The Norn of What Shall Be

Skuld is the third of the three Norns, the female powers who shape the fates of gods and men beneath the world-tree Yggdrasil. Her name means something like that which shall be or debt and necessity, it is related to the word for owing, and she keeps the future, as her sisters Urd and Verdandi keep the past and the present.

The three appear together in the Voluspa and in Snorri's account, said to determine the lifespans and destinies of all who are born. Skuld is set apart from her sisters in one respect: she is also numbered among the valkyries, the maidens who ride over battle and choose which warriors will fall, so that in her the shaping of destiny and the bringing of death are joined in a single figure. It is worth noting that the neat triad of past, present and future is partly a scholarly and poetic tidying; the sources speak of many norns besides the famous three, some kindly and some cruel, who come to each child at birth to fix its lot. Skuld stands as the face of the future among them, the fate not yet arrived, and the debt that must in the end be paid.