Origin and Religion of the Norn

Norn and Humans

By general looks, aside from the two dominant attributes of the Norn, they look almost exactly like Humans. The only things that makes Norn not-so-human are the height (nine feet tall afterall!) and the ability to transform into were-creatures (at least a werebear, but possibly a werewolf and other were-creatures). So what exactly is the link to the humans?

I believe that the Norn are, in fact, distant cousins of the Humans. That back when humans appeared on Tyria, that a clan of humans who enjoyed fighting – possibly then they were the dominant followers of Balthazar – traveled to the Far Shiverpeaks where others went to Kryta, Ascalon, and Orr.

These humans became isolated from other humans over time, and through natural selection grew bigger to combat the stronger monsters and became more resistant to the cold.

Norn Magic

It is known that skills can be created (proven by Elementalist Azure in pre-searing and by Verata, along with the various other “named skills” throughout Guild Wars). So I believe that the Norn Form skills are a “special” kind of magic that was created by the first of the Norn – back when they still resembled humans very much – around or shortly after the distribution of magic.

At first, the forms were simply taking on the form of the animals around them – not the Norn Spirits. Overtime, as the True Gods became distant from the Norn, the belief became that it was taking on the form of their Norn Spirits – which “took the place” of the True Gods.

Norn Religion

Through the quest Wintersday Cheer – introduced in the 2008/9 Wintersday event – we can conclude that the Raven Spirit is at least related to Grenth.





I believe that the six “good” spirits – mentioned by Egil Fireteller – of Bear, Wolf, Raven, Ox, Owl, and Wurm are in fact different representations of the Six True Gods.

This is further supported by the Statues of Grenth near the Raven Shrine in Raven’s Point – or more accurately, answers why said statues are there.

If my theory is correct, than the relation between animal spirits and the True Gods are as follows:

Bear – Dwayna (Bear is called a “she” taking out the possibility of it being Balthazar, despite common belief; and Bear is seemingly the leader – at least the strongest – of the spirits)

Raven – Grenth (Proven)

Wolf – Melandru (The Wolf Spirit is a “tracker” to a degree, and can be said be linked to Rangers through that. With Ranger’s patron god being Melandru, the link is only commonplace)

Owl – Abaddon/Kormir (Owls are usually used to represent knowledge, so the Owl spirit linking with the God of Knowledge is only commonplace)

Ox – Balthazar (Oxen are usually considered to be strong animals, so it fits well with Balthazar)

Wurm – Lyssa (simply the last one left)

It is possible that Balthazar is in fact the Wurm Spirit. Due to having no information on the Owl, Ox, and Wurm spirits, it is hard to tell aside from common attributes given to said animals.

Of course, the animal spirits we see are not the real gods, but another set of Avatars.


The reasoning behind the different views of the gods could the separation from the rest of humanity for so long. Above I said that after so long, the shape shifting ability became less of taking on the form of nearby animals and then taking on the forms of the Norn Spirits, this would only be the case because the Norn, at some point in time, started viewing the animals higher than the True Gods – who have left the world long before.

The True Gods, seeing this, probably made Avatars in the shapes of these animals as a new way of communication.

I feel as though I am missing something, but I can't place it. If I remember, I shall add it on.

Nice detail on it.
I it's plausible, they do look like humans with the exception of height and their transformation skills.
(Not the mention their viking beards (male))

Very nice Azazel, I never put this together before. Good research.

GJ on the research and nicely written!

very interesting indeed

someone did their eotn Homework i asusme, but how did the norns get to 9 feet tall
and where did the owl and ox come in?

This may be conflicting, since I would link Raven to Grenth, too, but perhaps Raven is also linked to Lyssa? Notice how he gives Raven trickster qualities. Qualities also given to Lyssa by her human followers.

Then again, perhaps the Norn never found the True Gods. They may have just harnessed the magics through their way of life; being one with nature. After all, they use all of these animals and could have come to attribute the animals' natural behavior to the different schools of magic.

I'd also like to make the argument that Bear and Ox may be Balthazar and Dwayna, and not the other way around. I don't know if I'd want to bring gender into it, as we know so little about their culture, but here it is...

Coupled with the bear's natural speed and fury, the Norn show an increasing display of force--a fighting spirit--whenever they transform into the Bear. That something I would not attribute to Dwayna.

Oxen, as you say, are strong animals, but their form shows resilience. They have a calm, resolving demeanor about them. That sounds more like the teachings of the monk.

Anyway, feel free to point out the obvious flaws in my arguments. I'm sure I missed something here, but I'm just too tired to find any proper support for them.

