Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

The hamingja hears of it before anyone else when her mistress has announced
dauða orð - the doom of death, against her favorite. She (and the gipta, heill, see No. 64)
leaves him then. She is horfin, gone, which can be perceived in dreams (Baldurs
Draumar 4) 15 or by revelations in other ways, and this is an unmistakable sign of death.
But if the death-doomed person is not a nithing, whom she in sorrow and wrath has left,
then she by no means abandons him. They are like members of the same body, which can
only be separated by mortal sins (see below). The hamingja goes to the lower world, the
home of her nativity (see No. 64), to prepare an abode there for her favorite, which also is
to belong to her (Gisla saga Súrssona, ch. 30). 16 It is as if a spiritual marriage was
entered into between her and the human soul.
But on the dictum of the court of death it depends where the dead person is to find
his haven. The judgment, although not pronounced on the hamingja, touches her most
closely. When the most important of all questions, that of eternal happiness or
unhappiness, is to be determined in regard to her favorite, she must be there, where her
duty and inclination bid her be - with him whose guardian-spirit she is. The great
question for her is whether she is to continue to share his fate or not. During his earthly
life she has always defended him. It is of paramount importance that she should do so
now. His lips are sealed, but she is able to speak, and is his other ego. And she is not only
a witness friendly to him, but, from the standpoint of the court, she is a more reliable one
than he would be himself.
In Atlamál 28 there occurs a phrase which has its origin in heathendom, where it
has been employed in a clearer and more limited sense than in the Christian poem. The
phrase is eg kveð aflima orðnar þér dísir, and it means, as Atlamál uses it, that he to
whom the dises (the hamingja and gipt) have become aflima is destined, in spite of all
warnings, to go to his ruin. In its very nature the phrase suggests that there can occur
between the hamingja and the human soul another separation than the accidental and
transient one which is expressed by saying that the hamingja is horfin. 17 Aflima means
"amputated," separated by a sharp instrument from the body of which one has been a
member. 18 The person from whom his dises have been cut off has no longer any close
relation with them. He is forever separated from them, and his fate is no longer theirs.
Therefore there are persons doomed to die and persons dead who do not have hamingjur
by them. They are those whom the hamingjur in sorrow and wrath have abandoned, and
with whom they are unable to dwell in the lower world, as they are nithings and are
awaited in Niflhel.
15 This is from the additional stanzas included in the paper manuscripts of Vegtamskviða. The stanza reads
Mjök var hapti/ höfugr blundr,/ heillir í svefni/ horfnar sýndust;/ spurðu jólnar/ spár framvísar,/ ef þat
myndi/ angrs vita. "The god's sleep was most heavy, in his sleep his heillir (i.e hamingjur) seemed to have
departed; the gods consulted the wise oracles, if this might forebode sorrow."
16 In that saga, Gisli is visited in his sleep by two "dream-women," one bloody and one fair. In chapter 30,
he dreams of the fair one. She comes to him riding a grey horse, and invites him to her home. When they
arrive at her palace, she suggests that he stay for a while, and says: "you will return here when you die, and
enjoy wealth and happiness."
17 Vigfusson's Dictionary (pg. 248), "Heill: 2. esp. (also in plural) with the personal notion of good spirit or
angel cp. hamingja …heillum horfinn, forsaken by luck, Grettis Saga 150."
18 Vigfusson confirms aflima means "to be cut off, separated from (literally "to off-limb")." Today this
passage is commonly interpretated "the disir are powerless to help you" as in Larrington's Poetic Edda.
Larrington's reference, LaFarge-Tucker's Glossary to the Poetic Edda however clearly indicates this
interpretation is dubious.