Norns, numerous female beings who determine the fate or future of a person in Germanic paganism
a group representing the Three Fates inside the Leeson Street gate (a gift from the German people in thanks for Irish help to refugees after World War II)
de Rico's story was a simplified, truncated version of the full play cycle, which took several creative liberties, the most noticeable of which was the use of the three Norns as narrators throughout the story, rather than merely for Götterdämmerung, as in the original.
Norns | ''Fate of the Norns'' was initially published in 1993 with this 1912 illustration by Arthur Rackham |
Partly out of desperate grief - and partly in defiance of the harshness of the Norns or fates: Odin begs Hermod to ride his own steed, Sleipnir, down to Hell and beg Hela to release Balder.
This triadic deity is well attested throughout northern Europe (more generally as the Matres or Matrones), not just in Celtic areas, and was similar to the Fates, Furies, Norns, and other such figures.
In Fáfnismál, during a discussion between Sigurd and Fafnir concerning the minor Norns (apart from the three great Norns), those who govern the lives and destinies of dwarves are also known as "Dvalin's daughters".