* [[Image:Sabrina & The Fates.jpg|right|275px|thumb|The Fates and Sabrina]]In an episode of ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'', the Fates are represented by three young women who control people's destinies.
* [[Image:Sabrina & The Fates.jpg|right|275px|thumb|The Fates and Sabrina]]In an episode of ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'', the Fates are represented by three young women who control people's destinies.
*[[Once Uopn A Winter's Night]]] has the three Fates playing a major role when Camille seeks their aide, they are known as the Maiden, Mother and Crone, Skuld Verdandi Urd who weave the threads of the tapestry of time
* [[Xena:Warrior Princess]] has a recurring trio known as The Fates, comprising the Maiden, Mother and Crone, who weave the threads of life ([http://whoosh.org/issue3/rudnick1.html Article at Whoosh]).
* [[Xena:Warrior Princess]] has a recurring trio known as The Fates, comprising the Maiden, Mother and Crone, who weave the threads of life ([http://whoosh.org/issue3/rudnick1.html Article at Whoosh]).
Fates redirects here. For the specifically Roman Fates, see Parcae.
In Greek mythology, the white-robed Moirae or Moerae (in GreekΜοῖραι — the "apportioners", often called the Fates) were the personifications of destiny (Roman equivalent: Parcae, euphemistically the "sparing ones", or Fata; also equivalent to the GermanicNorns). They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death (and beyond). Even the gods feared the Moirae. Zeus also was subject to their power, as the Pythian priestess at Delphi once admitted. The Greek word moira (μοῖρα) literally means a part or portion, and by extension one's portion in life or destiny.
H.J. Rose writes that Nyx ("Night") was also the mother of the Moirae[1] as she was of the Erinyes, in the Orphic tradition.
The three Moirae were:
Clotho (pronounced in English['kləʊθəʊ], Greek Κλωθώ — "spinner") spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Roman equivalent was Nona, (the 'Ninth'), who was originally a goddess called upon in the ninth month of pregnancy.
Lachesis (['lækəsɪs], Greek Λάχεσις — "allotter" or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life with her rod. Her Roman equivalent was Decima (the 'Tenth').
Atropos (['ætrəpɒs], Greek Ἄτροπος — "inexorable" or "inevitable", literally "unturning",[2] sometimes called Aisa) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of a person's death. When she cut the thread with "her abhorrèd shears", someone on Earth died. Her Roman equivalent was Mors ('Death').
The Moirae were supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. The Greeks variously claimed that they were the daughters of Zeus and the TitanessThemis or of primordial beings like Nyx, Chaos or Ananke.
In earlier times, the Moirae were represented as only a few - perhaps only one - individual goddess. Homer's Iliad speaks generally of the Moera, who spins the thread of life for men at their birth (xxiv.209), Moera Krataia "strong Moira" (xvi.334) or of several Moerae (xxiv.49). In the Odyssey (vii.197) there is a reference to the Klôthes, or Spinners. At Delphi, only the Fates of Birth and Death were revered.[3] In Athens, Aphrodite, who had an earlier, pre-Olympic existence, was called Aphrodite Urania the 'eldest of the Fates' according to Pausanias (x.24.4).
The Moirae existed on the deepest Europeanmythological level. It is difficult to separate them from the Norns, the similar age-old fates, older than the gods, of a separate Indo-European tradition, or from the Baltic goddess Laima and her two sisters, also spinning goddesses. Some Greek mythographers went so far as to claim that the Moirae were the daughters of Zeus— paired with either Ananke or, as Hesiod had it in one passage,[4]Themis or Nyx: was providing a father even for the Moirae a symptom of how far Greek mythographers were willing to go, in order to modify the old myths to suit the patrilineal Olympic order? The claim was certainly not acceptable to Aeschylus, Herodotus, or Plato.
The Moirae were usually described as cold, remorseless and unfeeling, and depicted as old crones or hags. The independent spinster has inspired fear rather than matrimony. "This sinister connotation we inherit from the spinning goddess," write Ruck and Staples. See weaving (mythology).
Despite their forbidding reputation, Moirae could be worshipped as goddesses. Brides in Athens offered them locks of hair and women swore by them. They may have originated as birth-goddesses and only later acquired their reputation as the agents of destiny.
The three witches encountered by Macbeth on the heath, addressed as the Weird Sisters, are compared to the Three Fates.[5] They likewise have forbidding appearances (beards), and appear to determine the fates of all individuals. Even Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett's Discworld are loosely based on the Moirae.
Compare the Graeae, another set of three old sisters in Greek mythology.
The Moirae in popular culture
The Fates (Parcae or Moirae) make regular appearances in popular culture, produced to appeal to a mass market. The presence of the Fates lends an atmosphere of depth and universality to some productions of market-driven contemporary culture. Alternatively, they may be introduced with a mock-heroic sense of parody.
Once Uopn A Winter's Night] has the three Fates playing a major role when Camille seeks their aide, they are known as the Maiden, Mother and Crone, Skuld Verdandi Urd who weave the threads of the tapestry of time
Xena:Warrior Princess has a recurring trio known as The Fates, comprising the Maiden, Mother and Crone, who weave the threads of life (Article at Whoosh).
In Disney's Hercules, when Hades wishes to know the future, he consults the Fates, who share a single eye among them, a feature of the Graeae of Greek mythology.
In the spin-off novels to the long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who, the Fates of the Time lord religion are depicted as three women, created when the universe was young. They are Death, Time, and Pain, who sit as maiden, mother, and crone, respectively.
In the popular cult comic book series "The Sandman (DC Comics/Vertigo)", by Neil Gaiman, the Fates are also the Furies and Hyppolita Hall is their descendant, which allows her to assume these roles.
In the computer game LOOM, the Elders of the Guild of Weavers are named for the Moirae, although one Elder, Atropos, is male.
The Moirae are depicted in the beginning of the Korean manhwa series Ragnarök.
In Stephen King's 1994 Insomnia, the Moirae are depicted in the form of three doctors who visit people at the end of their life to cut their thread. Atropos is depicted as a creature of Random while the other two are workers of Fate.
In Nagano Mamoru's Five Star Stories (a space opera manga), the master fatima meight Dr Chrome Ballanche named his last three masterpiece fatimas after the Greek Fates, Atropos, Lachesis, and Clotho.
The Fates are depicted in the Incarnations of Immortality novels, and are the focus of With a Tangled Skein.
In the highly anticipated PlayStation 2 game God of War 2, Kratos fights against the Moirae so he can go back in time to when the gods first betray him.
In the Super Nintendo game Chrono Trigger, the playable character, Robo, comes in contact with, and fights a robot from his past by the name of Atropos XR.
In the Game Boy Advance game Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, the player can learn three special techniques that can be used with specific weapons to deal incredible damage but damage the user. These three techniques are named after the Moirae.
In the Game Boy Advance game Golden Sun 2, three of the most powerful items that player controlled characters can use are the Lanchesis' Rule, Atropos' Rod, and Clothos' Distaff. The Atropos' Rod also featured a special attack called Life Shear.
Thomas Blisniewski, '1992. 'Kinder der dunkelen Nacht: Die Ikonographie der Parzen vom späten Mittelalter bis zum späten 18. Jahrhundert. (Cologne) Iconography of the Fates from the late Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century.
Karl Kerenyi, 1951. The Gods of the Greeks (Thames and Hudson)
