(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 5, Issue 4

[Alice K. Turner]

>>Under a variety
>>of names, she was worshiped over the entire European continent from
>>Ireland to Slovakia and unlike the Norns (who were "disir," or second
>>-tier immortals, along with the Valkyries etc.) she operated alone.
>
> Okay. but she *does* give a carved stick to Able at their first meeting 
> and
> that, along with her Fate's spinning wheel, pretty definitely identifies 
> her
> as a Norn (they carved a staff to denote a man's fate rather than spun a
> thread...and they only conversed with Odin. hmmm). All this is six and 
> half
> a dozen, since Parca of childbirth was associated with the Fates and the
> Moria and the Gracae and the Furies and Keries all those other groups of
> three women that measured the souls of mankind.

Well, the carved stick is a spindle, or something like it. I don't 
understand why you'd want to insist on her being a Norn when Wolfe has 
clearly indicated that she isn't. Her name is Perchta, Parka to Able's 
untutored ear, she is described as such (the teeth particularly), she dwells 
above the Overcym instead of being a minor deity like the Norns. Perchta was 
once a very big deal in Europe as a goddess, pan-European, not local like 
the Norns, who were always second-level deities like the others you mention.

-alga