the mighty tree moist with white dews;
thence come the floods that fall adown;
evergreen o'ertops Urth's well this tree.
Thence wise maidens three betake them-
under spreading boughs their bower stands-
{Urth one is hight, the other, Verthandi,
Skuld the third: They scores did cut,}
they laws did make, they lives did choose:
for the children of men they marked their fates.
-Voluspa, V. 19, 20. Translated by Lee M. Hollander
