The Norns

Norns are the powers that shape the course of our world. Norns work hand in hand with the Oslords (or Oswights) which are the divine powers. Norns however are closer to our everyday reality than the Oslords.

It is the Norns who weave the WEIRD - the happenings of our lives. Norns are very open to persuasion by the actions of the neatwights - the physical beings like individual people. However the Norns have no morality of their own and will produce a bad HAP or happening as easily as a good one.

We can distinguish at least four kinds of Norns.

1. The GREAT NORN or WORLD NORN fills the world and controls everything that happens in the world. The World Norn is the Great Architect who shapes the environment of every living being. Right from conception - the physical environment, the physical and non-physical genetic material, the opportunities people have and the course of their growth and development and activity are all ultimately influenced by the Great Norn.

2. KINGNORNs are human centres of power in our ordinary everyday sense. KINGNORNS shape the human society. KINGNORNs are driven by GOALDREAMs (their objectives) and wield influence by SPELLCRAFT (rhetoric and story-telling) which influence people's understandings , by judicious offering of gifts (money) which panders to their desires and needs and by the use of physical force which causes fear or physical restriction on action.

3. NEATNORNs are personal norns attached to individual NEATWIGHTs - individual people and living beings. A person's NEATNORN is that person's presence in the world. The size of the NEATNORN reflects the size of the influence a person has in the world at large. Most people have a fairly small NEATNORN which carries little weight in the world outside their immediate circle of contacts. Some people however have larger NEATNORNs so that their personal wishes, actions or ideas have an effect on large numbers of other people.

4. MANNORNs are also personal norns. A Mannorn is the action or DOING of the world upon a person. Every living individual has their own Mannorn which creates the immediate world around them. Everything which impinges on a person - sights and sounds, physical feelings, availability of food, presence of people to engage with, and opportunities for activity are all down to that person's MANNORN.

Of course the MANNORN does not decide what to do arbitrarily but is affected by the DOING of the person concerned as well as by the people around them, the actions of the KINGNORNs and ultimately by the GREAT NORN.