Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Havamal - The Sayings of Odin: Ancient Norse Proverbs
    Havamal - The Sayings of Odin: Ancient Norse Proverbs
    Havamal - The Sayings of Odin: Ancient Norse Proverbs
    Ebook154 pages54 minutes

    Havamal - The Sayings of Odin: Ancient Norse Proverbs

    By Anon E. Mouse

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    THERE existed from very early times a collection of Norse proverbs and wise counsels, which were attributed to Odin (Othin) just as the Biblical proverbs were to Solomon. This collection was known as "The High One's Words," and forms the basis of the present poem.
    Few gnomic collections in the world's literary history present sounder wisdom more tersely expressed than the Havamal. Like the Book of Proverbs it occasionally rises to lofty heights of poetry. If it presents the worldly wisdom of a violent race, it also shows noble ideals of loyalty, truth, and unfaltering courage.

    Over time other poems were added to the original content dealing with wisdom which seemed, by their nature, to imply that the speaker was Odin. Thus a catalogue of runes, or charms, was tacked on, and also a set of proverbs. Here and there bits of verse crept in; and of course the loose structure of the poem made it easy for any reciter to insert new stanzas almost at will. This curious miscellany is what we now have as the Havamal.

    Five separate elements are pretty clearly recognizable: (1) the Havamal proper (stanzas 1-80), a collection of proverbs and counsels for the conduct of life; (2) the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111-138), a collection somewhat similar to the first, but specifically addressed to a certain Loddfafnir; (3) the Ljothatal (stanzas 147-165), a collection of charms; (4) the lovestory of Odin and Billing's daughter (stanzas 96-102); (5) the story of how Odin got the mead of poetry from the maiden Gunnloth (stanzas 103-110). There is also a brief passage (stanzas 139-146) telling how Odin won the runes, this passage being a natural introduction to the Ljothatal, and doubtless brought into the poem for that reason.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbela Publishing
    Release dateMar 27, 2017
    ISBN9781909302631
    Havamal - The Sayings of Odin: Ancient Norse Proverbs

    Read more from Anon E. Mouse

    Related to Havamal - The Sayings of Odin

    Related ebooks

    YA Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Real Berserkers

      Sep 3, 2020

      The Real Berserkers
      6 min read

    • Article

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows

      Nov 1, 2022

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows
      11 min read

    • Article

      Chitchat

      Nov 24, 2023

      Chitchat
      12 min read

    • Article

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Dec 16, 2020

      1) From which language does the word ‘scampi' come? 2) The sola plant, Aeschynomene aspera, is used to make what sort of headwear? 3) Pernio or perniosis, a medical condition caused by exposure to cold, is more commonly known as what? 4) What are

      2 min read

    • Article

      On Love

      Mar 7, 2022

      On Love
      7 min read

    • Article

      Hermetically Sealed

      May 3, 2023

      THIS week, for the first time in years, I am home alone. No beloved Rose. No beloved children. No beloved children’s friends sleeping on sofas and floors. ‘Happy the man,’ wrote Alexander Pope when he was only 12, ‘whose wish and care/A few paternal

      2 min read

    • Article

      Gentleman of Médoc

      Oct 28, 2021

      Gentleman of Médoc
      2 min read

    • Article

      Odd Jobs

      Jul 19, 2017

      Odd Jobs
      3 min read

    • Article

      German Lessons

      Nov 14, 2019

      German Lessons
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Literary Zoo

      Dec 9, 2021

      A Literary Zoo
      4 min read

    • Article

      Elsi, The Strange Maid

      Aug 29, 2018

      Elsi, The Strange Maid
      17 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems by Geoffrey Hill

      Dec 15, 2018

      62. Why such irony in re the mystical context when a graph of even the most commonplace exchange would appear perplexed; when we drop out from the plainest statement in the posture of a bat? So, decide to make something of that, the style to resemble

      2 min read

    • Article

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two

      Oct 30, 2019

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two
      25 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Loading Brush

