Consider what this says about heritage and then think about the many ways that heritage fits into the Lore. Individual effort is more important and more certain than heritage. On the surface that doesn't sound like it's good news for heritage. But consider the type of heritage that would be built by an entire people trying to live up to such a standard compared to the type of heritage that would be built by an entire people resting on the laurels of their ancient accomplishments. On the one hand I picture folks on frontiers physical or otherwise. On the other hand I recall a scene in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" where Lawrence challenges the king with the noble heritage of the Arab culture during the European Dark Ages and the king responds "That was a thousand years ago, Lawrence".

There's also the aspect of "fame and kind words". Jeffery Dauhmer earned fame by eating his neighbors but it sure isn't the sort of fame that should be aspired to. In my commentary in a previous stanza I mentioned that I'm generally able to pull of being viewed as nice in person and generally not able to on line. Clearly I need to work on that kind-words aspect.

On the other hand the stanza is about what you do being more important than how others interpret your words and actions. Do the right thing and at times others will curse you for it. It doing the right thing good for its own sake or is the impression held by others the important part? This stanza does say that both matter but it's your own actions that have the higher value.

It is acknowledged that the opinions of others
are important, but it is also pointed out that the
opinions of others are "less sure" than your own
actions.

Stanza 9

9. He is happy, who in himself possesses
   fame and wit while living;
   for bad counsels have oft been received
   from another's breast.

Like "variations on a theme" in music, there are
a fair number of stanzas that are very similar
to the ones near it. Stanza 8 was about earning
your own way not taking credit from others. This
one is about having your onw moral compass so you
don't need to depend on the advice or others.

Deciding what is right and doing that beats not
having any idea and so doing what someone else
suggests. What if that person is using you as a
guinea pig to see how it comes out or if they are
trying to use you as a tool to get back at someone
else?

Trouble is there is so much ambiguous area in life where the situation is morally unclear. More data means more perspective means more able to chose well. So maybe this suggests asking others for advice but making your own decisions. That's a standard strategy for commanding officers, corporate executives, parents and any other leaders.

Stanza 10

10. A better burthen no man bears on the way
    than much good sense;
    that is thought better than riches in a strange place;
    such is the recourse of the indigent.

Bizzare spelling and everything.

The ancients valued intelligence, wisdom and sense
better than gold. To the point that a pauper was
thought well equiped if that pauper came with
nothing but intelligence, wisdom and sense.

This is the opposite of "A fool and his money are
soon parted" on a mundane level. Something like
<A wise man doesn't even need money to do well>.

Also consider that Odin spends most of his time
on a never ending quest to gather wisdom to prepare
for Ragnarok. And Odin supposedly dictated the
Havamal. And the Havamal values wisdom over any
material wealth. Funny how it just randomly
happened to work out like that, not. ;%)

In this area of the poem, stanzas go from telling
how to have your life end up happy in retrospect
at the end of it through how to do well this year.

Stanza 11

11. A worse provision on the way he cannot carry
    than too much beer-bibbing;
    so good is not, as it is said,
    beer for the sons of men.

Going from one stanza that says clear witts are the
best thing you can carry to the next stanza being a
caution against too much intoxicant.

No ascetics as it cautions against too much not
against any.

Interesting that this translation says beer not
mead or "strong drink".

What? There's such a thing as "too much" when it
comes to beer? Yup. That's covered in the "as
it is said" part.

Stanza 12

12. A worse provision no man can take from table
    than too much beer-bibbing:
    for the more he drinks the less control he has
    of his own mind.

The first two lines are repeated from one stanza
to the next. This is for emphasis. Some advice
that appears in one stanza is likely to be good.
Some advice that appears in two consequative
stanzas is likely to be very important.

It is interesting that a religion that includes drinking alcohol in both of its two main forms of ceremony (expected behavior, not required. There should never be any pressure on anyone to consume alcohol if they chose not to), should repeatedly stress that drinking too much is a big problem.

Moderation is definitely a feature in Asatru
values. Kings are overthrown in the Lore, but
only when they become oppressive. Drink is
expected at Blot or Sumbl, but drinking extra
gets heavy stress against.

And here we are again putting value on witts in
the second half. I often call Asatru "the religion
of joy" as well as "the religion of wisdom". Here
is yet another point among a vast number of stanzas
that values wisdom, intelligence and clear thinking.

Self control is an interesting Asatru valuing. Controlling your own mind not being controlled by others (my standard motto applies: I'm here to follow the Aesir, not to agree with people or to get others to agree with me). But there's also the internal self control aspect. Self discipline is highly valued.

