Norse mythology has never been a great interest of mine. I will freely admit to first discovering Verdandi in the guise of Belldandy, in the manga Ah, My Goddess!. There she is a lovely goddess who, with her two sisters, has come to earth to help a collage student named Keiichi Morisato. In the anime and manga, she is an exceptional kind person who goes out of her way to help people. How I could I not help but like her, and maybe wish I was a little bit like her.
Verdandi, though, is a bit different than Belldandy. She too has two sisters, Urd and Skuld. Together they make up the Norns, the Norse version of the Fates. Verdandi is the middle sister, and the goddess who handles necessity. Urd is the goddess of fate, and Skuld the goddess of being. The goddess The goddess are also tasked with keeping the World Tree Yggdrasil from decaying by pouring water from the Well of Fate over its branches.
The goddess Verdandi is also know as “that which is becoming”, or the goddess of the present. Urd is “that which has become” (the past), and Skuld is the goddess of the future, “that which should become.” The goddess weave a giant tapestry, on which everyone, including the gods, have a thread.
Sources:
Encyclopdia Mythica – Norns
Wikipedia – Norns
The Ancient and Shining Ones by DJ Conway
Y’know, it never struck me before, but I see a lot of the Egyptian triad of goddesses Nit, Seshat and Nebthet in the Norns. Nit/Neith is the creatrix, goddess of beginnings and (in our view) the past. Seshat is the record-keeper of the passage of time, goddess of the present, as we see it. Nebthet/Nephthys is decay, goddess of the end and (in a way) our unavoidable future.
You know, I hadn’t noticed that at all. Yet another example of how similar different mythologies really are.
it is odd that there are so many different similarities in mythology. there seem to always be three women who controle fate. and does anyone else notice that they always make something, usually a tapastry?
That was educational…
it very beautyful logo