Egil Fireteller makes mention of Owl and Ox. Azazel makes an explanation to the Norn's height; it is through natural selection. They are constantly looking for a challenging hunt, and their lack of armies would mean a small Norn is a dead Norn.

There are also cases of Grenth playing tricks. Especially with wintersday. And Raven is accociated with the dead, and the Shrine to the Raven Spirit in Raven's Point is nearby Grenth statues. So I think Anet tried to make it pointblank obvious for Grenth to get someone to make this. It could be that they were all hidden hints from the beginning to start a Norn/Human connection, but no one ever really looked into it.

This is all true, well, except maybe the Oxen part - I've never known Bulls to be of a calm creature.

But as I said in my OP, my reasoning behind contributing the Bear Spirit to Dwayna have many backings, and I can add onto them. A quick list of why I think Dwayna is attributed to the Bear Spirit:

• The Bear Spirit is a female
• The Bear Spirit seems to be the leader of the other Norn Spirits.
• The Bear Form and Ursan Blessing give more health and armor than strength - i.e., more defense than offense
• The Bear Spirit never shows any real hostility in either encounters.

The strength attribute more than likely is just a Norn culture influenced aspect, and not a real attribute of the Bear Spirit.

Next to look at are the skills Ursan Blessing and Bear Form:

Ursan Blessing:
gain 100 armor and 750-800 health

Bear Form:
gain 250 health and deal 25% more damage

What is the same between the two? you gain a lot of health. Ursan Blessing also gives armor, only dealing damage through the skills your bar changes to - which is needed out of game mechanics more than lore as you cannot have your build changed to nothing but heals when you usually should do damage (don't argue that monks don't have damage, because in Blood for Blood, you need to do damage, not protection, which is where I mean for the game mechanic). If not game mechanic, then the damage skills via Ursan Blessings could be attributed to the Norn and regular bears, and not the Bear Spirit.

From the Bear Spirit's attributed skills, it seems to be more intent on health and defense by 75% of offered abilities.

Also what must be taken into consideration with the Bear skills is the origin of the skills - or magic. Like I said in my OP, I believe the Form skills were made originally to go with the attribute of the animal, and later the Norn Spirits came and attributed themselves with animals.

As such, the strength aspect of both the form and the blessing would be more attributed to the animal than the Bear Spirit. As such, it could be that Dwayna just stepped into the role of the Bear Spirit far after the Norn attributed Strength to the bear. This would only be supported by the Bear Spirit not being hostile in any cases excluding the cinematic "Blood Washes Blood". But even in that cinematic, it is the Norn who say things like that, and not the Bear Spirit - we have no way in telling if the Bear Spirit said this as a hostile act, or as a way to redeem herself by punishing those who deserve to be punished. The later being able to be attributed to all gods.

Proof that the Bear Spirit is female:

that is very interesting indeed

I would have never knew those things about the norns.

When looking at the skills, there is more warrior skills that raise your maximum health than monk ones. Endurance falls more in the warrior section rather than monk. I find Bear Spirit (who, by the way, is shown as mesmer) to represent more Balthazar than Dwayna. Norns, who favour strenght above else, might think Bear (and thus, Balthazar) as leader over anything else. It's not written in stone that the rules of the human gods apply in norn precedence.

The Grenth statue could also be oversight, given the speed in which EotN had to be released. However, I suppose I would agree with you there.

Anyway, I don't need proof that Bear is female, I already knew that. What I'm asking is, does being female really have anything to do with it? I really doubt it, it may just be a coincidence. The most ferocious bears are mothers around their cubs; would the Norn, being so close to the Spirits, attribute them wrongly? Furthermore, we don't have any clues to the other spirits being hostile. This being the case, I wouldn't take these points as proof.

Avatar of Balthazar: You gain +40 armor...

Maybe it's just me, but that sounds like a lesser form of Ursan Blessing--armor with no real damage boost. Another thing, such health gain and armor are things that more benefit the warrior class than monks.

Oxen, unlike their aggressive bovine brothers, are castrated males. Castration in animals is usually used to prevent territorial aggression, among other things. In oxen, which are used to plow fields, the benefits are docility. So while you've never known bulls to be of a calm nature, I'd wager you've never known oxen. Methinks Balthazar would take offense to this.

Speaking in terms of evolution, the Norn's culture of hunting is unlikely to have had any impact on their size. Being bigger offers a smaller ratio of surface area to body volume, which in turn decreases the body's rate of heat loss. This is a major survival advantage in a cold climate, so this is more likely to be the reason why the Norn are larger than other comparitive species from more temperate climates (e.g. Humans). This also explains why many of the monsters found in the Far Shiverpeaks are bigger and tougher than the monsters found in the more temperate areas of Tyria. Size change can also evolve very quickly (within a few thousand years), so it's plausible that the Norn could potentially be an offshoot of Humanity.

