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Excerpt: ...must be no doubt that the judicial proceedings in the court of death were so managed that the wisdom and justice of the dicta were raised high above every suspicion of being mistaken. The heathen fancy shrank from the idea of a knowledge able of itself to embrace all, the greatest and the least, that which has been, is doing, and shall be in the world of thoughts, purposes, and deeds. It hesitated at all events to endow its gods made in the image of man with omniscience. It was easier to conceive a divine insight which was secured by a net of messengers and spies stretched throughout the world. Such a net was cast over the human race by Urd, and it is doubtless for this reason that the subterranean Thing of the gods was located near her fountain and not near Mimer's. Urd has given to every human soul, already before the hour of birth, a maid-servant, a hamingje, a norn of lower rank, to watch over and protect its earthly life. And so there was a wide-spread organisation of watching and protecting spirits, each one of whom knew the motives and deeds of a special individual. As such an organisation was at the service of the court, there was no danger that the judgment over each one dead would not be as just as it was unappealable and everlasting. The hamingje hears of it before anyone else when her mistress has announced dauffa arff--the doom of death, against her favourite. She (and the gipte, heille, see No. 64) leaves him then. She is horfin, gone, which can be perceived in dreams (Balder's Dream, 4) 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 hamingje goes to the lower world, the home of her nativity (see No. 64), to prepare an abode there for her favourite, which also is to belong to her (Gisle...
| ISBN-13 | 9781154429855 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 1154429857 |
| Weight | 1.60 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 1.11 In |
| List Price | $19.99 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 498 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2010-03-01 |
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