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My thanks to Claire, Grandma, Kerri, Dad, and Mom for good will, and to Katherine, for helping me write some of the finest pages in my life’s chapters. And of course, it was Papa, June Crawford, whose wisdom and example still help me find the trail. I carry the fire as best I can, having seen him carry it high to the summit.
Hávamál is resolutely a poem of this world, of enduring its hardships rather than of withdrawing from them.
death is the end, we read in different words again and again, and the dead are of no use to anyone; a dead man is lucky to have a son to raise a stone in his memory, or to leave a good reputation,
the counsel that we must distrust others never becomes an admonition that we must disengage from others.
The Younger Futhark was an alphabet of sixteen letters that had developed in Scandinavia by ca. AD 700 from the twenty-four-letter Elder Futhark
I write Valhalla and Valkyrie instead of the more authentic or consistent Valholl and Valkyrja.
Óðinn is pronounced OTHE-inn, with a first syllable that rhymes with English loathe or clothe (not loath or oath).
A wise man is not showy about his wisdom; he guards it carefully. He is silent when he comes to a stranger’s home. Harm seldom befalls the watchful man, for you can never have a more faithful friend than a good supply of wisdom.
A man is happy if he finds praise and friendship within himself. You can never be sure of where you stand in someone else’s heart.
A noble man should be silent, thoughtful, and bold in battle. But every man should also be cheerful and happy, till the inevitable day of death.
Only a man who is wide-traveled and has wandered far can know something about how other men think. Such a man is wise.
A fool stays awake all night worrying about everything. He’s fatigued when the morning comes, and his problems remain unsolved.
It’s a long and crooked walk to a bad friend, even if he lives nearby. But it’s an easy road to a good friend, no matter how long the journey.
Never go even a single step without a weapon at your side; you never know when you might find yourself in need of a spear.
Friends should provide their friends with weapons and clothing; this kind of generosity shows. Generous mutual giving is the key to lifelong friendship.
Be a friend to your friend, and repay each gift with a gift. Repay laughter with laughter, repay treachery with treachery.
Where the beaches are small, it’s a small sea that washes them— and so it is with little minds. Not everyone is equally wise, but the average is moderately wise.
You should be only a little wise, never too wise. A wise man’s heart is seldom glad if he’s truly wise.
A torch is lit by another and burns till it’s burned out; a fire is kindled by another fire. A man becomes wise by speaking with other men, but foolish by keeping to himself.
If you want to be called wise, you should know how to ask and answer wisely. Tell your secret to one person, never to two— everyone knows, if three people know.
A wise man should use his abilities only in moderation. Then he finds, when he is among the bold, that no one is bravest of all. Ríki sitt
A limping man can ride a horse, a handless man can herd, a deaf man can fight and win. It’s better even to be blind than fuel for the funeral pyre; what can a dead man do?
Two men will defeat one; your tongue can endanger your head. In every hand hidden by a cloak I expect to see a weapon.
No man should trust the words of a girl, nor anything a woman says. Women’s hearts are molded on a wobbly wheel. Faithlessness is planted at their core.
Do not put too much trust in your newly planted crops, nor in your child too early— weather will shape the field and whim will shape the child, and neither will stay the same.
This is the love of deceitful women, it is like driving an unshod horse, a playful, young, poorly tamed foal, across slippery ice, or like sailing a ship in a wild wind, or limping after a reindeer after the mountains thaw.
I’ll speak plainly now, since I know both men and women: men lie to women. We speak most eloquently when we tell the biggest lies, and seduce even wise women with lies.
A man should speak eloquently and offer gifts to a woman whose love he wants. Praise the body of a beautiful woman; it’s the enamored man who’ll win her.
I saw a bad woman’s words bite a man in the neck— a lying tongue was his death, and not even with good cause.
I counsel you, Loddfáfnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: If you have a friend, and you trust him, go and visit him often. Weeds and high grass will grow on a path that nobody travels.
I counsel you, Loddfáfnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: Never be the first to break friendship with your friend. Sadness will eat up your heart if you have no one you can talk to.
I counsel you, Loddfáfnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: You should never exchange words with someone who won’t see reason.
Men become friends when they can share their minds with one another. Anything is better than the company of liars: a real friend will disagree with you openly.
I counsel you, Loddfáfnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: Don’t speak even three words with a man worse than you. Often the better man will lose when a worse man fights him.
I counsel you, Loddfáfnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: Don’t make shoes, and don’t make weapons, except for yourself; if there’s a flaw in the shoe, or the spearshaft is crooked, your name will be cursed.
When you recognize evil, call it evil, and give your enemies no peace.
You should never look up when you’re in a fight— men who do so may go mad with panic— beware, or someone may curse you.
If you want to win a good woman with joyful talk, and you want to enjoy her— make promises to her, and keep your promises, you’ll never regret winning such a prize.
I advise you to be wary, though never fearful: be most wary about drinking, about other men’s women, and about a third thing: about men and their temptation to steal.
Never mock, never laugh at, a guest nor a wanderer.
Those inside the house rarely know anything about the stranger who knocks at their door, but there is no man so good that he has no flaw, nor a man so bad he’s good for nothing.
Never laugh at an old man. There is often wisdom in what old men say; wise words will often come from a gray-bearded mouth. From the one who hangs with dried skins, who swings with dried skins, who waves with despicable men.
When you drink beer, choose the might of the earth, for the earth is good against beer, and fire against sickness, oak against an irritable bowel, wheat against magic, an elder-tree against family quarrels, maggots against venomous bites, runes against evil, ground against water. Swear your hate beneath the moon.
I know that I hung on a wind-battered tree nine long nights, pierced by a spear and given to Óđin, myself to myself, on that tree whose roots grow in a place no one has ever seen.
No one gave me food, no one gave me drink. At the end I peered down, I took the runes— screaming, I took them— and then I fell.
It is better not to pray at all than to pray for too much; nothing will be given that you won’t repay. It is better to sacrifice nothing than to offer too much. Óđin carved this before the birth of humankind, when he rose up and returned again.
know magic spells that no woman knows and no man, either. The first is called “Help,” and it will help you in lawsuits and sadness, and all kinds of worries.
I know a third spell; if I have a great need to thwart my enemies, I dull the edges of their weapons, and none of their blades will bite.
This was a spell used for beserkers, too.
I know a sixth spell; if a man carves a curse against me in the roots of a gnarled tree, I call this spell down upon that man, and his curse harms him instead of me.
I know a ninth spell; if the need arises for me to save a ship upon the sea, I can calm the wind upon the waves and soothe the sea to sleep.
