FYLGJA, FYLGJURThe fylgjur are guardian spirits or fetches connected to individual persons or families
(Mundal 1993 a; Lindow 1987 , 1993 ). The word derives from the Old Norse verb fylgja
‘to follow’, and is also associated with the noun for ‘caul’ or ‘afterbirth’. They appear in
the distinctly visible forms of either animals or women. Else Mundal has shown that
the guises are employed in two very distinct ways in the texts and concludes: ‘These two
types have little in common but the name’ (Mundal 1993 a: 624 ). The animal fylgja was
a symbolic image pointing towards the inner qualities of its owner, a constant symbolic
characterisation. As a metaphor the fylgja reveals much about the person it follows.
Strength, evil-mindedness, or social status were visualised in the image of a bear, a wolf,
or an eagle. The animal shape was thought not to vary over time and was thus considered
easy to identify. In the texts fylgjur bring warnings or advice. The animal fylgja is said to
appear in front of its owner, often in dreams, and offer portents of events to come. As
such it is a representation of the future itself, not the character of a person. Like a
person’s fate the fylgja is not changeable, nor can it improve or act on its own. As noted
by Else Mundal, the animal fylgja operates as a mirror image of its possessor; the identity
of the two is inextricable and therefore the death of a fylgja is considered predictive of
the imminent demise of its owner.
A fylgja in the shape of a woman is more of a guarding and helping spirit that
protects not merely an individual but a whole family. This is a more abstract idea
closely related to the conceptions of the hamingja. The two are hardly separable even for
analysis. The fylgja in this latter aspect is not even always given a physical form, but
spoken of more diffusely as standing behind the family. Sometimes the fylgja is called
spádís, indicating that she functions as a diviner for the protection of the family. When
she appears within dreams she may be called a dream-woman, draumkona. These aspects
of fate are very concrete in their bodily appearance, and although they show themselves
for only a short time no room remains for alternative interpretations.
The hamingja represents the shape of a person’s fate and it is difficult to distinguish
this notion from the notion of the female fylgja. It is acting as a protective spirit and can
appear before its owner to give hints about the future. The hamingja is also closely
connected to the notions of gipta ‘luck’, gæfa ‘personal qualities’ and future prosperity.
In Víga-Glúms saga (ch. 9 ), Glúmr encounters an enormous woman in a dream and
considers this to mean that his grandfather has died and that his fylgja has now come to
be possessed by him.
FERTILITY, PROSPERITYIn accordance with the cross-currents of destiny, each individual and family were
thought to have received their share of fortune, both materially and in terms more
abstract. Fortune and the good things in life were conceived of as quantitatively fixed
things and thus, as a law of necessity, when somebody gained a measure of prosperity,
that very measure was lost to somebody else. Ideas of luck and fortune were used to
explain not only the current situation, but also social stratifications in general, and the
reason why there were more and less prosperous families in the world. Fortune was
considered a settled fact of life – something that could be altered only through the
sorcerer’s charms and incantations. Not surprisingly, more attention was paid to bad
–– chapter 17: Popular religion in the Viking Age––