thematic thread
Fate & the Doomed Walk
At the root of the World-Ash sit the Norns, who carve the weird of gods and men alike. Here is where fate enters the cosmos — even the gods cannot unmake what is woven here.
The World-Ash and the Norns
At the centre of her vision, as at the centre of the whole mythology, stands Yggdrasil — the Ash she knows by name, the great tree wet with white water, from which the dews fall into the dales, standing ever green over the Well of Urd.[1] And there she sees the Norns, the maidens deep in knowledge who come from the well to set the laws and choose the lives of the children of men — to carve men's fates.
This is the deep architecture of the Norse world: a living tree holding the cosmos together, and beneath it the three weird-sisters who fix destiny for gods and mortals alike. It is the root of the fatalism that runs through every saga in this atlas — the sense that a life is already shaped, that a man's ørlǫg is laid down before he acts, and that wisdom lies in meeting an appointed fate well rather than escaping it. The Seeress does not merely describe the Norns; she speaks as one who sees the whole woven pattern, beginning to end, which is why what she says next can be prophecy.
The source text · 1
An ash I know, / Yggdrasil its name, / With water white / is the great tree wet; / Thence come the dews / that fall in the dales, / Green by Urth's well / does it ever grow.— voluspo
Yggdrasil the Ash, wet with white water, ever green over the well; the Norns (Bellows 1923).
Ragnarök is fate at its grandest: the gods know exactly how they will die, and arm against it anyway. The whole Norse vision of doomed-but-defiant courage starts here, with deities who face a certain end.
Ragnarök, and the green world after
At last Gylfi asks the question the whole telling has been moving toward: how does it end? And the gods answer with Ragnarök, the Weird of the Gods — a vision unique in the mythologies of the world, for here the gods themselves are doomed and know it.[1] A great winter comes; the bound monsters break loose; the Wolf swallows the sun, the Midgard-Serpent rises from the sea, Loki and the giants sail against the gods, and on the last field gods and monsters destroy one another — Odin devoured by the Wolf, Thor and the Serpent slaying each other — while Surtr's fire burns the world and the earth sinks into the sea.
And yet it is not the end. The gods told Gylfi that a green earth rises again from the water, a few gods survive, two humans hidden in a wood live to repeople the world, and Baldr returns from the dead into the new age.[2] Then Gylfi's vision simply ends — the great hall vanishes, and he stands alone on an empty plain, the gods and their telling gone like smoke.[3] This is the keystone of the whole atlas: the doomed-but-defiant vision that lies beneath the sagas' fatalism. The Norse hero meets his death well because his gods do — the whole cosmos faces its certain doom with open eyes, and the only victory is to meet it bravely. Every ørlǫg, every fey man walking knowingly to his death in the family sagas, is an echo of Ragnarök.
The source text · 3
Then shall happen what seems great tidings: the Wolf shall swallow the sun; and this shall seem to men a great harm. Then the other wolf shall seize the moon, and he also shall work great ruin; the stars shall vanish from the heavens. Then shall come to pass these tidings also: all the earth shall tremble so, and the crags, that trees shall be torn up from the earth, and the crags fall to ruin; and all fetters and bonds shall be broken and rent. Then shall Fenris-Wolf get loose; then the sea shall gush forth upon the land, because the Midgard Serpent stirs in giant wrath and advances up onto the land. Then that too shall happen, that Naglfar shall be loosened, the ship which is so named. (It is made of dead men's nails; wherefore a warning is desirable, that if a man die with unshorn nails, that man adds much material to the ship Naglfar, which gods and men were fain to have finished late.) Yet in this sea-flood Naglfar shall float. Hrymr is the name of the giant who steers Naglfar. Fenris-Wolf shall advance with gaping mouth, and his lower jaw shall be against the earth, but the upper against heaven,—he would gape yet more if there were room for it; fires blaze from his eyes and nostrils. The Midgard Serpent shall blow venom so that he shall sprinkle all the air and water; and he is very terrible, and shall be on one side of the Wolf. In this din shall the heaven be cloven, and the Sons of Múspell ride thence: Surtr shall ride first, and both before him and after him burning fire; his sword is exceeding good: from it radiance shines brighter than from the sun; when they ride over Bifröst, then the bridge shall break, as has been told before. The Sons of Múspell shall go forth to that field which is called Vígrídr, thither shall come Fenris-Wolf also and the Midgard Serpent; then Loki and Hrymr shall come there also, and with him all the Rime-Giants. All the champions of Hel follow Loki; and the Sons of Múspell shall have a company by themselves, and it shall be very bright. The field Vígrídr is a hundred leagues wide each way.— gylfaginning
The Wolf shall swallow the sun; the doom of the gods (Brodeur 1916).
