![]() The Celtic Matres and Matrones, female deities almost always depicted in groups of three, have been proposed as connected to the Norns. Many other cultures included trios of goddesses associated with fate or destiny. In younger legendary sagas, the Norns appear to have been synonymous with witches ( völvas), and they arrive at the birth of the hero to shape his destiny. Their names were Urðr, related with Old English wyrd, modern weird ("fate, destiny, luck"), Verðandi, and Skuld, and it has often been inferred that they ruled over the past, present and future respectively, based on the sequence and partly the etymology of the names, of which the first two (literally 'Fate' and 'Becoming') are derived from the past and present stems of the verb verða, "to be", respectively, and the name of the third one means "debt" or "guilt", originally "that which must happen". They set up the laws and decided on the lives of the children of men. In Norse mythology the Norns are a trio of female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men, twining the thread of life. ![]() There are other equivalents that descend from the Proto-Indo-European culture. This derives from Roman mythology, in which they are the Parcae or Fata, plural of Latin: fatum, meaning prophetic declaration, oracle, or destiny euphemistically, the "sparing ones". ![]() The three Moirai are known in English ( wyrd) as the Fates. The Norns spin the threads of fate at the foot of Yggdrasil, the tree of the world. ![]()
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