      Sep 1, 2017

      The Art of Loading Brush
      27 min read

    • Article

      Comprtition

      Apr 3, 2024

      IN COMPETITION No 304 you were invited to write a poem called Balm. Soothed sensibilities led some to write poetic lines of excessive length untroubled by rhyme. Yet, without striving for metre and rhyme, Maggie Cobbett's short poem was rather sweet:

      2 min read

    • Article

      Jan Morris

      Jun 15, 2018

      I have always rather envied the poet Ovid, who was banished from Rome by the emperor Augustus, you may remember, to a remote place called Tomis on the shores of the Black Sea. There he died, ten years later, and his exile has gone into legend and int

      17 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Havamal - The Sayings of Odin

    4.5/5

    3 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Havamal - The Sayings of Odin - Anon E. Mouse

      One

      An extract from

      THE POETIC EDDA

      Translated by

      HENRY ADAMS BELLOWS

      Published by

      ABELA PUBLISHING, London

      [2014]

      Havamal – The Words of Odin

      Typographical arrangement of this edition

      © Abela Publishing 2014

      This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Abela Publishing,

      London

      United Kingdom

      2014

      ISBN-13: 978-1-909302-63-1

      email Books@AbelaPublishing.com

      Website: www.AbelaPublishing.com/

      The Sayings of the High One

      W. G. Collingwood

      Woodcut 1908

      Acknowledgements

      Abela Publishing

      acknowledges the work done by

      Henry Adams Bellows

      In translating and publishing

      The Poetic Edda

      In a time well before electronic media was in use.

      33% of the net profit from the sale of this book

      will be donated to charities.

      Yesterdays Books

      raising funds for

      Today’s Charities

      Stranger at the Door

      W. G. Collingwood

      Woodcut 1908

      INTRODUCTORY NOTE

      This poem follows the Voluspo in the Codex Regius, but is preserved in no other manuscript. The first stanza is quoted by Snorri, and two lines of stanza 84 appear in one of the sagas.

      In its present shape it involves the critic of the text in more puzzles than any other of the Eddic poems. Without going in detail into the various theories, what happened seems to have been somewhat as follows. There existed from very early times a collection of proverbs and wise counsels, which were attributed to Othin just as the Biblical proverbs were to Solomon. This collection, which presumably was always elastic in extent, was known as The High One's Words, and forms the basis of the present poem. To it, however, were added other poems and fragments dealing with wisdom which seemed by their nature to imply that the speaker was Othin. Thus a catalogue of runes, or charms, was tacked on, and also a set of proverbs, differing essentially in form from those comprising the main collection. Here and there bits of verse more nearly narrative crept in; and of course the loose structure of the poem made it easy for any reciter to insert new stanzas almost at will. This curious miscellany is what we now have as the Havamal.

      Five separate elements are pretty clearly recognizable: (1) the Havamal proper (stanzas 1-80), a collection of proverbs and counsels for the conduct of life; (2) the Loddfafnismol (stanzas 111-138), a collection somewhat similar to the first, but specific ally addressed to a certain Loddfafnir; (3) the Ljothatal (stanzas 147-165), a collection of charms; (4) the love-story of Othin and Billing's daughter (stanzas 96-102), with an introductory dissertation on the faithlessness of women in general (stanzas 81-95), which probably crept into the poem first, and then pulled the story, as an apt illustration, after it; (5) the story of how Othin got the mead of poetry--the draught which gave him the gift of tongues--from the maiden Gunnloth (stanzas 103-110). There is also a brief passage (stanzas 139 146) telling how Othin won the runes, this passage being a natural introduction to the Ljothatal, and doubtless brought into the poem for that reason.

      It is idle to discuss the authorship or date of such a series of accretions as this. Parts of it are doubtless among the oldest relics of ancient Germanic poetry; parts of it may have originated at a relatively late period. Probably, however, most of its component elements go pretty

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1