download - Sage's Lore Library

eoECEEy. 269
l^owever, were believed to possess such strong
natural powers that their eyes remained unbUnded
by this kind of sorcery.*
Intimately coiinec#d with the above, was the
power, often mentioned in the Sagas, of becoming
invisible, through which the magician by his arts
could make himself or any one else that he chose
become totally invisible. He was then said to
"make a hiding-helmet" (gera huli5s-hjalm) for
himself or others. This kind of invisibility is some-
times described as being produced by a sort of dust,
of the appearance of ashes, which the magician
scattered over and about those whom he wished to
conceal.
The belief in actual transformations, especially
iato the forms of animals, was also universal. Such
transformations could either be brought upon others
to their injury—as, for instance, it is related of the
magic-skilled Queen Hvita, that in hatred to her
step-son who had rejected her love, she changed him
into a bear by the stroke of a wolf-skin glovef— ;or
they could be assumed by the magician himself, in
order that in his enchanted form he might pass more
easily and quickly to distant places. This latter
sort of transformation occurs most frequently in the
Sagas, and the journey by this mode was designated
hamfbr, gandreiS, or, at renna gondum.:]: On such
* H6r6s S., Eyrb. S. et aL
t Hrolfa Kraka S. 20.
if Eamfor—^from hamr, outward form—denotes a journey in an
assumed form. Gandr, a wolf, a dragon, and especially, a demon-
animal ;
gandreiS, the ride upon such animals, and renna gondtun,
to travel upon them.