SUPERSTITIONS OF THE RACE.
The Northman had many superstitions. He believed in good giants and bad
giants, in dark elves and bright elves, in superhuman beings who tilled
the wide gulf which existed between himself and the gods. He believed,
too, in wraiths and fetches and guardian spirits, who followed
particular persons, and belonged to certain families--a belief which
seems to have sprung from the habit of regarding body and soul as two
distinct beings, which at certain times took each a separate bodily
shape. Sometimes the guardian spirit or fylgja took a human shape; at
others its form took that of some animal fancied to foreshadow the
character of the man to whom it belonged. Thus it becomes a bear, a
wolf, an ox, and even a fox, in men. The fylgjur of women were fond of
taking the shape of swans. To see one's own fylgja was unlucky, and
often a sign that a man was "fey," or death-doomed. So, when Thord
Freedmanson tells Njal that he sees the goat wallowing in its gore in
the "town" of Bergthorsknoll, the foresighted man tells him that he has
seen his own fylgja, and that he must be doomed to die. Finer and nobler
natures often saw the guardian spirits of others. Thus Njal saw the
fylgjur of Gunnar's enemies, which gave him no rest the livelong night,
and his weird feeling is soon confirmed by the news brought by his
shepherd. From the fylgja of the individual it was easy to rise to the
still more abstract notion of the guardian spirits of a family, who
sometimes, if a great change in the house is about to begin, even show
themselves as hurtful to some member of the house. He believed also that
some men had more than one shape; that they could either take the shapes
of animals, as bears or wolves, and so work mischief; or that, without
undergoing bodily change, an access of rage and strength came over them,
and move especially towards night, which made them more than a match for
ordinary men. Such men were called hamrammir, "shape-strong," and it was
remarked that when the fit left them they were weaker than they had been
before.
This gift was looked upon as something "uncanny," and it leads us at
once to another class of men, whose supernatural strength was regarded
as a curse to the community. These were the Baresarks. What the
hamrammir men were when they were in their fits the Baresarks almost
always were. They are described as being always of exceeding, and when
their fury rose high, of superhuman strength. They too, like the
hamrammir men, were very tired when the fits passed off. What led to
their fits is hard to say. In the case of the only class of men like
them nowadays, that of the Malays running a-muck, the intoxicating fumes
of bangh or arrack are said to be the cause of their fury. One thing,
however, is certain, that the Baresark, like his Malay brother, was
looked upon as a public pest, and the mischief which they caused,
relying partly no doubt on their natural strength, and partly on the
hold which the belief in their supernatural nature had on the mind of
the people, was such as to render their killing a good work.
Again, the Northman believed that certain men were "fast" or "hard";
that no weapons would touch them or wound their skin; that the mere
glance of some men's eyes would turn the edge of the best sword; and
that some persons had the power of withstanding poison. He believed in
omens and dreams and warnings, in signs and wonders and tokens; he
believed in good luck and bad luck, and that the man on whom fortune
smiled or frowned bore the marks of her favour or displeasure on his
face; he believed also in magic and sorcery, though he loathed them as
unholy rites. With one of his beliefs our story has much to do, though
this was a belief in good rather than in evil. He believed firmly that
some men had the inborn gift, not won by any black arts, of seeing
things and events beforehand. He believed, in short, in what is called
in Scotland "second sight". This was what was called being "forspár" or
"framsýnn," "foretelling" and "foresighted ". Of such men it was said
that their "words could not be broken". Njal was one of these men; one
of the wisest and at the same time most just and honourable of men. This
gift ran in families, for Helgi Njal's son had it, and it was beyond a
doubt one of the deepest-rooted of all their superstitions.
