As this simple four letter word is loaded with so much Pagan Wisdom and History, I have just cleaned up a bit, the wise words of other leaves, that we may see a glimmer here of Wyrn. But have tried to leave source references where useful.
TDK
TDK
Wyrn:
Noun, - fate personified; any one of the three Weird Sisters (Our three Sisters of Fate)tdk
Weird
Anglo-Saxon deity - (Anglo-Saxon mythology) a deity worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons
Wyrd
The web of cause-and-effect that permeates the universe. The Germanic/North European equivalent of karma. Not to be understood as an externally-controlling fate but rather as the natural consequences of one's own actions; each person shapes their own wyrd. There are also family wyrd and national wyrd, which are shaped by the actions of the group as a whole. Wyrd, therefore, does not control our lives, it just responds to our own actions according to orlog, the fundamental law that governs the workings of our world.
"This is my wyrd, woven from the threads I have provided by my past thoughts and actions; I myself have designed the unfolding pattern of my life."
by Aelswyth Alansdohter June 21, 2007
Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, which retains its original meaning only dialectically.
The cognate term in Old Norse is urðr, with a similar meaning, but also personalized as one of the Norns, Urðr (anglicized as Urd) and appearing in the name of the holy well Urðarbrunnr in Norse mythology.
Etymology
The Old English term wyrd derives from a Common Germanic term *wurđíz. Wyrd has cognates in Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt, Old Norse urðr, Dutchworden (to become), German werden and Low Saxon wörden.
The Proto-Indo-European root is *wert- "to turn, rotate". (The Cauldrons of Posey)tdk
in Common Germanic *wirþ- with a meaning "to come to pass, to become, to be due" (also in weorþ, the notion of "origin" or "worth" both in the sense of "connotation, price, value" and "affiliation, identity, esteem, honour and dignity.)
Old English wyrd is a verbal noun formed from the verb weorþan, meaning "to come to pass, to become".
The term developed into the modern English adjective weird.
Adjectival use develops in the 15th century, in the sense "having the power to control fate", originally in the name of the Weird Sisters, i.e. the classical Fates, in the Elizabethan period detached from their classical background as fays, and most notably appearing as the Three Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth. From the 14th century to weird was also used as a verb in Scots, in the sense of "to preordain by decree of fate".
The modern spelling weird first appears in Scottish and Northern English dialects in the 16th century and is taken up in standard literary English from the 17th century. The regular modern English form would have been wird, from Early Modern English werd. The substitution of werd by weird in the northern dialects is "difficult to account for".
The now most common meaning of weird, "odd, strange", is first attested in 1815, originally with a connotation of the supernatural or portentuous (especially in the collocation weird and wonderful), but by the early 20th century increasingly applied to everyday situations.
Fate in Germanic mythology, the Norns:
Wyrd is a feminine noun,[3] and its Norse cognate urðr, besides meaning "fate", is the name of one of the Norns; urðr is literally "that which has come to pass", verðandi is "what is in the process of happening" (the present participle of the verb cognate to weorþan) and skuld "debt, guilt" (from a Germanic root *skul- "to owe", also found in English shall).
Between themselves, the Norns weave fate or ørlǫg (from ór "out, from, beyond" and lǫg "law", and may be interpreted literally as "beyond law"). According to Voluspa 20, the three Norns "set up the laws", "decided on the lives of the children of time" and "promulgate their ørlǫg". Frigg, on the other hand, while she "knows all ørlǫg", "says it not herself" (Lokasenna 30). ørlǫglausa "ørlǫg-less" occurs in Voluspa 17 in reference to driftwood, that is given breath, warmth and spirit by three gods, to create the first humans, Ask ("Ash") and Embla (possibly "Elm").
Mentions of wyrd in Old English literature include The Wanderer, "Wyrd bið ful aræd" ("Fate remains wholly inexorable") and Beowulf, "Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel!" ("Fate goes ever as she shall!").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd
Instead, they are the natural course of one's life. Everybody is born with certain abilities: strengths in some areas, weaknesses in others. One's own Wyrd is the way these abilities will lead you through life. Problems, confusion, stress and depression arise when we try (whether through our own actions or external pressure) to work against it. This can be regarded as the Reality of our Life. Therefore Wyrd is related to the Web of Reality. The difference between Wyrd and the Web is that we can leave the path of our Wyrd, but the Web (the Reality) of our new situation will always remain with us, and will constantly be attempting to pull us back on course.
One of the principles of Asatru is to seek one's own Orlog and endeavor to work with it. This means learning to live with the Reality of yourself, using your strengths and accepting your weaknesses, while at the same time attempting to use them as strengths by working with them and not against them. This shows that, while living against your Orlog creates problems, living in accordance with your Orlog will not necessarily be easy, although it will be regarded as challenging rather than problematical.
The concepts of Orlog and Wyrd do not end here, however. All things have their own Orlog, their own Path of Reality. This includes concepts and situations. It also includes Creation itself. All individual Orlogs are facets of the Universal Orlog, and all are part of the great Web of Fate being woven by the Norns.
http://www.odinsvolk.ca/O.V.A.%20-%20NNV.htm