The conundrum lies in determining when the evolutionary branch diverged. According to the timeline, Humans didn't appear on the continent of Tyria until 205BE. This puts Humanity in the right kind of area for 1283 years before players meet the Norn in EN. If the Norn and Humans are related, this time period is bare minimum for a few Humans to get to the Far Shiverpeaks and start evolving into the Norn we see today. As it's bare minimum, it's also likely that the Norn and Humans are not genetically different enough from each other to be counted as two distinct species, and the physical differences are not yet extreme enough to be a barrier to mating (the acid test for this will be whether Norn and Humans are capable of having viable offspring together). So, following that train of thought...

Hypothesis: Humans and Norn are different subspecies of the same species: Homo Sapiens Playerus and Homo Sapiens Nordicus (names are arbitrary for the time being).

I was personally hoping for the biologist of this forum to show up and comment on that theory. I knew in terms of height difference it was possible, but wasn't sure in terms of different species.

I would have to agree that they are more likely different subspecies, while the same species.


As for the bear spirit relation to balthazar/dwayna. I am at a loss personally.

However, at the oxen comment, Fantym, I personally am starting to think that was a typo on Anet's part. I don't see the Norn worshiping a ox in comparison to a bull. Mainly due to an ox not being "natural" per se - i.e., castrated.

Starting to rethink the Norn Spirit/Gods relation a bit, and recalling a discussion in my guild in game...

"The Norn revere the spirits of nature—from the wolf to the snow lynx"

This makes me think that Egil doesn't mention all of the Norn Spirits, so there might be more then just 6 "good" Norn Spirits. This meaning that not all of the Spirits may be attributed to the gods - while some, such as Raven, are. Some Spirits may also be attributed to unknown deities, or deities who's place we do not know (i.e., the Great Dwarf).

I just checked the Oxford English Dictionary on this: the term "ox" can refer to any bovine mammal and not just the castrated bulls of B. taurus. The American Heritage Dictionary is in agreement with that definition.

...

-goes search "bovine mammal" on dictionary.com-

Oh, the animals of that family. I feel stupid now. -should go back to learning things about animals-

The Norn humans would have to be isolated from humans, and then have a mutation which would cause them to adapt the the new surroundings better then humans, but as tuotatis said the only way to test the theory would be to mate humans and norn. *Wonders if there are any genetesist in tyria* :P

Well, due to this quest I believe it is in fact possible to mate a Human and Norn. And the Norn have been isolated from humans for a very long time it seems.

Aye it would seem that way. Another thing that quest points out, I may be generalizing here but are norns bisexual ?

Bisexual? What makes you think that?

Male Quest
When asked about quest: "Once you and I are married we can find that blasted leviathan and kill it together. I hope nobody beats us to it..."

and loneliness! I cannot be seen with you, much less marry you

Female Quest
-----same thing---- with minor tweaks.

Male quest you get from a female Norn (Olrun Olafdottir)

Female quest you get from a male Norn (Olaf Olafson)

I don't see how you get the bi-sexual thing. A male Norn asks a female Human in marriage, a female Norn asks a male Human in marriage.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are some Norn who are homosexual or bisexual, but not all of them. Same with any race to be honest.

Gender shouldnt really be a major factor in attributing the Bear Spirit to the gods. Also is the whole "bear is the leader" thing actually mentioned ingame? i always figured that they had no leader because they were not actually a group like the gods were. The Bear Spirit is simply the one the Norn seem to share a link with.

As for the Snow Lynx thing there is also mention of an Eagle Spirit in the "GWEN and Now" article. It also implies that there are more animals with each one having its own associated spirit. So rather than being Avatars or interpretations of the gods, the animal spirits are the actual representaion of animals.

<---- Did not read the thing properly (needs to learn to read before he talks)

Personally, of the various spirits, I would be inclined to associate Owl with Lyssa and Wurm with Abaddon. Lyssa is a god of inspiration among other things, which gives her a better connection to Owl than Wurm. Abaddon, on the other hand, was the lurking monster that lies beneath reality as we know it and that has the potential to cause great destruction if he emerges - which seems a good analogue to Wurm. Furthermore, the Wurm's underground lifestyle meshes well with the portfolio of hidden knowledge.

It would be very telling if it was revealed that Wurm had had a major change of heart in recent times.

