74 nordi
movement and noises at Noatun. As a result, they went their separate ways.
Nordi( North) One of the four dwarfs who held up the sky. The other three are Sudri( south), Austri( east), and Vestri( west). These dwarfs are named in early Norse poetry, but only 13th-century Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson assigned Nordi and his three companions the job of holding up the four corners of the sky.
Norfi( Narfi; Nor) A giant who lived in Jotunheim and, according to Snorri Sturluson in
Gylfaginning, was the father of Nott. However, in several works in the Poetic Edda, Nott’ s father was named Nor. In those works, he is not described as a giant.
“ Daughter of Nor,” however, was a popular kenning, or poetic metaphor, for the night.
Norns( Nornir; Fates) The three spirits of destiny who spun a thread of life for every living being, including gods, humans, giants, and dwarfs. They shaped the life of each one from the first day to the last.
The names of the three sisters were Urd( Past), Verdandi( Present), and skuld( Future). Urd is the oldest of the sisters; often she is pictured as looking backward. Verdande looks straight before her. Skuld usually wears a mysterious veil and carries a scroll in her hands.
The three sisters lived near the Urdarbrunn( Well of Urd) at the foot of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. Each day they watered the roots of Yggdrasil with the well’ s sacred water.
The three sisters were more powerful than the gods, for the thread they spun was the destiny of the universe. They measured time and controlled it, and the gods were helpless against them. The gods held all their important meetings by the Well of Urd, a sacred place to them.
In northern folklore, the Norns sometimes appear as spinners, and the spider is therefore associated with them.
The Norns are mentioned in both the Prose
Edda and the Poetic Edda.
Norse The name of a specific language group and the people who spoke the languages in that group. Old Norse is a dead language; no group of people speaks it today as its first language. It is part of the North Germanic group of languages in the
Indo-European language family; this group is also known as the Norse, or Scandinavian, languages. Old Norse is related to modern Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faeroese, the language of the Faroe Islands. Most of the surviving manuscripts of the mythology of Scandinavia, such as the Codex
Regius, were written in Old Norse.
Norse also refers to ancient peoples who lived in the region of northwest Europe known as Scandinavia, particularly those who spoke Old Norse or one of its dialects. One group of Norse people were known as Norsemen or Vikings.
Norway One of the three principal nations of Scandinavia, Norway occupies the western side of the Scandinavian peninsula in northwestern Europe. People have made this land their home since the last great ice age ended more than 13,000 years ago.
Norway features many archaeological sites to provide evidence of the worship of the Norse gods. Bronze Age rock carvings near Kalnes, Norway, show men in boats and Sun images. At least three burial ships from the Viking Age( about a. d. 800 – 1000) have been uncovered near Oslo. The Oseberg ship,
The Oseberg ship in Oslo, Norway( Photo by Sagitseagal / Used under a Creative Commons license)