Stanza 13

I think this is one of the stanzas that isn't pedestrian. It has a symbolic meaning that I don't think many will find controvertial but that is quite interesting in how Asatru attitudes tend to differ from other-religion attitudes.

13. Oblivion's heron 'tis called that over potations hovers,
    he steals the minds of men.
    With this bird's pinions I was fettered
    in Gunnlds dwelling.

This is a rephrasing of stanza 12 in more symbolic form. But the switch to the symbolic gives it some very different meaning.

This stanza discusses the fact that alcohol causes both oblivion and inspiration. Quite a combination according to the members of other faiths.

I find it quite interesting that ego-oriented Asatru would observe that a method that turns down ego at some level of intoxication should turn up contact with some source of infinite wisdom to bring inspirations. Christians who fear contact with spirits call alcohol a devil's drink for this contact, Asatruar who do not are able to draw value for this contact.

This recalls seidhr magic. Going into a trance for inspiration is a form of oblivion, a reduction in the influence of the ego (maybe sorta kinda). Going into a trance is also breaking down the barriers with the spirit realm.

Just try naming a religion than other than Asatru that sees drinking as a route to contact with spirits as beneficial as a source of inspiration. And then after all of that warns against doing too much of it!

The Sumbl is the Asatru sacred drinking party where booze is used for inspiration. The idea of a sacred drinking party was not completely unique to Asatru but it comes close. The ancient Greek Symposium is the only shared example I know of. The word Symposium has since become well known through the play by that name that discusses the nature of love and by the modern usage of a professional society getting together for shop talk (The Thirteenth Annual Symposium on VLSI for Telecommunications or similar).

In a Sumbl Beowulf swore to defeat Grendel and Grendel's mother. I'd have to be drunk out of my mind to make such a promise. It's said that alcohol decreases the inhibition but decreases the ability. The effects of alcohol are temporary, though. Cut the inhibition using alcohol to make the promise, then cut the alcohol to restore the ability to live up to your outrageous promise. And get labelled a hero when you survive the experience, chuckle.

All because someone figured out how to harness getting tippy into a sacred activity. So is it about Odin because he drinks only wine and the beverage in discussion is wine, or Thor because Thor likes beer and we're discussing beer? Mmmmm, mead.

Stanza 14

14. Drunk I was,
    I was over-drunk, at that cunning Fjalar's.
    It's the best drunkenness,
    when every one after it regains his reason.

Various translations of the second half are about remembering what happened or about everyone surviving the binge. Not clear if it's about black-outs or fights leading to death or a metaphor for the concept that unconsciousness mimics death and it's therefore a deliberate mix between them.

Note that this discusses getting excessively drunk. Again the advice against drunkeness appears to be against doing it too often so long as you're a peacefull drunk as much as it is about avoiding it so long as you're a violent drunk.

The mention of the name Fjalar is interesting. There appear to be two beings with that name.

In the Lay of Harbard Odin taunts Thor with the name and in the Volspa Fjalar appears as the rooster who awakes the Jotnar to attack on Ragnarok.

In the story of Kvasir and the creation of mead (before it gets stolen by the giants then stolen back) Fjalar and Galar are dwarves. Fjalar kills Kvasir to make the mead, Galar uses a bowl to gather that first mead.

So which is referred to? Both I figure.

The first time mead was ever made is a fine metaphor for the first time a person gets drunk. Not knowing your limits it's very easy to get "drunk I was, I was over-drunk". Been there, done that, the first time I drank to excess. And I'm glad I remember it though I pretended not to for a couple of years to avoid the embarassment of being poured into my front yard by some old friends.

The rooster makes for an okay metaphor as well. This view makes it the experience of waking up still very hung over. The rooster was the only alarm clock of that age and given a sufficiently nasty hangover it'll be the rooster that calls the giant(headache)s to the epic Ragnarok battle (with the beating inside your head and vomitting rivers of yuck and whatever).

Some parts of the Havamal seem to be as simply underneath as they are on the surface. Visit your friends often, be carefull in strange houses and so on. Other parts have layer after layer of nested meaning. I love good poetic Lore with layer after layer of meaning and this stanza is a good example of that. It means an assortment of things depending on how you look at it.

Stanza 15

15. Taciturn and prudent, and in war daring
    should a king's children be;
    joyous and liberal every one should be
    until the hour of his death.

Interestingly different advice for princes and for everyone else. The prince is supposed to be close-lipped, everyone else jotous. The prince is supposed to be cautious, everyone else trying stuff out. The prince is supposed to be a fierce warrior, everyone else doesn't get that mentioned.

