I break this word down even further and attempt to exegesis its relation to the middle Hekat scene.
Wyrd is also cognate with old norse "Urd/Urdr", meaning "past, fate" and is one of the names of the Norns, the divine fate carvers akin to the Moirai and Parcae, hence why the word fate is related to these fortune telling witches. The original folio also has different spellings in the beginning acts versus the latter ones, with the phrase "wayward son" as the hinge of the play. Modern scholars say it is just different editors with different spelling preferences but I think that dodges some of the interesting aspects of not only the word but the play too.
That's exactly my argument! My first video and essay on this subject was "Wyrd=Weird" and then I followed up with my stream on the Hekat(e) scene where she says Macbeth is a "wayward son". I think that's exactly how these two meanings became correlated.
I first saw the original spelling and meaning of wyrd used in the YA books of Rosemary Sutcliff, a writer with a gift for recreating the past. I believe the Scots phrase to 'dree ye'r weird', which I've heard used on occasion, means to resign oneself to one's fate.
Glad to see this as while I was reading I was immediately reminded of this passage from Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men:
“Hush yer gob!” shouted the helmet twiddler, but his voice was lost in the wails and groans of the Nac Mac Feegle. They were pulling at their hair and stamping on the ground and shouting, “Alackaday!” and “Waily waily waily!” and the toad was arguing with the helmet twiddler and everyone was getting louder to make themselves heard—
Tiffany stood up. “Everybody shut up right now!” she said.
Silence fell, except for a few sniffs and faint wailys from the back.
“We wuz only dreeing our weird, mistress,” said the helmet twiddler, almost crouching in fear.
“But not in here!” snapped Tiffany, shaking with anger. “This is a dairy! I have to keep it clean!”
“Er…dreeing your weird means ‘facing your fate,’” said the toad.
Must be, surely. In Icelandic the verb is verða, “become”, obviously cognate with weorþan and werden, but in the present tense it can also mean “will be”. Must be a Germanic thing.
Thank you for this wonderful etymological journey, and for explaining the English orthographic logic behind my embarrassing impulse to always misspell the Scottish word 'weird'.
How interesting! And of course good ol' PIE is there in the background. Thanks for recommending the book *Proto*, btw - a fascinating and eye-opening read.
I wonder if the three sisters of the fates (weyard sisters!) - because they feature in Ancient Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology - are a Yanmaya myth as well?
A most enjoyable read! I appreciate your defining of wyrd as that which happens or becomes. For something to become suggests there was an explicitly designed and definitive end to it. Ergo the wyrd cannot be separated from fate. That which we face, the unyielding force through which all becomes what it was destined to be.
Betide me weal, betide me woe / That wyrd shall never daunten me /Syne he has kissed her rosy lips / all underneath the Eildon tree - Thomas the Rhymer, Scottish ballad
Steven Donaldson plays around with different meanings of "wyrd", as fate, in his Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but it's really good to see the origin, just as a casual usage front Shakespeare...
This evolution is also put to good use in "Doon", the Lampoon's parody of Frank Herbert's "Dune". In the latter, Jessica meets the Fremen and impresses them with her prophetic insights, causing Stilgar (I think) to offer his respect: "You have the weirding way". In "Doon", she utters one of her portentous but Delphic statements, and he shakes his head, saying, "You have the weirdest way..."
Since you mentioned a character named Jessica, I can't help adding that we would probably not have this as such a popular name in English were it not for Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice"!
So, if weird/wyrd originally meant fate or destiny, and derived ultimately from roots to do with turning, does this mean that 'much fated' or 'of many destinites' (or similar) would not be an insane translation for 'polytropos' at the start of The Odyssey? Does the turning/fate link exist in (ancient) Greek?
"Wyrd comes from the same root as the verb weorþan, pronounced roughly WEAR-than, which meant ‘to happen’ or ‘become’."
Really love this. Thank you! Used to read to my students bits of Old English for fun. There's a good piece in the Anglo Saxon Primer about building houses on stone vs sand with enough modern-sounding words that they'd get:
"Se wisa wer timbrode his hus ofer stan.
"Þa com þær micel flod, and þær bleowon windas, and ahruron on þæt hus, and hit ne feoll: soþlice, hit wæs ofer stan getimbrod.
"Þa timbrode se dysiga wer his hus ofer sandceosol. Þa rinde hit, and þær com flod, and bleowon windas, and ahruron on þæt hus, and þæt hus feoll; and his hryre wæs micel."
I break this word down even further and attempt to exegesis its relation to the middle Hekat scene.
Wyrd is also cognate with old norse "Urd/Urdr", meaning "past, fate" and is one of the names of the Norns, the divine fate carvers akin to the Moirai and Parcae, hence why the word fate is related to these fortune telling witches. The original folio also has different spellings in the beginning acts versus the latter ones, with the phrase "wayward son" as the hinge of the play. Modern scholars say it is just different editors with different spelling preferences but I think that dodges some of the interesting aspects of not only the word but the play too.
