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DESTINY AND WELL-BEING.
me genaedeclichen (graciously) lachen, Troj. 5754.
f so decket
uns der 8. huot, hood, hat, Winsbekin 45, 7 : a wishing-cap.
daz iuch frouwe 8. miieze behullen (fovere), Lohengr. 101:
behullen prob. in its literal sense, to wrap, to clothe, as Walther
43, 1 and 7 makes fro Saelde kleiden (clothe) people, and schroten
(cut out) for them ; she cuts out sorrow and high courage. And
so, no doubt, under many more aspects, which we can guess from
our present figures of speech: fortune favours, visits, pursues
him/ etc. etc. And here again we find, even in old poets, the
more vague neuter : geliicke hat den nuwen gegen mir gekert/
turned its back toward me, LS. 1,238; hat den nuwen noch
gegen mir endecket ; enblecket gen mir sinen zan (bared its
teeth, gnashed); het zer rechten hende kerte von im undo vloch
griffen
geliicke/ Troj. 5750.
3, 539.
We say
do
my
fortune blooms, grows/ as though it were attached to a tree
or herb: mein gliicke das bliihete mir/ Schweinichen 1, 170.
geliicke wahset mit genuht/ Troj.
5686. uns ist niht wol
erschozen geliicke 12438. Got wil uns saelde lazen wahsen/
Lohengr. 66. The proverb ( das gliick kommt von ungefiihr wol
iiber neunzig stauden her/ Simplic. 2, 158, well expresses the
suddenness and surprise, the windfall nature of luck, to which
are owing the very names of rv^rj (from Tv%6iv, rvy^dveiv) and
fortuna (from fors). Very likely some of the phrases quoted
above have come to us from the ancients, or they had them in
common with us (see Suppl.).
The tale of the Wunderer (wonder-worker, Etzels hofh. 208),
makes frau Scelde a king s daughter with three miraculous gifts,
(1) that of knowing a man s thoughts, (2) of blessing warriors
against wounds in battle, (3) of transporting herself whither she
will (24 26). Who can fail to detect in this the echo of an old
heathen valkyr ?
The now universally familiar image of Fortune riding on a
rolling wheel (/cv\ivSpo$), 1 which was attributed to Fors, Tyche
and Nemesis (0. Muller s Archaol. 607), is, I consider, an im
portation.
f
Versatur celeri Fors levis orbe rotae, Tibull. i. 5, 70.
stans in orbe dea, Ov. ep. ex Ponto ii. 3, 56.
pertimescebat/ Cic. in Pison. 10. rota Fortunae,
(
Fortunae rotatn
Tac. de orat.
1 A different thing therefore from the wheel that Krodo and Vishnu carry in
the hand (p. 248-9).