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Chapter 5. The Underworld 133
In folk tradition, the fylgja may also have been the vehicle for soul-travel during
sleep (“dreaming”) and for the Otherworld journeys of the noaide of the Samí culture
although it should be mentioned that, in Norway, the dreamer did not always travel
in the shape of a animal. 31 Additionally, the fate of the individual and his fylgja
were so closely tied that if the fylgja was injured during travel so also did the
individual suffer. The only apparent difference between traveling during sleep and
traveling voluntarily into the Otherworld was that during sleep the individual was
only passively attending the dream-events, and during a noaide’s journey, the noaide
or shaman was consciously aware and had control over his own behavior.
Both the fylgja and hamingja, in function, had close ties to the Underworld and,
no matter how they are described as beings, which is often confusing to the student of
tradition and folk-lore, acted in ways very distinct from one another. The hamingja
in its role as “guardian” as it is often described was a direct link through the line
of ancestors to the source of life. In itself, it did not “store” power, but depending
on an individual’s ability to disseminate power, functioned as a distributor. The
fylgja, in its role, worked in tandem with an individual, like a guardian angel in
the pop-Christian sense, to help lead him into situations which may have been of
benefit from the standpoint of power. Such situations might have dealt with health,
prosperity, or knowledge. Later on during the era of the Inquisition, individuals
who had a good personal relationship with their fylgja often called these beings
their “fetches.” An accused woman during a witch trial in 1660 described the fylgja
or vor(d) thus:
“There is a vord in people’s breasts, which goes out at night when they
are asleep. And if an evil spirit comes and prevents it from coming back
again, that person will lose his mind unless it returns in a day or two.” 32
The vor(d) is a protector of a person’s health and well-being and is a Swedish word
for “fylgja.”
Caring for the ancestral line was important to virtually all the ancient Northern
Europeans because of the need to maintain connections to the source of all power/
luck which they knew to be deep in the Underworld. According to this line of logic
no individual could truly function independently of the entire system; each had
a role to play in the overall scheme of things. The “systems theories” now being
applied in 20 th century scientific thought is little more than an inevitable extension
of this age-old Heathen logic. The ancient Germanic peoples, however, realized that
31 In most of the Scandinavian stories about a dreamer traveling in his sleep, the dreamer
perceives himself to still be human whereas a witness to the event (often another dreamer) sees the
traveler as an animal such as a bird, butterfly, wolf, etc. This differs from how a noaide perceives
himself while traveling which is either as an animal or a man-spirit.
32 Østberg, Kristian Svartboka (Oslo) 1925, p. 84.