The Norns

Penelope is a major character in Homer’s Odyssey. She is the wife of  Odysseus, King of Ithaca, hero of Troy, father of Telemachus. Ithaca’s first  family serves as the model for Dublin’s: Penelope for Molly Bloom, Odysseus  for Leopold Bloom and Telemachus for Stephen Dedalus (Ulysses). 

She is also a Norn! 

You know Norns, like the 3 witches in the Scottish Play? Or if you’re of a more  operatic frame of mind, you’ll think of Wagner’s Ring. But most of what we  know about Norns comes from Norse Mythology, especially the pre-Christian  Poetic Edda and their modern re-presentations in the Marvel Universe and in  the works of Neil Gaimen.  

Norns are a cross-cultural phenomenon but, happy you, we won’t be exploring  that aspect of things…today. Suffice to say, the tradition apparently has Indo Persian roots and spread westward finding a cognate or a home in most every  culture. 

So what is a Norn? No two sources will give you the same answer – which  means we don’t know but don’t want to admit we don’t know. But why should  we know? We are used to gods armed with hammers and thunderbolts,  capable of parting a sea…or walking on it. The Norns are not like that. They are  obscure, barely detectable in fact. 

If Norns were a force, they would be gravity; if they were subatomic particles,  they would be neutrinos. They are a faint whisper in the cosmic symphony,  and yet… 

While Norns appear in many guises, their characters tend to have some traits  in common. First, they are not gods or goddesses. They precede Odin and  Zeus and even Cronos. In Judeo-Christian Cosmology, Norns do not appear 

per se, but their niche is filled by Logos in the New Testament, by Sophia in the  Old, and by Oral Torah (Natural Law) in both, all co-terminus with God. 

Natural Law is inherent in Being itself; it governs everything that is, even God. (Book of Job) When Sartre says that God’s essence precedes his existence, that ‘essence’ equates to Natural Law.  

Norns are almost always female, and they most often appear in threesomes - three sisters, or three witches, for example. The Trinitarian formula, so  important in Christian theology, is anticipated here in pagan lore. 

Norns are always linked to fate, broadly defined. For the most part they do not  determine day to day events, rather they steer the overall trajectory of those  events. They shape the ‘event space’ we call World. 

Take Robert Frost, for example. He may choose to take either of the  two roads that ‘equally lay’ before him; the Norns (civil engineers) ensure that  whatever path he chooses brings him to his same, desired destination. 

In the Cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead, there is no causality per se.  Every event is causa sui and sui generis. Yet the underlying structure of the  Cosmos ensures that all events eventually lead to metaphorical ‘Rome’, aka the Kingdom of God. 

Lastly, Norns are usually presented in association with thread. In some  traditions, they spin the thread of time; in some, they twine three strands  (unfortunately often mistaken for past, present, and future); and in others they  weave the course of history on a loom (Penelope). They are often pictured  unspooling strings, patiently tying knots in the string as they go. In plying their  craft, Norns propel the course of history and give it guardrails.  

In this last model, the string represents the nearly continuous structure of  spacetime. The knots represent the events that populate, and punctuate, that spacetime. Events are ruptures in the fabric, suspensions of the continuum.  Within the event, time stands still; outside the event, it flows on. When the  Norns abandon their posts, or when their string breaks, the world as we know  it will end.

This ‘knot model’ is especially well chosen. Knots are inherently recursive. The  string doubles back on itself, thereby suspending the flow of time: “The clock  ticks and fades out…” (Ezra Pound) Knots are eddies in Heraclitus’ cosmic  river. 

More technically, a knot can be represented as the intersection of two 360°  circles, which is the equivalent of four 180° triangles, which is the equivalent  of one 720° tetrahedron. According to Plato (Timaeus) and R. Buckminster  Fuller (Synergetics), tetrahedra are the building blocks of our Universe.  

So knots are 720° topological entities. As such they are isomorphic with  entities in non-orientable geometries (like Mobius Rings) that have 720°  symmetry. Likewise, they are isomorphic with fermions, e.g. electrons and  quarks – sub-atomic particles with half integer spin (e.g. spin ½ = 720° symmetry). 

The knot-in-sting model is consistent with real world phenomena across a  wide range of scales: galaxies are knots in cosmic strings, objects (per  Whitehead) are tangles of knots in the fabric of spacetime, particles are interference patterns, knots in waves, or loops (String Theory). 

And the knot is the perfect model for the concept of ‘event’. First, it is  recursive; arguably, it is ‘recursion’ per se. It requires the string of time to  double back on itself, thereby interrupting and temporarily reversing its one  directional flow.  

Second, it is discontinuous; arguably, it is ‘discontinuity’ per se. In fact, that is  the very definition of an object or event, i.e. something that stands out against  an otherwise continuous background. 

Events shake things up. Every event is a disruptor; it replaces ‘what is’ on the  way to becoming ‘what is not’. Events turn ‘is’ into ‘isn’t’ and ‘isn’t’ into ‘is’;  arguably that is the definition of Event.  

Events are concentrations of energy, of course only at the expense of entropy  in their environs. They are what give existence its intensity, its color. Every  event is an opportunity to project Value into the World.

Today, we believe we are each the captain of our own ship, that we alone determine the course of history, that we shape the future in our image and  likeness. Prior to this so-called ‘Enlightenment’, those functions were subcontracted to a non-union shop, i.e. God. 

But the Norns are part of an even older tradition – one that grounds fundamental cosmic structure in Being itself. They constitute an order that  even God cannot overstep (Book of Job). Welcome to their world!

Image: Penelope Unraveling Her Web (1783–84) by Joseph Wright of Derby, English, 1734–1797. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.