That said, and partially referencing Free Runner's point, it's possible that instead of each god having a single animal spirit as avatar to the Norn, they may have different spirits for each aspect of their portfolio. The twin goddesses that compose Lyssa in the human pantheon, for instance, may be seperate in the Norn, possibly with both being a source of inspiration but with Eagle representing beauty and Owl illusion. Or it may be that Dwayna, while having Bear to represent her mothering aspect, also has a bird spirit such as Eagle to represent her as the goddess of the air.

Idly, regarding Balthazar as Ox... it might be that Ox doesn't necessarily represent domesticated and castrated oxen specifically (do the Norn even keep domesticated animals?) but the cattle of the Shiverpeaks... namely, the bisons and aurochs that all happen to have "Berserking" in front of their names...

Sure, but we also have plenty ambient dolyaks grazing amongst them.

About Ox, I don't mean that it is to be represented literally as domesticated or castrated, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The ox is even shown in Chinese astrology to have peaceful characteristics.

But we could go in circles with this and get nowhere. In searching for Norn-domesticated animals (of which I only found pigs ._.) I found an interesting quote:

Perhaps there are unknown half Norn humans already among us? To further fuel this, Gaile said this about Egil--I'm assuming, because of the text on Egil's discussion page on the official wiki--after asking the writers about his profession:

We now have Norn nomads, Norn heroes asking for a human hand in marriage, along with a Norn joking about having Elonian blood running through her.

Bolded word is your issue. Norn seem to be based purely off of the Scandinavian area and Norse background.

There is also a NPC that says something along the lines of "I've been thinking of traveling and heading south, but I hear the monsters are rather weak down there." Or something along those lines. So Nomadic Norn are definably around.

Just because I make a reference to something it doesn't mean that I'm making a direct connection. I know the Norn are not based on Chinese culture, but I am not talking about the Norn or their religion, I am talking about oxen.

Oxen and their characteristics. Not Norn.

As for the rest, it seems you either ignored what I was getting at or it went over your head. I referenced but was not talking about nomadic Norn, but the possibility, even the increasing probability, of half Norn humans.

Ok... well that idea is still not very reliable because we need to look at the background of things when we look at them. In this case, the Norn need to be connected to the Oxen. So when looking at Oxen in this case, we should look for Oxen where the Norn's influence comes from - Scandinavian and Norse and the like in other words.

Oh, I got that, but I brought up another instance where a Norn talks about traveling.

You're ignoring the fact that the writers may not just be looking at one culture to make another. Yes, the Norn come from Norse influence, but the characteristics of an animal most commonly referred to as an ox don't necessarily have to be looked at through only a handful of sources.

That said, yes, an ox can mean various types of bovine mammals. Yes, we should be looking at Scandinavian and like cultures when speculating and hypothesizing about the Norn, but we shouldn't cross off pop culture either.

-sigh- You misunderstood me. No where did I say we should "cross off" non-Norse influences. I simply meant we should look at the influences of the Norn first. As it would make more sense that things that deal with the Norn share the same background influence as the Norn themselves.

You completely rejected the idea from the time I mentioned Chinese astrology. I don't want to make this into a pissing contest, I just want you to keep an open mind.

Oxen in Norse mythology:

Gefjun drew from Gylfi
gladly the wave-trove's free-hold,
Till from the running beasts
sweat reeked, to Denmark's increase;
The oxen bore, moreover,
eight eyes, gleaming brow-lights,
O'er the field's wide: booty,
and four heads in their plowing.

Oxen here are being used in the domesticated, tamed or conquered (however you want to look at it) manner I had mentioned earlier. In other words, they were used to plow fields. Furthermore, I quote the following: "It is possible that there is a ritualistic plowing ceremony behind this myth, and that Gefjun is to be considered a fertility goddess."

From the explanation, it's not actually clear that the oxen were domesticated. It's possible that they were simply willing accomplices in the claiming of more land than Gylfi had intended to give.

This is ignoring the trend in Norse mythology that has the Aesir and giants at odds with each other, but there are exceptions to this trend. However, while the Norn have Scandinavian influences, their culture is obviously not a carbon copy of the Norse.

As an additional consideration, ANet could simply have used the term 'ox' in order to use a more familiar term regardless of whether the 'ox' in question was actually domesticated, possibly invoking the second definition of 'ox' as 'any bovine'. Which certainly would cover bisons, aurochs and, arguably, humanoid bovines such as minotaurs as well.

