of fate. In Norse myth, fate was created by supernatural female beings called Norns, who appear either individually or as a collective and who give people their fate at birth and are somehow involved in their deaths. Other female beings, the disir and valkyries, were also associated with fate. Afterlife Early Germanic beliefs about the afterlife are not well known, however, the sources indicate a variety of beliefs, including belief in an underworld, continued life in the grave, a world of the dead in the sky, and reincarnation. Beliefs varied by time and place and may have contradictory in the same time and place. The two most important afterlives in the attested corpus were located at Hel and Valhalla, while additional destinations for the dead are also mentioned. A number of sources refer to Hel as the general abode of the dead. The Old Norse proper noun Hel and its cognates in other Germanic languages are used for the Christian hell, but they originally refer to a Germanic underworld and/or afterlife location that predates Christianization. Its relation to the West Germanic verb ("to hide") suggests that it may have originally referred to the grave itself. It could also suggest the idea that the realm of the dead is hidden from human view. It was not conceived of as a place of punishment until the high Middle Ages, when it takes on some characteristics of the Christian hell. It is described as cold, dark, and in the north. Valhalla ("hall of the slain"), on the other hand, is a hall in Asgard where the illustrious dead dwell with Odin, feasting and fighting. Old Norse material often include the notion that the dead lived in their graves, and that they can sometimes come back as revenants. Several inscriptions in the Elder Futhark found on stones marking graves seem intended to prevent this. The concept of the Wild Hunt of the dead, first attested in the 11th century, is found throughout the Germanic-speaking regions. Religiously significant numbers In Germanic mythology, the numbers three, nine, and twelve play an important role. The symbolic importance of the number three is attested widely among many cultures, and the number twelve is also attested as significant in other cultures, meaning that foreign influence is possible. The number three often occurs as a symbol of completeness, which is probably how the frequent use in Germanic religion of triads