Happy Saturday, dear readers! In today’s post, I want to take a brief look at the fourth and final part of the Heathen self that Ryan Smith discusses in the third chapter of Spinning Wyrd.

What jumped out at me is that Smith (or at least those whose views he’s sharing) seems to hold two slightly different views of the hamingja. On the one hand, hamingja sounds as if its an impersonal force, that can be shared, given away, or pooled among people. At the same time, Smith (or his sources) describe the hamingja as a sort of guardian spirit, which in my mind would make such sharing and pooling less feasible. I suppose I’m more likely to lean into the former understanding myself, as the idea of the hamingja having its own intelligence would put me in the same quandry I have over the fylgja.

In many ways, Smith’s discussion of fylgja reminds me of the idea of will, talked about in many witchcraft and other occult communities. I see the will as that part of us which enables us to transform our desires into action, which makes it the root of magic. Smith’s discussion of the hamingja as that part of the Heathen self that most directly allows us to reshape wyrd and help build our reality seems to align with that understanding quite well.

Of course, this idea that hamginja is something we can direct and utilize makes me wonder at the choice to refer to it as “luck,” as that’s a term that I typically see as related to chance and forces beyond our control. This does not seem to fit hamingja as Smith describes it, other than in the sense that Smith notes that orlog has a role in defining and shaping our hamingja. To me, this reinforces the idea that magic and our ability to shape wyrd has its limits, something I’ve explored before in a video.

I think this also makes sense from a Heathen viewpoint, this mutual influence between orlog and our hamingja. it reminds me of the creative tension between two forces that seems to consistently pop up in Norse myth and lore, starting with the mixing of fire and ice in the creation story.

Post History: I wrote the first draft of this post on October 4, 2024. I proofread, revised, and finalized it on October 5, 2024.