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from PART I - THE SEARCH FOR ANGLO-SAXON PAGANISM
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
‘Event’ or ‘Fate’, Norn or Fortune
IN THE DISCUSSION of the surviving paganism in Anglo-Saxon literature wyrd occupies a central place; views on wyrd epitomize the views on the wider issue. There is no need to cite here at length the occurrences of the word in Old English. R. Jente has devoted a whole chapter to the subject. In view of the range of meanings of the word it may, however, be desirable to illustrate this range briefly.
First, in the early Glosses wyrde (uuyrdae) renders ‘parcae’ (thus, Épinal and Erfurt 764, Corpus 1480); in the later Glosses ‘parcae’ is rendered by gewyrde (thus, in Napier's Aldhelm Glosses 15480, 8413, 8B5).
Secondly, wyrd occurs in accounts of pagan beliefs (probably the uses of the word in the early Glosses belong here); thus in Boethius:
Ða eode he furður, oð he gemette ða graman metena ðe folcisce men hatað Parcas, ða hi secgað ðæt on nanum men nyton nane are, ac ælcum men wrecen be his gewyrhtum; þa hi secgað ðæt walden ælces mannes wyrde. [Then he went on till he met the fierce Fates whom common people call Parcae, who, they say, show respect to none, but each they punish according to his deserts, and they say that they rule each person's wyrd.]
In the Latin (De Consolatione Philosophiae, III, m. 12. 31 f.) the Furies (Ultrices) are referred to, not the Parcae, but the translator's amplifying reference to wyrd shows that in his mind wyrd goes with Parcae.
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