download - Sage's Lore Library

2Y0 KELIGION OF THE NOETHMEN.
occasions the human body was believed to lie as if
dead or in an enchanted sleep, wliile the eotd, in-
closed in the form of a whale, a seal, a falcon, or
any other animal that mighAe found best adapted
to the object of its magic journey, roamed abroad in
other places. It was then necessary to be careful
not to speak the sorcerer's name nor wake up the
sleeping body, for by doing so the whole charm was
destroyed and the spirit was compelled to turn back
to its own proper habitation again. Should there be
any injury done to the assumed form—or, as it was
called, hamr—it affected the real body. Women
who tmdertook these enchanted flights in transfor-
mation, were called hamhleypur {sing, hamhleypa,
a witch, a lamia ; from Tumvr, and hleypa^ to run).
Certain women, it was believed, could transform
themselves into Nightmares (mara, or kveldriSa),
and in this disguise smother people in their sleep, or
do them some other injury in the night.* Finally,
it was also admitted as a possibility that people
could mutually exchange their outward appearance
(skipta litum). In aU such transformations, how-
ever, it appears that they believed the eyes— ^that
reflection of the human soul— ^to remain unchanged.
There was another species of charmed sleep beside
that above-mentioned, in which sorcerer's body
lay while his soul wandered abroad in an assumed
form, which it was believed the magicians could
bring upon others by pricking them with a so-called
soporific thorn (8vefe-J)oni). This enchanted sleep,
* l^e punishment for suoh women is established in the Anc
Laws of Norway, I, p. 408.