The Weirdness of Weird

Weird — ‘wyrd’ in the original Old English — is a weirdly complicated concept. Just ask the great hero Beowulf...

Roughly speaking, weird means fate or personal destiny.

In Modern English, its meaning has drifted to describe something strange, uncanny, or unexpected. Weird things aren’t particularly life-changing or important — still, they make us uneasy. For Beowulf, though, weird is an ever-present and uncontrollable force that determines our destiny.

And a fearful thing it is. Among other things, weird can be a retributive, punishing force.

In the story of Beowulf, it is the force that destroys the lives of kings who, through their errors and poor choices, violate the universal order. Weird casts a net of disorder that only Beowulf the hero can cut through.

The role of weird obsessed me as I was writing Bones and Keeps, my historical fantasy about Beowulf. When the world is threatened by the choices made by characters — whether deliberately evil or merely humanly inadequate — the unstoppable force of weird restores the natural order.

I found myself wishing fate would be so accommodating in our own world.

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Bones and Keeps: tinyurl.com/Amazon-Dena-Bain-Taylor

Painting: Lynd Ward (from his "Beowulf" series)

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