In the place called Hoddmímir's Holt there shall lie hidden during the Fire of Surtr two of mankind, who are called thus: Líf and Lífthrasir, and for food they shall have the morning-dews. From these folk shall come so numerous an offspring that all the world shall be peopled, even as is said here:— gylfaginning
The green earth rises again; the remnant of mankind and gods (Brodeur 1916).
Thereupon Gangleri heard great noises on every side of him; and then, when he had looked about him more, lo, he stood out of doors on a level plain, and saw no hall there and no castle. Then he went his way forth and came home into his kingdom, and told those tidings which he had seen and heard; and after him each man told these tales to the other.— gylfaginning
The hall vanishes; Gylfi stands alone — the vision ends (Brodeur 1916).
Down in the human world, Gísli the outlaw is visited by two dream-women, one bright and one bloody, who foretell his death. He cannot escape it; he can only meet it — and the dreams make the doom inescapable and known.
The dream-women
What wears Gísli down is not the hunt but his sleep. Through his outlaw years two dream-women visit him: a good one who comforts and counsels him, and a worse one who comes with horror.[1]
As the end nears, the better dream-wife fades and the evil one takes hold — washing his hair in blood, binding a bloody hood about his brow, drenching him in gore. The dreams grow so terrible that Gísli, like Grettir before him, becomes afraid to be alone in the dark, unable to bear it when Auðr leaves his side.[2] Two of the sagas' greatest outlaws, both undone in the same way: a strength no enemy can break, brought low by dreams that make solitude unendurable. The dreams even show Gísli his own last fight, fought and lost, before it comes.
The source text · 2
The next three years Gisli was sometimes in his house at Geirthiofsfirth, and sometimes with Thorkel the Wealthy, harboured by stealth. Other three years he spent in roaming over the land, and going from house to house asking help and countenance from great chiefs; but something always tripped him up everywhere, so that naught came of it. So mighty was that spell that Thorgrim's witchcraft had thrown on him that it was fated no chief should shelter him, and no one ever went heartily into his cause. After those six years were over he spent his time for the most part in Geirthiofsfirth, sometimes in his house, over which Auda ruled, and sometimes in the hiding-place which he had hollowed out for himself. That was on the north bank of the river. But he had another lair on the south bank among the crags, and there he lurked for the most part.— gisla saga
The two dream-women begin to visit Gísli (Dasent 1866).
At last Gisli was so sore pressed with dreams that he grew quite afraid to be alone in the dark, and could not bear to be left by himself, for as soon as ever he shut his eyes the same wife appeared to him. One night it happened that Gisli struggled just a little in his sleep, and Auda asked what had happened.— gisla saga
The evil dream-wife; Gísli grows afraid of the dark.
Gunnarr's turn at the hillside is fate in a single gesture: he could ride to safety, but something in him will not, and the reader feels the doom close like a trap he half-chooses.
