Closer than Your Shadow

Question: You have mentioned it before in your blog, but I haven't heard about it before: what exactly is a fylgja?

Fylgja ("companions") and their closely-related cousins the hamingja ("shapes") are Norse spirits that protect and accompany certain people (usually heroes) or their family lines. They're comparable to a lot of different concepts in various other mythologies; I think we brought them up before in connection to nahualli, since both are a sort of spiritual twin that lives with a person their entire life but may never be found or seen by them (and fylgja are often, though not always, also animalistic in form), but they're just as comparable to the fetches of Celtic lore in that seeing one almost always portends your death, or the genii of Roman mythology which also act as guardians of good luck, fortune and fate for the family they are attached to.

Fylgja protect and guide the people they are attached to when they can; they were believed to be the spirits dedicated to the family line or to a particular hero, and as such could help alter his Fate to make it more favorable or protect him from magical sources of misfortune or danger. A fylgja is always female (though she is always attached to a man - as far as we know, women didn't have fylgja, because Norse culture wasn't exactly gender-progressive), though it only rarely appears in human form, and is more often a totem animal glimpsed by its connected mortal only in dreams. Seeing a fylgja in the flesh while alive and awake always means that the person is about to die - the fylgja, which in effect has direct access to his Fate, is basically warning him about what's about to happen. (Not that that lets him avoid it, but I suppose it's the thought that counts!)

The word "fylgja" is usually translated variously as "woman" or "witch", so it can be difficult to find places in the stories of Norse mythology where they definitely appear unless you're looking at the original text. You'll usually see them in the Icelandic sagas, such as when a blood-covered goat appears to herald coming death in the Njals saga, or Eyjólfr suffers terrible misfortune in the Ljosvetninga saga because his fylgja is said to be too weak to protect him from it.

Like most of these cool culture-specific concepts, a fylgja is a great choice for a Scion Birthright; since the greatest of Norse heroes were understood to be so badass because they had powerful fylgja helping them, your young Norse Scions would certainly be candidates for similar help. Fylgja might make excellent Guides, providing Scions with passive bonuses from afar, occasionally meddling in their Fates in a helpful way and communicating with them via dreams. You could also probably build a more specific custom Birthright, the same way we've done with nahualli for the Aztlanti or qarin for the Alihah; whatever makes the concept most resonant and cool for a Scion should be encouraged and pursued.