‘Twas the morning of time,
When naught yet was,
Not sand nor sea,
Nor cooling streams.
Earth was not there,
Nor heaven above,
Nought save a void;
A yawning gap.
And of grass there was none.
- from the prose Edda
Winter had come early to the Lofoten Islands and the wind howled around the huge chieftain’s house at Borg, on the island of Vestvågøy. It was late evening and the cruel, black-cragged mountains were silhouetted against the cold, dark swirling sea, topped with sullen, white-crested waves. Behind Borg the branches of the arctic birch and rowan trees rustled loudly as they thrashed about in the wind.
A lone swan winged its way over sand and sea towards the harsh tundra and mountains beyond. The swans come from heaven. They live near the holy Urdar-brunnr or Well of Wyrd. The well lies under the third root of the ash tree Yggdrasil, the tree of #life, whose branches spread out all over the world.
Under Yggdrasil, the Norns, who are the three sisters of fate, dispense the destinies of all men. Urd, the Past, old and decrepit sits with Verdandi, the Present, who is young and active. Skuld, the Future, stands veiled and facing away from her two sisters, holding an unopened book.
They originally came from Jotunheim, the land of the Giants. Now they live in a dark cave near the source of Wyrd’s spring. Yggdrasil is dying. The sisters can only delay its death. Every morning they draw water from Wyrd, that white bubbling eye in the ground, and mix it with earth to create the magical mud that helps to preserve the tree's #life force. Then the sisters start to spin. The threads that they weave determine the destiny of all men, even the gods and the universe itself.
Man must die but he will live until the Norns break his #life’s thread. In his time on this earth he can laugh at death, live a warrior’s #life and not give in to despair. Even the gods themselves must fight destruction, knowing it to be inevitable.
The last remaining light disappeared and darkness came to Vestvågøy. Silhouetted against the coal black night, the stars shone brightly through an ethereal luminous green curtain. As every Northman knows, Odin's messengers the valkyries, were riding forth that night. The glint of their armour created a magical veil of strange flickering lights, that faded in and out of sight.
Inside the Great Hall at Borg the fires burnt brightly. Above one, a cauldron of warm water bubbled gently. On a box bed in one corner, lay a naked, sweat-soaked woman. She groaned and sometimes screamed as she writhed about on a sheep-skin rug.
The Norns blindly wove the web of #life for the child not yet born. The threads were of many colours, but a single black one, the thread of death ran from north to south. They had almost finished weaving when Skuld capriciously grabbed the web, ripped it up and threw the broken threads to the four winds. No one, not even her sisters, could know what the Future would decide.
Gudlang’s body heaved and her back arched. She raised her head from the rug and shouted out “Freyja, let it be a boy!” Then with a huge scream that echoed around the walls, she collapsed backwards onto the floor with a baby between her blood-soaked legs. Gudlang sobbed convulsively and begged the Norns for a healthy child.
An old crone took a knife that she had previously sterilised in the fire, cut the umbilical cord and then knotted it. She washed the placenta off the crying baby and then laid it on the sheepskin rug beside the mother.
The father, Ingolf, then came across. Well over six and a half feet tall, he had massive muscular arms and huge hands. He picked the baby up in one hand, as though it was no more than a lump of meat, and examined it closely. A grunt of satisfaction passed between his lips.
“A boy.”
If it had been a girl, he would have had it exposed to the elements. He wrapped the boy up in his cloak, thereby acknowledging the child as his. Then he sprinkled the baby with some water for luck and said “I name thee Ingvar in honour of my dead friend.” A child would never take his own father’s name, so long as the father lived.
Gudlang heaved a huge sigh of relief. The baby was a boy and safe! Thank Freyja that she had prepared porridge as a sacrifice for the Norns!
Ingolf held Gudlang’s hand and looked hard into her eyes. Then he released his grip and walked away. Tonight he would sleep with his favourite bed slave, a dark-haired Celtic beauty.
Skuld stood silent and alone by the ash tree Yggdrasil, hidden from view by her hooded black cloak. When Ingolf on earth claimed the child as his, she flung back her hood to reveal a mass of thick curly blond hair that tumbled down over her shoulders, and laughed out loud towards Valhalla. Her eyes were pools of flashing metallic blue and slanted slightly upwards and her lips parted in a cruel smile. She raised her hands high in the air and said, “I am Skuld, Goddess of the future, highborn, yet also valkyrie of Odin and half human. And you, new born Ingvar are mine. Mine. Hear me Odin!” Then she wrapped her cloak about her once more and was gone.