You're absolutely correct, it's so unquestionably not clear that I also used 'tamed' and 'conquered'. Anyway, from the myth do you not make the connection that oxen had been used to plow fields? Do you think they just used oxen in that one mythological example and never once used them to actually do some work? Not to mention yoking. I am not relying on a myth to make my argument. Myths have some basis in reality and there were clearly domesticated--err, sorry, "willing accomplices"--animals we call oxen working the fields in Sweden.

And hence my readiness to include Chinese/pop-culture influence when making my argument.

This made me laugh. What? More familiar than 'bull'? You have got to be kidding me. We already know how unacquainted the OP was with oxen--which in fact, is used most often to describe the docile workers--and ANet's writers would rather use that than the clearly fierce bull which already has its place in GW as warrior-like?

So terribly sorry I never bothered studying Bulls and the like. -__-

Anyways, going back to a quote from a Norn Breakfast Mc Rit brought up, "By the bison" makes it seem to me that the term of "ox" for this is in fact the generic bison use, and not a docile bull usage. Although we cannot confirm anything until GW2 - or some confirmation by Anet - I will stand by believing that "ox" simply means bison. I may look around later for more references to the ox spirit.

A quick Google search never hurt anybody.

A bison (buffalo or American buffalo; to us Americans) while ox-like is not an ox. The word 'bull' is much more likely to be used in a generic way than 'ox'. Eg. Male whale; male elephant; male bovine mammal.

This correlates to the many animal spirits the Norn are known to revere.

A bison (btw, I did know a buffalo is a bison) is a bovine mammal. And as we all know by now "ox" can refer to a bovine mammal - which includes bison. So I do not see how a bison cannot be the ox spirit, which seems to be what you are implying.

Edit: Also, I would agree somewhat with draxynnic, but not that it was used for "familiarness" but for "generalization." Meaning that Anet hasn't set in stone - at the time - what kind of animal the ox spirit would be: bison, bull, or something else. Perhaps when they got to the collector's dialogue, they had settled on what it would be, and that Egil's dialogue was made before the decision, and simply forgot to change it - or didn't bother.

Off topic, I just realized your name was changed from Azazel. Your new avatar is much better, by the way.

That actually makes the most sense.

Actually, I was going for 'allied' or maybe even 'mercenary'. The point I was making is that the giants in oxen form may not have been under her control at all, except in that she was apparently the brains of the operation...

...and even that may not entirely be the truth, if the way it worked out was that she mentioned the deal to a couple of giants and it was them that came up with the idea of taking oxen form and ploughing half the kingdom.

Certainly more familiar than 'aurochs' and maybe even 'bison'. We have no evidence that the Norn even have domesticated cattle as we know them, but 'ox', as I've already noted, can be used as a generic term for bovines - including bison - without having to refer specifically to domesticated draft animals.

The four giants were her sons. The story also says that she transformed them into giants and yoked them to the plow. That hardly sounds like a deal was made, even if they were her sons. But anyway, this is going a bit off topic now.

Getting back to the spirits representing the gods or the animals... Whether the spirits are representations of the Gods (based on the different aspects and not the gods as a whole due to the *possible - as things could have changed since the manual was made and then overlooked* greater amount of Norn Spirits), one thing is sure:

The Norn have the same afterlife as Humans. This is not only supported by the Wintersday quest, but also a quote from Jora that I noticed the other day:

Due to the *albeit brief* description of the "hall of spirits" and due to the name, I think it would be safe to *at the very least* assume that it is the same as the Hall of Heroes.

Edit: Since this was brought up in GWO:

This is true, not sure if it is in the manuscripts, however, if the Rift is at the center of the universe, than it is only logical for multiple worlds and races to believe - if not know - of it's existence.

With the Hall of Heroes being the center of the Rift, and the Underworld being in the Rift (supposedly), and the Rift being in the center of the Mists, than it is far from unlikely that races would not have the same belief of the Rift as being the afterlife, just different names/ideas of how it looks - the "Realm of the Dead" would be the Underworld, "Realm of Fallen Fighters" would be the Fissure of Woe, "Realm of Villians" would be the Realm of Torment, "Realm of 'Nice People'" would be Dwayna's Realm, Tree Huggers for Melandru, etc. etc.

As such, would it not be far out to say that those multiple races, worlds, and more to the point religions have the same beings overwatching those areas? I would think that it is very logical. While numbers won't be the same (some religions will have a 1 being for 1 aspect or personality trait *such as one god for trickery, one for cunning, one for death, one for ice, etc. etc. to humans they would all be Grenth*), the location and the job will be the same or at least similar.

This is basically the same idea as the concept of all religions in rl being the same, just addition/removal or combination/splitting of gods and locations.

Except the Charr. There are no gods for the Charr!

...Sorry, just had to get that out of my system.