#hávamál

[hiljametsa]

Hvars þú böl kannt,

kveð þú þér bölvi at

ok gef-at þínum fjándum frið.

“When you see evil,

say that it is evil

And give your enemies no peace.”

- Hávamál 127

[finngualart]

Gáttir allar áður gangi fram um skoðast skyli, um skyggnast skyli, því að óvíst er að vita hvar óvinir sitja á fleti fyrir.

At every door-way, ere one enters, one should spy round, one should pry round for uncertain is the witting that there be no foeman sitting, within, before one on the floor

[a-gnosis]

10: Glapsviðr

I know a sixteenth: if I want from a clever girl to have all her mind and love-pleasure, I turn the thoughts of the white-armed woman and I change her mind entirely.

Hávamál 161, translated by Neil Price

"The association of Óðinn with sexual power is not commonly made, especially by comparison with more obvious fertility deities such as Freyr and Freyja, but this aspect of his character is very clear in the sources."

"Abandonment and frenzy are familiar concepts here, united in the feeling of sexual danger. Inherent in this understanding of divinely inspired sex is the notion that while a complete surrender to physical desire can bring destructive consequences, those following such a path may simply cease to care (the origin of the Trojan war provides a useful literary parallel, especially in the context of the Greek gods' provocative role in the affair). The Norse deities of sex revelled not only in sated lust, but also in the slaughter that was its occasional by-product."

"Óðinn commits many actions of seduction and rape in the stories about him, and we should remember that several of his attributes or powers (such as the mead of poetry) are actually obtained through various kinds of sexual conquest, violence or deception."

The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia by Neil Price.

Glapsviðr means "seducer" and is one of Odin's many names.

[acklum]

Learning To Write

For nine nights I am staked to the frenzied winds of madness

pinned by my own minds eye.

I deny food

deny life

hunger only for words

thirst only for stories.

I follow my thoughts down to the ground I know

follow to the unknown

where my roots run deep below.

I give in self-sacrifice these nights

to me

to see.

To be possessed.

I scream with the need to possess.

Absorbed in the words I absorb them all as I fall.

The deed is lost to doing

the look is lost to seeing.

I am lost to myself and I die to fertilise my mind’s eye.

Now I see

I am

alive.

-acklum

[heathengentleman]

Hávamál

[oceanicpoetry]

"I know that I hung on a windy tree nine long nights, wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin, myself to myself, on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run. No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn, downwards I peered; I took up the runes, screaming I took them, then I fell back from there."

Odin (translation by Larrington, C., The Poetic Edda (1999))

[rosesforhekate101]

The Runes of Hávamál - The first Spell I know

As I am working my way through the Aett’s and prepare for a talk on the use of Runes in divination and magic I’ve extended my research to examples of bind runes and staves in the textual record. My (unoriginal) idea was to see if texts such as the Hávamál referred to Odin’s acquisition of the Runes in such a way which would lead to the construction of Rune Staves. As ever I am following in the…

[thorraborinn]

Heyy! When I was teaching today, I came across this from Havamal - "Tveir ro eins herjar" - translators have this 2 different ways. Do you see this as two people make one battle, or two making battle against one? Thanks for your help! Hope you're doing well.

It's a difficult line, and I'm not sure it's possible to say for certain. According to David A. H. Evans' edition of Hávamál, it seems some editors have supposed that some mistake was made in the transmission and have tried to amend it to make sense of it, but it's possible to read both of the above into it without changing anything. The difference hinges on whether herjar is read as:

a singular genitive of herr 'host, army,' so that it forms a unit with eins: eins herjar 'of one army';

or a plural nominative of herr, with a non-normal meaning, something like 'destroyer,' which is very rare but does occur in the kenning for 'fire' herr alls viðar 'destroyer of all wood/trees'

And although Evans doesn't mention this and it probably hasn't factored into translations, it seems to me there's also a theoretical possibility it could be a plural nominative of a word *heri ('warrior'), which never actually occurs on its own in Old Icelandic (except as the name of a dwarf), but does occur in the compound einherjar. This is also possibly the word written in the very earliest runic inscription, the Vimose comb, reading ᚺᚨᚱᛃᚨ harja, and it also occurs as a name in Faroese. The meaning would be the same as the second one above.

So it's either:

'two are [eins herjar = 'of one host']

or

'two are [of one] [destroyers]'

Editors have gone either way on this. The Íslenzk fornrit edition by Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason goes with the former; Larrington and the new one by Pettit choose the latter. Hard for me to say; the second one seems to make more sense in context but relies on very unusual reading of herjar.

[illsadboy]

S'inaridisce l'albero che s'erge su un brullo colle, né foglie né scorza lo proteggono. Così è l'uomo che nessuno ama: a che scopo dovrebbe vivere a lungo?

Tratto da: Hávamál

[purplepints]

From the Hávamál:

An eleventh I know: if haply I lead

my old comrades out to war,

I sing 'neath the shields, and they fare forth mightily

safe into battle,

safe out of battle,

and safe return from the strife.

Viking traveler’s amulet, based on the Lillbjärs picture stone. The back reads: “Unharmed Go Forth, Unharmed Return, Unharmed Back Home”, Frigga’s blessing to Odin, possibly from Vafþrúðnismál.

[shadow-of-the-hidden-leaf]

Loddfafnir, hör gut zu und folge meinen Lehren,

Auf das sie mögen deine Weisheit mehren.

Schlafe gut, es sei denn du bist in größter Gefahr.

Wer sich wegen allem um die Nachtruhe bringt ist wahrlich ein Narr.

Odins Lieder von Loddfafnir und den Runen

- Anderson der Skalde (Asaheill)

[hiljametsa]

Þagalt ok hugalt skyli þjóðans barn, ok vígdjarft vera. Glaðr ok reifr skyli gumna hverr, unz sinn bíðr bana

'Silent and thoughtful should be the son of nobility, and battle-bold as well. Happy and high-hearted ought a man be also, until his dying day'

Hávamál

[enchantedvistas]

[lasersquid]

oh nine mighty songs from that famed son of Bölthor, Bestla’s father, we're really in it now

[elizabethbjones]

Live each day with purpose and passion, for it is the fire within you that fuels your dreams and aspirations