This is only a farther development of animistic
belief. The preternatural agency is not necessarily conceived to
be a personal agent in the full sense, but it is an agency which
partakes of the attributes of personality to the extent of
somewhat arbitrarily influencing the outcome of any enterprise,
and especially of any contest. The pervading belief in the
hamingia or gipta (gaefa, authna) which lends so much of color to
the Icelandic sagas specifically, and to early Germanic
folk-legends, is an illustration of this sense of an
extra-physical propensity in the course of events.
In this expression or form of the belief the propensity is
scarcely personified although to a varying extent an
individuality is imputed to it; and this individuated propensity
is sometimes conceived to yield to circumstances, commonly to
circumstances of a spiritual or preternatural character. A
well-known and striking exemplification of the belief -- in a
fairly advanced stage of differentiation and involving an
anthropomorphic personification of the preternatural agent
appealed to -- is afforded by the wager of battle. Here the
preternatural agent was conceived to act on request as umpire,
and to shape the outcome of the contest in accordance with some
stipulated ground of decision, such as the equity or legality of
the respective contestants' claims.
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