Moirai

The creatures I want to present you today are three sisters. Often they are also described as just one person. They are the descendants of gods.

But they are no normal deities as you might think now – they stand above the gods and the whole mankind as they are the personification of fate.

 

The gods are victims of their fates, determined by the three “creatures”. Concerning Zeus the meanings differ: some describe him also as victim of fate but others say he is the commander of the sisters.

The three women are: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos – the one who spins the thread of life, the one who measures or dispenses it and the one who cuts it. They observe that everybody follow their determined path without deviation. They are also named as the goddesses of birth and death as those are the starting and the ending points of man's fate.

As they are the goddesses of fate, they know the future lives of humans already at their birth. Sometimes they revealed the future through clairvoyants.

They are often depicted as three very old women. Their attributes are a spindle, a thread and some kind of scissors.

So do you believe that there are those goddesses of fate that even the gods have to obey in the

Greek mythology or are those three sisters just an invention of a very creative modern fantasy-writer?


 

 

Solution:
The three goddesses of fate really exist in Greek mythology. They are the personification of fate and they are called “Moirai” (or “Moira” in singular). Homer described the fate as one Moira, since Hesiod they are three sisters. It is not sure who their parents are – sometimes it is said that they are the daughters of Zeus and Themis, but they are also known as the daughters of Ananke or Nyx.
 

 

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