Hamingja

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The hamingja was a type of female guardian spirit in Norse mythology. It was believed that she accompanied a person and decided their luck and happiness. Consequently, the name was also used to indicate happiness, and that is what it means in modern Icelandic. When a person died, the hamingja passed to a beloved family member and thus accompanied a family for several generations, continuing to influence their fortunes. It was even possible to lend one's own hamingja to a friend, as happened when Hjalti Skeggiason was about to leave on a perilous voyage and asked Olaf II of Norway to lend him his hamingja.

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It usually appears during sleep in the form of an animal, but it can also be the spirit of a sleeping person who appears in the form of an animal, as Bödvar Bjarki in the saga of Hrólfr Kraki.

In Norse mythology, hamingja (Old Norse "luck" [1] ) refers to two concepts:

Both Andy Orchard and Rudolf Simek note parallels between the concept of the hamingja and the fylgja. [2] Luck may be transferred to a descendant of the owner, or to a member of a tribe for a perilous journey, it accords wealth, success and power, and it accrues over a life time. Sometimes hamingja is used to denote honor.

See also

Citations

  1. Orchard (1997:73).
  2. Orchard (1997:73) and Simek (2007:129).

General and cited references

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