ABOUT LUCK IN PAGANISM

Did our pagan forebears believe in luck? Let's find out!

Today, we think of luck as a weird concept, that we invoke to interpret things that happen and we have not foreseen, so we project this thought to our pagan forebears. But, let's examine...
...what terms they used for luck.

The Ancient Greek tern for "luck" was "tyche". The word "tyche" derives from "teuchos", which in Homer denotes weapons placed in a warrior's grave. "Teuchos" also means "funerary urn" and also "something made by a craftsman".
From "teuchos" derives the perfect tense "teteucha", which gives us the verb "tychano", from which we ultimately get "Tyche". So, the term is connected with the sacred objects deposited in the passage grave. As you already know, the initiates collected those objects at...
...the reincarnation ritual. So, we get our good luck by awakening the ancestor in us, by knowing ourselves, as the Delphic maxim says.

Moreover, the term for "good luck", id est "eutychia", is a synonym of "eudaemonia". Eudaemonia means "to have a good daemon".
Aeschylus says that daemons ("bound, followers", cf. Scandinavian "fylgja") are, in fact, the spirits of our ancestors. So, by virtue of "eutychia" and "eudaemonia" being synonyms, we have another connection of good luck with the ancestors and reincarnation.

Now, moving to...
... Latin, the term is "Fortuna". "Fortuna" stems from "fortis", which means "strong". Alternatively, we can derive it from "fors", which is cognate with English "to bear" and the Latin verb "fero" meaning "to carry". I daresay that the fact that "fors" is cognate with...
..."to bear" provides enough proof for the association with the rebirth. Plus, even if we derive if from "fortis", then we have the association with strength and the strong, the courageous and honorable, whose spirits get reborn. Furthermore, we can't rule out that...
..."fors" and "fortis" are related, given that "fortis" is also the genitive of "fors". Either way, the connection to reincarnation is undeniable. The English word "luck" is somewhat more obscure, but the German "glück" might be related to the verb "gelingen", meaning...
..."to succeed". In this context, the success refers to the successful rebirth.

Feel free to examine the terms related to "luck" in your own languages. I bet you will come to similar conusions.

Thanks for reading

Dixi.
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