Orlog

[Bathilde]

Give us your best description of orlog.

[Gangleri]

I read about it but the word oorlog means war in Dutch, so Ill always read it as such Im afraid.

[Bathilde]

What would be the dutch word for orlog then?

[HeathenHammer]

I've only read one or two descriptions of Orlog before, and I think it's the Natural Law that everything adheres to. Wyrd and Orlog are very much interconnected since Wyrd is basically our destiny, and Orlog is the nature in which our destiny is reached. I could be way off, but that's all I got!

Inntil Neste Gang
--Nick--

[Bathilde]

I wouldn't say wyrd is destiny necessarily.

[HeathenHammer]

It's definitely not just destiny, it's destiny plus some. I simplified Wyrd, maybe wrongly, to show how Orlog and Wyrd are two aspects of one system.

[Bathilde]

The best way I've seen it described is by Pollington:

...It is worth stressing that the modern notion of linear time was still something of a scientific abstraction among even the Christian Anglo-Saxons, whose attitudes to life and death seem to have been governed by the world-view of their heathen forbears. They believed that at a given time some men...were doomed to die - a reaction to the uncertainties of warfare and accidents not unlike that of many modern soldiers who have faith in the idea that "if it's got your name on it, there's nothing you can do"...Tied in with this idea is the concept of wyrd 'the course of events' which is the underlying structure of time; it is this pattern which the Anglo-Saxons tried to read in the world about them....As the Beowulf poet observed:

Wyrd often saves
an undoomed hero as long as his courage is good
(lines 572-3)

The implication is that while a man's courage holds out, he has a hope of winning through since wyrd 'the way things happen' will often work to help such a man, as long as he is not doomed; conversely if a man is doomed then not even his courage can help him stand against 'the course of events'.

From his book, The English Warrior from Earliest Times to 1066, pages 166-167.

[schwarzesonne]

“Urlag” means “original law” or “primal law”. It is related to Garma (AS “wyrd”), but is certainly not the same. The latter refers to one's destiny based on one's actions, whereas the former refers to those parts of our destiny over which we have no control.

An analogy that I'm rather fond of is that of a chess game. Urlag is the board, the pieces, and the agreed-upon rules. Garma refers to the evolving outcome of the game based on one's moves/decisions.

In the game of life, of course, this is all much more complex. My urlag not only includes such genetic factors as, say, a propensity for diabetes; but also life factors such as the area in which I was raised. It includes my tuom (OHG: “ordeal”; “judgement”; “doom”). My Garma, on the other hand, unfolds based on my decisions. What kind of relationships do I keep? How much werd (OHG: “worth”) have I built? What do I do for employment or for pleasure?