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CHAPTER XXVIII.
DESTINY AND WELL-BEING.
This is the place to insert a more exact survey of ancient
opinions on fortune and destiny, than it was possible to take in
chap. XVI, where the semi-divine directresses of human fate
were spoken of. Fate in the proper sense has so much to do
with men s notions about birth, and more especially those about
death, and these have only just been expounded. Thus, a man
over whom there impends a speedy and inevitable death is said
to be fey. 1
Our ancestors, like other heathens, appear to have made a
distinction between destiny and fortune. Their gods bestow
prosperity and bliss : above all, Wuotan is the giver of all good,
the maker and author of life and victory (pp. 133-7). But
neither he nor any other god was at the beginning of creation,
he has himself sprung out of it
(p. 559), and can do nothing
.against a higher constitution of the world, which exempts neither
him nor victory-lending Zeus 2 from a general destruction (pp.
316-8). Some things turn out contrary to his will : OSinn
and all the ases cannot prevent the misfortune of Balder ;
another instance of overruling destiny at p. 425. Ragnarok, the
world s destruction, far overtops the power of the gods.
This predetermined and necessary character of all that comes
into being and exists and perishes, was expressed by a plural
1
OUG.feigi, MHG. veige ; OS.fegi, Hel. 72, 4; AS. Beow. f<ege, 5946; ON.
feigr. The old meaning of the word has been preserved longest in Lower Saxony
dat balde sterven
[and Scotland] : dar is en veege in n huse en ; r^minsche,
werd (will die soon) ; per contra, he is nau nig veege (not fey yet) of a man
who comes in when you are talking of him. Also Nethl. een veeg man (with one
foot in the grave), een veege teken (sign
of death) hence also , veeg = debilis, periculis
expositus. Our own feig has acquired the sense of fainthearted, cowardly,
pitiable, as the Lat. fatalis has, in the Fr. fatal, that of unlucky, disagreeable. So
the Lith. paikas, bad (see Suppl.).
2
T/>we<r<ri /ScwXercu viicijv (II. 7, 21. 1C, 121), as jSoi Xi? will, counsel, is usually
attributed to Zeus (i]fuv /Soi Xercu 17, 331) ; and sometimes v!>os (17, 176) or v6t]/ui.a,
purpose (17, 409). His great power is illustrated by the gold chain (creipa,
II. 8,
19 28), but passages presently to be cited shew that he had to leave destiny to be
decided by the balance.
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