had come to the conclusion that the dream could have been a warning of some kind of what would happen one year later. Was it a test? A warning? Or could it be something more? We did not knew for sure. But there is one other interesting aspect of this tale.

Seven years earlier, when I was attending school in Boston , I had gone to the beach during the summer. I was up to my chest in the water and the water was very crowded, when suddenly dead silence had descended over everyone n the water. There, swimming among us was a shark. Its dark back fin was sailing through the water, moving in and out and around the people. No one moved and I know I was too frightened to move. The year was 1976, and I had just seen the movie Jaws. The shark was about twenty feet from me, but I could clearly see it was about ten feet long, though everyone swore afterwards that it was a thirty foot great white. Fortunately, the shark did not brother anyone. I felt that the shark was looking for me, and after it passed by me, it quickly swam out to sea once more. As soon as it departed, pandemonium swept over the beach and we all scrambled to get on dry land once more. The life guard told everyone it was probably a harmless sand shark, but all anyone could say was that it look reminded them of Jaws.

I have done a great deal of meditation on these experiences and I have come to the conclusion that my dream was some kind of warning from my Norn. The accident that I experienced a year later might have been some kind of ritualistic, transforming event that the Gods had conducted. Was it their way of causing a soul-transforming event (a death and resurrection ritualistic initiation of some kind) that would set me on a new course that would eventually cause me to write The Book of Balder Rising? I wonder? But one thing I am sure of - the experience was powerful and is still as real to me today as if it happened yesterday.

Joy to you all,

Bob Blumetti

Hail Odin! Hail Balder! Hail the Golden Age of Gimli!