thread: 2006-03-09 : Those things in The Dragon Killer
On 2006-03-10, Vincent wrote:
Hey Kaitlin, not intruding a'tall. What's Tale Type 300?
For the peoplethingies I'm considering Werald, "world," but literally "the age of man." I'll want something parallel for the worldthingies, then - and Wyrd and Werald isn't bad.
A few minutes with Google tells me that Wyrd means what's become. The three Norns are Wyrd, Weorthan and Skuld - what's become, what's becoming, what'll yet become.
This makes NinJ go "Werald is great!"
Were - as in "werewolf", man-wolf.
Ald - age, as in "alter", from German.
These are influences of which I approve.
Wyrd turns out to be Anglo-Saxon (which is good enough); the Norse is Urd. Calling them "What's become" is great; they have no future, one way or the other.
I'm inclined to say that the Wyrd are the Monsters, the Weorthan are the heroes... and Skuld, like usual, isn't known.
This makes JCL go "nit-pick"
Skuld means "should" ... as in "what should become".
There was some interesting scholarly work I read once, I think it was called "The Well of Urdhr" (Urdhr being the Old Norse form of Wyrd.) It went into some detail about the implications of the meanings of the names of the three Norns in terms of how the Norse thought about time. Your destiny (weird) is determined by what has come before -- all the oaths you swore, the things you have done, your father has done, and your father's father before him.
Blah-blah-blah. Not really relevant, I suppose.