The fair hillside
And then the most famous swerve in the saga. Riding down to the ship that would carry him to safety, Gunnarr's horse stumbled and threw him — and as he rose, his eye fell on the slope of home. The hillside had never looked so fair to him, he said, with its pale cornfields and its mown meadows; and he turned his horse and rode back, and would not leave Iceland after all.[1]
It is not stupidity and it is not quite courage; it is a man choosing his own land over his own life, with full knowledge of the price. To stay is to be a lawful target for every enemy he has made. Gunnarr stays. Kolskeggr sails. The brothers never see each other again — and the genuine words Gunnarr spoke on that hillside wait beneath this step, in the old translation.
The source text · 1
"Fair is the Lithe; so fair that it has never seemed to me so fair; the corn fields are white to harvest, and the home mead is mown; and now I will ride back home, and not fare abroad at all."— njals saga
Gunnarr looks back — 'Fair is the Lithe' — and turns home.
Flosi's dream before the great suit — a man calling the doomed by name from the mountain — is the saga telling us the deaths are already decided. The characters act; fate has already written the end.
Flosi's dream
On the other side, Flosi slept badly. He dreamed of a man in goatskins with an iron staff coming out of the fell-side — Irongrim, the figure named himself — who called Flosi's followers by name, one after another, some sooner and some later. Then he said he was bound for the Alþingi: to challenge the inquest, challenge the courts, and clear the field for fighters.[1]
Kettel of the Mark read it the only way it could be read: every man the goatskin figure named was fey — doomed. Best, he said, to tell no one. Flosi already knew the shape of what was coming; he had said himself, after the burning, that they would have to bow the knee to many a man before this was over. The saga, as ever, announces its deaths before it deals them.
The source text · 1
"I dreamt," says Flosi, "that methought I stood below Loom-nip, and went out and looked up to the Nip, and all at once it opened, and a man came out of the Nip, and he was clad in goatskins, and had an iron staff in his hand. He called, as he walked, on many of my men, some sooner and some later, and named them by name. First he called Grim the Red my kinsman, and Arni Kol's son. Then methought something strange followed, methought he called Eyjolf Bolverk's son, and Ljot son of Hall of the Side, and some six men more. Then he held his peace awhile. After that he called five men of our band, and among them were the sons of Sigfus, thy brothers; then he called other six men, and among them were Lambi, and Modolf, and Glum. Then he called three men. Last of all he called Gunnar Lambi's son, and Kol Thorstein's son. After that he came up to me; I asked him 'what news'. He said he had tidings enough to tell. Then I asked him for his name, but he called himself Irongrim. I asked him whither he was going; he said he had to fare to the Althing. 'What shalt thou do there?' I said. 'First I shall challenge the inquest,' he answers, 'and then the courts, then clear the field for fighters.' After that he sang this song -— njals saga
Flosi's dream of Irongrim naming the doomed.
And the curse that outruns Sigurd: the cursed gold dooms every owner, and no heroism deflects it. Fate in the legendary world is a poison in an object, working itself out across generations.
The curse that outruns the hero
Sigurð's death is not the end but the hinge. The cursed gold passes to Guðrún's kin and then, when she is later wedded against her will to Atli (Attila the Hun), draws the Giukings to their doom in his hall — a second cycle of treachery, slaughter and revenge that the saga carries on long after its hero is ash.[1]
That is the deep shape of the Völsung legend, and what sets it apart from the historical sagas: it is governed not by feud-law and honour but by fate — a curse laid on gold at the world's mythic dawn, working itself out across generations no matter what any hero does. Sigurð is the brightest figure in all Norse story, and he cannot escape it any more than the dragon could. This is the tale that flowed down into the German Nibelungenlied, into Wagner's Ring, into the dragon and the cursed ring of Tolkien — and here, in the Völsunga saga, is its cold northern source.
The source text · 1
Now so it is, that whoso heareth these tidings sayeth, that no such an one as was Sigurd was left behind him in the world, nor ever was such a man brought forth because of all the worth of him, nor may his name ever minish by eld in the Dutch Tongue nor in all the Northern Lands, while the world standeth fast.— volsunga saga
Guðrún wedded to Atli; the curse drives on to the Giukings' doom (Morris & Magnússon 1870).
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