Wyrd is a concept inAnglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding tofate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern Englishweird, whose meaning has drifted towards anadjectival use with a more general sense of "supernatural" or "uncanny", or simply "unexpected".
The cognate term towyrd inOld Norse isurðr, with a similar meaning, but also personified as a deity:Urðr (anglicized asUrd), one of theNorns inNorse mythology. The word also appears in the name of the well where the Norns meet,Urðarbrunnr.
TheOld English termwyrd derives from aProto-Germanic term*wurđíz.[1]Wyrd has cognates inOld Saxonwurd,[2]Old High Germanwurt,[2]Old Norseurðr,[3] Dutchworden (to become),[4] and Germanwerden.[2] TheProto-Indo-European root is*wert- meaning 'to twist', which is related to Latinvertere 'turning, rotating',[5] and inProto-Germanic is*werþan- with a meaning 'to come to pass, to become, to be due'.[4] The same root is also found in*weorþ, with the notion of 'origin' or 'worth' both in the sense of 'connotation, price, value' and 'affiliation, identity, esteem, honour and dignity'.[citation needed]
Wyrd is anoun formed from the Old English verbweorþan, meaning 'to come to pass, to become'.[2] Adjectival use of wyrd developed in the 15th century, in the sense 'having the power to control destiny', originally in the name of theWeird Sisters (i.e. the classicalFates), who in theElizabethan period became detached from their classical background and given an English personification asfays.
The weird sisters notably appear as theThree Witches in Shakespeare'sMacbeth.[6] To elucidate this, many editors of the play include a footnote associating the "Weird Sisters" with the Old English wordwyrd or 'fate'.[7]
The modern English usage actually developed fromScots, in which beginning in the 14th century,to weird was used as a verb with the sense of 'to preordain by decree of fate'.[citation needed] This use then gave rise to the early nineteenth century adjective meaning 'unearthly', which then developed into modern Englishweird.
The modern spellingweird first appeared in Scottish and Northern English dialects in the 16th century and was taken up in standard literary English starting in the 17th century. The regular form ought to have beenwird, fromEarly Modern Englishwerd. The replacement ofwerd byweird in the northern dialects is "difficult to account for".[8]
The most common modern meaning ofweird – 'odd, strange' – is first attested in 1815, originally with a connotation of the supernatural or portentous (especially in thecollocationweird and wonderful), but by the early 20th century increasingly applied to everyday situations.[9]
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According toJ. Duncan Spaeth, "Wyrd (Norse Urd, one of the threeNorns) is the Old English goddess of Fate, whom even Christianity could not entirely displace."[10]
Wyrd is a feminine noun,[11] and its Norse cognateurðr, besides meaning 'fate', is the name of one of the deities known asNorns. For this reason,Wyrd has been interpreted by some scholars as a pre-Christian goddess of fate. Other scholars deny a pagan signification ofwyrd in the Old English period, but allow thatwyrd may have been a deity in the pre-Christian period.[12] In particular, some scholars argue that the three Norns are a late influence from the threeMoirai in Greek and Roman mythology, who are goddesses of fate.[13]
The names of the Norns areUrðr,Verðandi, andSkuld.Urðr means 'that which has come to pass',verðandi means "that which is in the process of happening" (it is the present participle of the verb cognate toweorþan), andskuld means 'debt' or 'guilt' (from a Germanic root*skul- 'to owe', also found in Englishshould andshall).
Between themselves, the Norns weave fate orørlǫg (fromór 'out, from, beyond' andlǫg 'law', and may be interpreted literally as 'beyond law'). According toVoluspa 20, the three Norns "set up the laws", "decided on the lives of the children of time" and "promulgate theirørlǫg".Frigg, on the other hand, while she "knows all ørlǫg", "says it not herself" (Lokasenna 30). Lawless that is "ørlǫglausa" occurs inVoluspa 17 in reference to driftwood, that is given breath, warmth and spirit by three gods, to create the first humans,Ask and Embla ('Ash' and possibly 'Elm' or 'Vine').
Mentions ofwyrd inOld English literature includeThe Wanderer, "Wyrd bið ful aræd" ('Fate remains wholly inexorable') andBeowulf, "Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel!" ('Fate goes ever as she shall!'). InThe Wanderer,wyrd is irrepressible and relentless. She or it "snatches the earls away from the joys of life," and "the wearied mind of man cannot withstand her" for her decrees "change all the world beneath the heavens".[14]
The Wyrd Mons, amountain on Venus, is named after an "Anglo-Saxon weaving goddess".[15]Frank Herbert used the word "weird" in his science-fiction novelDune to connote power, e.g. a martial art is referred to as "the Weirding Way", which takes place at the speed of thought. This was modified by directorDavid Lynch, in his 1984 film version of the book, to become a system ofsonic weapons called "weirding modules."[16]
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