There is an oft-quoted legend telling of an invisible red thread connecting those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break. It is attributed to Yuè Lăo, the Chinese lunar matchmaker god.

No disrespect to my esteemed colleague – he was a very pleasant chap. Kind, well-educated for his time, and terribly romantic. But for all his celebrity matchmaker status, he didn’t come up with the theory, because he wasn’t that good at the craft. Not really a deep thinker, you could say. He was, however, a master of self-promotion.

How do I know? Simple: I was the one who taught him about the red thread and the other founding principles of matchmaking when he was a mere lad, and my apprentice.

Liv Månedotter at your service, lunar matchmaker goddess. The clue is in the name: ‘moon’s daughter’, although these days few pick up on it. People are too caught up in cults of celebrity to look deeply anymore. If ‘Old Moon’ were around today, he would be cleaning up on TikTok.

Not living in obscurity out here in a little village alongside peaceful Bunnefjorden, running a matchmaking side hustle out of a tiny café beside an ancient trackway. Oh, I’m not complaining – I am exactly where I need to be: in the centre of my own tangle of threads. Tugging a little here, untangling there. Unravelling knots, you might say. And guiding my new apprentice. No need to thank me. It is what we lunar matchmakers do.

But you aren’t interested in me. Or Yuè, for that matter. You’re here to hear a timeless tale of eternally-fated soulmates, wolves and wonders . . . the tale of how in his first life the Norse god of winter met a beautiful wolf-worshipping giantess. Of how he won her heart and her hand, and now scours every life until he finds her again.

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: you humans are obsessed with ancient gods. Roman, Greek, Celtic, Polynesian, Norse – you can’t get enough of them! But they are no more than a single extended family, which over the millennia you have woven into your origin stories; comforting blankets in which you wrap yourselves to keep out the cold of all those long, dark nights. Have you never noticed that each lot are much the same as all the others, and wondered about all those similarities? We lunar deities had to work with what we had, and we only had the one set available, you see.

We call them the First Family. We gifted them the powers they’d need, and helped them settle in. Then left them to it, keeping a protective eye on them from afar, lending a hand only when absolutely necessary. Over the millennia they thrived, fraternised with the locals, and their progeny spread throughout your world. As that world changed, they slowly slipped into the realms of myth and legend.

Our gifts to those very First Ones included rebirth. Each of them has lived many lives, although we tend on the whole to veil them for their protection, lest the remembrance of previous lives, loves and losses is too painful for them.

I’ll let you into a secret: like my fellow lunar deities, I’ve been all over, taken many lives in many times, worn many names. You may even recognise some of them. Unlike the First Ones, we remember every single one of our lives. And we all have our preferences. For me, ‘home’ is here, just half an hour outside Oslo. Where it all started. Ground zero, you might say.

However, I digress. Where were we? Ah yes, the red thread linking Ullr, god of winter, and the beautiful, wolf-loving giantess Skađi, herself goddess of the winter wilderness, his eternally-fated soulmate.

Let me think – exactly how did that all begin? After so many lifetimes, one’s memories become a little hazy, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. As far as I recall, the seeds were scattered when Skađi’s father was murdered, and she travelled to Midgard seeking revenge.

I have the vaguest remembrance of a fairly epic celebration, during which she turned up dressed in full battle gear, demanding that Odin slaughter a hundred men and enslave a thousand more to avenge him. 

It could have gone either way, but the good mead had been flowing fast and hard, and the men were too unsteady in their legs for the sortie. After negotiations accompanied by yet more mead, Odin offered her instead her choice of husband as compensation.

However, prolonged and prodigious imbibing of Loki’s Finest Reserve had wrought him a little puckish, so he made a sneaky proviso: poor Skađi had only the sight of her prospective mate’s toes to tickle her fancy. It was a pretty uninspiring selection, most suitors already deep in their cups and incapable of promenading.

After inspecting the pitiful offerings, Skađi chose the sea god Njord, and agreed to live with him on the shores of Oslofjorden, though even a blind person could see there was absolutely no spark whatsoever between them.

I place the blame for what happened next on Aegir’s birch sap wine. I never was much of a drinker, but I admit that I too had taken a kuksa or two too many in celebration. It so happened that I had completed my apprenticeship with Lofn that very day, and it seemed only fitting to mark the occasion with a little carousing.

So, unwise though it may have been, when I saw Skađi pantomime a polite smile which didn’t reach her eyes, I knew exactly what to do!

I reviewed my mental list of eligible men, and one name stood out like a beacon: Ullr. He lived up in the snowy mountains with the wolves, and was the only person better than Skađi on skis.

Before thinking it through properly, I invoked a little matchmaker magic, initiating the thread-fixing ritual with all speed, but in my haste I got things a little snarled – remember, I was young then, and new to the craft.

By the time I had teased out the tangles and set the process properly in motion, the unhappy couple were married and had spent nine uncomfortable days at the waters’ edge.

On the tenth day, the thread, now correctly placed, began to tighten around Skađi’s finger. She left Njord that same day, telling him she was miserable, and could not bear life without the sight and sound of her beloved wolves.

She set off for home eagerly, feeling herself unaccountably drawn to a path faint and rarely trodden. After five days on her skis she paused in a little valley known as Ýdalir, reading the spoor below the ancient yew which brooded over the snowy track.  She saw many paw prints, and, carried on the cold evening air, heard the echoing cries of a wolf pack hunting on the hillside above.

Moments later she saw him for the first time. He was truly a sight to behold. Clad in thick furs, he was accompanied by two magnificent wolves padding proudly either side of him. Though Skađi was a giantess, she felt delicate under his gaze, and she blushed rose pink when he stepped forward and introduced himself as Ullv. Yes, I know his name was Ullr. But so distracted by his wild beauty and his wild beasts was she that she heard instead ‘Ullv’. Wolf! It was perfect for him. And he was perfect for her. Her wolf; to her he was ever after thus: ‘Ullven min’

The crimson cord bound around them ever tighter as they drew nearer to each other, and by the time he was close enough to grasp her hand, they were forever lost and found. Ullr invited Skađi to break her journey with him, and she never left.

 They lived the rest of their years handfasted in happy obscurity, hunting together and skiing beside each other, flanked always by their wolves. Except for those few dark winter months when Ullr ruled in Odin’s stead, when legend has it that the spray from his skis spread far and wide over the skies as Nordlyset, the northern lights.

And so passed their First life together. When they died, that thread which bound them refused to break. As First ones, they were reborn to walk again upon the earth. In every life, their thread tugged them together, and they shared them all as eternally-fated soulmates must.

This much I can tell you, for it is a matter of record. But fate has brought us all three together this time around, and there remains one last tale for the telling. And while I – of course – know how it will go, it is not mine to tell.

However, it is a matter of record that Ullr’s feast day is the twenty-eighth of December, and such days are perfect for celebrations. . .

The End