In the Hands of the Fates
Destiny in the Ancient World
Tiamat, the great goddess of Babylonian tradition, kept the Tablet of Destinies. It was written in the Enuma Elish that fate belonged to Her. Concepts of fate or destiny are complex and can be traced in the mythology and beliefs of many ancient cultures. Some shared the imagery of three sisters who spun their threads. The Romans had the Parsae, the Greeks the Moirai and the Scandinavians the Nornir – all were wardens of the archives of eternity. All that is to come was decided long ago.
The Parsae were Clotho, who wore a crown inscribed with seven stars, while Lachesis donned a cosmic robe and carried a variety of spindles. Atropos, clothed in black, held scissors and threads of different sizes. Clotho also held a distaff that reached from heaven to earth. An important symbol indeed, for it reminds us of the World Tree of the Scandinavians, Yggdrasil.
The great tree spread its boughs through all the worlds and the Norns sat beside a well, located at its base. They took clay from the well each day and smeared it over the bark of the great tree. Thus the waters of fate nourished the tree upon which the universe revolved. The word ‘Universe’ translates as ‘the one that turns.’
Yggdrasil was the medium through which other realms could be accessed. Many ancient traditions record tales of a World Tree – it is the axis mundi around which the universe revolves. Nowadays we might think of the hands upon a clock-face, but the idea of spinning, or weaving was intrinsic to the Fates. Both Nornir and Parsae hold spindle whorls. They wind and weave the destinies of those who move through Time.
The Well of Urðr is named after one of the Nornir. The others are Verthandi and Skuld. Their names have been variously translated as past, present and future, but the Scandinavian concept of fatalism was complex. They might be best described as Fate, Being and Necessity.
In the Roman context, Fate and Time are also associated with words. Latin fatum (fate) and fata derive from fari which means ‘to speak’. Speech and magic also go hand-in-hand. Weaving fate might be said to be a magical act. A song, so to speak.
There is some argument over whether the Norse believed in cyclical time. Yet it is widely known that fatalism was the presiding belief. This isn’t necessarily contradictory because the concept of predetermined destiny can still function within cycles of life. These cycles themselves also possess a fated. In Hindu mythology there are four eons of Krita, Treta, Dravpara and Kali. These equal one Kalpa, a duration of cyclical time which climaxes in destruction and the rebirth of a fresh Kalpa.
But then how did this affect people in the street? A Viking surely had some choice over whether he boarded the boat or not*. Did the average warrior feel that he possessed no free will? All knew that they would die. How submissively did they surrender to a power outwith their control?** Here chance played a hand. There’s evidence from Egypt of rituals designed to negate the hand of Destiny – their Goddess of Fate was also that of luck! There was still the element of chance and a surprise win betting on a chariot race.
The Norse also knew they were all part of ‘something else’, which the concept of Ørlog encapsulates. This was the primal law, from which other laws flowed like tributary streams from a well head. It was all that had been, all that was known. Some translate this as the ‘Laying of Urðr’ and in this sense, if we take Urðr as Fate then Ørlog is the power that creates it and everything within it.
In the span of fate people loved, birthed, attended mundane duties, prayed to their deities, fought, healed and died. There was much suffering, there was joy, greed that moved men to war, jealously and love. Fate encapsulated all these things.
We all know the unshakeable progression of night and day, sun and moon. And yet sometimes time speeds by in a flash, while at other times it is drawn out. Time is also relative to ourselves. Mesoamerican mythology didn’t view Time as a series of definable moments, like beads on a necklace. Rather, it was likened to the multitude of threads that constitute a single rope, similar to the idea of the tapestry woven by the Fates. Time marches, Ørlog flows, Fates merge and separate like the waters that flow from Well of Urðr.
Notes:
*Although there are stories that if a leader fell on the way to the boat they weren't bored because that was a sign that fate was against them.
**Certainly when we fall in love we do surrender free will to a certain extent as emotions take over and this could be seen as the unshakeable hand of fate directed by the goddess of love.
Reference:
When the Norns Have Spoken: Time & Fate in Germanic Paganism – Anthony Winterbourne