'Wayward' was used in exactly this sense in Nahum Tate's libretto for Henry Purcell's 'Dido and Aeneas' first performed in 1689.
Enter the Sorceress:
Wayward sisters, you that fright
The lonely traveller by night,
Who like dismal ravens crying
Beat the windows of the dying,
Appear at my call, and share in the fame
Of a mischief shall make all Carthage flame.
Appear, appear!
Can we assume this use of wayward was directly influenced by the 1623 First Folio?
That's exactly my argument! My first video and essay on this subject was "Wyrd=Weird" and then I followed up with my stream on the Hekat(e) scene where she says Macbeth is a "wayward son". I think that's exactly how these two meanings became correlated.
I first saw the original spelling and meaning of wyrd used in the YA books of Rosemary Sutcliff, a writer with a gift for recreating the past. I believe the Scots phrase to 'dree ye'r weird', which I've heard used on occasion, means to resign oneself to one's fate.
Glad to see this as while I was reading I was immediately reminded of this passage from Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men:
“Hush yer gob!” shouted the helmet twiddler, but his voice was lost in the wails and groans of the Nac Mac Feegle. They were pulling at their hair and stamping on the ground and shouting, “Alackaday!” and “Waily waily waily!” and the toad was arguing with the helmet twiddler and everyone was getting louder to make themselves heard—
Tiffany stood up. “Everybody shut up right now!” she said.
Silence fell, except for a few sniffs and faint wailys from the back.
“We wuz only dreeing our weird, mistress,” said the helmet twiddler, almost crouching in fear.
“But not in here!” snapped Tiffany, shaking with anger. “This is a dairy! I have to keep it clean!”
“Er…dreeing your weird means ‘facing your fate,’” said the toad.
So good! Thank you!
The journey of this word was quite fascinating,not to say...weird!
Am I right to assume that wyrd ia cognate with the German werden - will be?
Must be, surely. In Icelandic the verb is verða, “become”, obviously cognate with weorþan and werden, but in the present tense it can also mean “will be”. Must be a Germanic thing.
Thank you for this wonderful etymological journey, and for explaining the English orthographic logic behind my embarrassing impulse to always misspell the Scottish word 'weird'.
This was really interesting thank you
How interesting! And of course good ol' PIE is there in the background. Thanks for recommending the book *Proto*, btw - a fascinating and eye-opening read.
I wonder if the three sisters of the fates (weyard sisters!) - because they feature in Ancient Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology - are a Yanmaya myth as well?
A most enjoyable read! I appreciate your defining of wyrd as that which happens or becomes. For something to become suggests there was an explicitly designed and definitive end to it. Ergo the wyrd cannot be separated from fate. That which we face, the unyielding force through which all becomes what it was destined to be.
Betide me weal, betide me woe / That wyrd shall never daunten me /Syne he has kissed her rosy lips / all underneath the Eildon tree - Thomas the Rhymer, Scottish ballad
Lovely article.
Steven Donaldson plays around with different meanings of "wyrd", as fate, in his Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but it's really good to see the origin, just as a casual usage front Shakespeare...
This evolution is also put to good use in "Doon", the Lampoon's parody of Frank Herbert's "Dune". In the latter, Jessica meets the Fremen and impresses them with her prophetic insights, causing Stilgar (I think) to offer his respect: "You have the weirding way". In "Doon", she utters one of her portentous but Delphic statements, and he shakes his head, saying, "You have the weirdest way..."
Since you mentioned a character named Jessica, I can't help adding that we would probably not have this as such a popular name in English were it not for Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice"!
Fascinating stuff.
So, if weird/wyrd originally meant fate or destiny, and derived ultimately from roots to do with turning, does this mean that 'much fated' or 'of many destinites' (or similar) would not be an insane translation for 'polytropos' at the start of The Odyssey? Does the turning/fate link exist in (ancient) Greek?
Thanks for the citation!! Miss ya Donka xoxo
This article is truly weird
"Wyrd comes from the same root as the verb weorþan, pronounced roughly WEAR-than, which meant ‘to happen’ or ‘become’."
Really love this. Thank you! Used to read to my students bits of Old English for fun. There's a good piece in the Anglo Saxon Primer about building houses on stone vs sand with enough modern-sounding words that they'd get:
"Se wisa wer timbrode his hus ofer stan.
"Þa com þær micel flod, and þær bleowon windas, and ahruron on þæt hus, and hit ne feoll: soþlice, hit wæs ofer stan getimbrod.
"Þa timbrode se dysiga wer his hus ofer sandceosol. Þa rinde hit, and þær com flod, and bleowon windas, and ahruron on þæt hus, and þæt hus feoll; and his hryre wæs micel."
I always suspected the Scots were 'weird'