east to west, from the radiant dawn of life to the glowing sunset, and Skuld, the Future, tears it to pieces. There is a deeply-laid plan in the universe, a close union between spirit and matter. There is no such thing as independent life or action. The ends of the threads wherewith our life is woven lie deeply hid in the abyss of the beginning. Self-consciousness is merely an abstraction. The self-conscious individual is merely a leaf, which imagines itself to be something, but is in fact only a bud that enfolds itself and falls off from the tree of the universe. The self-contradiction between absolute necessity and free will was an unsolved riddle with our heathen ancestors, and puzzles the minds of many of our most profound thinkers still. Thus, says the Elder Edda, the norns came to decide the destiny of Helge Hundingsbane:
It was in times of yore,
When the eagles screamed,
Holy waters fell
From the heavenly hills;
Then to Helge,
The great of soul,
Berghild gave birth
In Braalund.
In the mansion it was night:
The norns came,
Who should the prince's
Life determine;
They him decreed
A prince most famed to be,
And of leaders
Accounted best.
With all their might they span
The fatal threads,
When that he burghs should overthrow
In Braalund.
