When the Norns Have Spoken: Time and Fate in Germanic Paganism. by Anthony Winterbourne. Madison and Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004. Pp. 187. $39.50.

In When the Norns Have Spoken: Time and Fate in Germanic Paganism, philosopher Anthony Winterbourne explores the implications of an aspect of Eddic and saga literature familiar to many: the distinctive attitude toward fate that characterizes so many heroes and villains of Old Norse literature. Winterbourne proceeds from the observation that Germanic heroes and narratives of pre-Christian Scandinavia, England, and the continent show a "consciousness of an all-embracing fate [that] somehow leaves room for pride, dignity, and defiance, rather than an encouragement to supine submissiveness; a pride demanding that one not be oppressed even by the knowledge of what fate must already have decided—hubris, in fact" (p. 88). In exploring the nature of this concept of fate and the room it paradoxically permits for heroic choice and action, Winterbourne aims at shedding light on an aspect of worldview that can seem strikingly different from that of modern Westerners: "it was the belief in the power of fate that generated just that dignity that we seem (today) to feel is available to us only through a fundamental and contrary belief in the freedom of will" (p. 109). Winterbourne brings philosophical discussions on the nature of fatalism to bear on the pre-Christian and early Christian Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon cases and seeks to uncover the philosophical systematizing that underlay the fate-embracing worldview. Crucial to this logic is the notion of fate and time as separate unrelated entities: something which, Winterbourne argues, characterized pre-Christian Germanic understandings but which was replaced in Christianization with a fused fate-time concept.

Thomas A. DuBois
University of Wisconsin, Madison