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286 RELIGION OF .THE NORTHMEN.
in those unenliglitened times to bring one into notice
as a prophet or prophetess, especially when a certain
natural or assumed mysteriousness, and a wise ap-
plication of circumstances, were added. Such seers
were believed to have a presentiment of coining
events of importance, and to be able to see by one's
features and manners what his fate would be. That
both these species of prophecy should often hit the
mark is not so wonderful, when we consider on one
hand the intimate relation between the Past and
Future, and on the other, how strongly the character
of a people of inferior cultivation is usually ex-
pressed in their features, and also how common it is
that a man's disposition shapes his good or evil
destiny. Whatever might be wanting in the accu.
racy of the supposed prophecies, was filled out by the
superstition of the age, which often, when the event
had actually happened, involuntarily adapted to it
the words with which the seer might be supposed to
have announced it beforehand. His fame thus grew
sometimes without his own cooperation; his con-
temporaries listened to every expression that fell
from his lips, as to the response of an oracle, and
After-ages ascribed to him prophecies which in all
probability never came from his lips.
Many of the seers of heathen times believed, probably
by the aid of a certain enthusiasm, that they
actually received higher revelations, but there were
also many, doubtless, who were fully conscious of the
true state of the case with their gifts of prophecy.
It is, however, easy to imagine that the latter seldom ,
opposed the superstition concerning their superna-