I understand that a leader has to be carefull with his words. Folks will pick apart the words a bit at a time looking for erorz. A single bad command could cause the deaths of many. But actions like that are exactly how to not get promoted from the karl class to the jarl class in the first place. The have's need to preserve, the have-not's need to be audacious with their risks.

"Until the hour of his death" is also a caution against lamenting about the ills of old age.

Stanza 16

16. A cowardly man thinks he will ever live,
    if warfare he avoids;
    but old age will give him no peace,
    though spears may spare him.

"A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but once" is a similar sentiment.

There are plenty of stanzas of the Havamal that give suggestions on how to avoid creating conflict. Warfare is conflict that happens without the foot soldier creating it. Setting aside that kings should avoid getting into conflicts in the first place, the world is filled with conflicts on many levels with or without those conflicts being created. The war between Odin and Surtr on down through viruses attacking and antibodies defending, on every level in the universe ther eis competition and conflict.

So if you avoid conflicts that are open about their nature like a war, that isn't going to keep you out of conflicts in general. No matter how much you avoid conflict the universe will hound you with conflict. Set a pattern of avoidance and you're just setting yourself up for being on the defensive forever and then old age will give you no peace.

The advice to face conflict face-on is just as good as the advice to avoid creating conflict whenever possible. Some will see the two sides as being contradictory but that's not how the world works. The world gives conflict whether you create it or not so avoiding the creation of conflict has nothing to do with avoiding conflict once it's there.

There's a martial arts lesson in here. The strong martial artist will decline battle when there's a choice, when attack is threatened without follow through. The strong martial artist should be careful to never create conflict where none was before. But put the martial artist into a conflict that's happening, or just him little choice, and he's there to win not to avoid. As a result few ever attack a good martial artist. Not even folks who have no idea why a potential mark walking by looks too self-confident to attack.

Stanza 17

17. A fool gapes when to a house he comes,
    to himself mutters or is silent;
    but all at once, if he gets drink,
    then is the man's mind displayed.

Isn't gaping at the house a part of the deal in house warming parties? Chuckle. In some ways times have changed. Then again it's a bad idea to gape when you're out on travel. Calling a place a hut or a mansion is inpolitic.

As to alcohol loosening the tongue, that happens and it brings out the fool in most of us.

The interesting thing here is it says that drink brings out the mind not that drink brings out the fool. Try having a discussion with a PhD turned drunkard some time to confirm this. It can be fascinating until you get used to the schtick and know the standard stories.

Stanza 18

18. He alone knows who wanders wide,
    and has much experienced,
    by what disposition each man is ruled,
    who common sense possesses.

This stanza expresses a falacy that causes much hurt in the
world: Book learning is of no value, theoretical knowledge
does not work, experience teaches what is correct. All
demonstrably false.

Drop the "alone" word and it does start to make sense. People with diversity of experience generally do have a wider perspective on topics.

There's an interesting twist in the last line. Folks without common sense can't be explained. Lunatics and idiots act randomly enough that no amount of experience in general will allow you to predict them.

On a more esoteric level, Odin wanders the nice worlds gathering wisdom. How much of that wandering is physical and how much of it is in dream space? How much is now in cyberspace? Astral projection is travelling of a sort. So is remote viewing using either psychic methods or webcams.

I don't think this stanza is intended to have much mapping into sedhr and visiting other worlds while in a trance, but the Havamal was supposed to have been dictated by Odin and that is one of the ways he's supposed to have travelled.

Stanza 19

19. Let a man hold the cup, yet of the mead drink moderately,
    speak sensibly or be silent.
    As of a fault no man will admonish thee,
    if thou goest betimes to sleep.

It suggests that folks should drink. This goes directly in the face of the modern stance that no one should ever be pushed to drink and that it's good to have a designated driver.

Again there's stress that the drinking should be moderate, and that if you're starting to blither it's time to shut up. Hmmm, folks who've only encountered me on-line know that I blither constantly without or without drink. Folks who've met me in person know that I'm not nearly as verbose.

It also says that no one will push you into staying at a party. This goes against the peer pressure at many parties so it's advice not much heeded but much needed.

Stanza 20

20. A greedy man, if he be not moderate,
    eats to his mortal sorrow.
    Oftentimes his belly draws laughter on a silly man,
    who among the prudent comes.

In a world where families could run out of food and starve during the winter, gluttony would be a serious problem. It's interesting that greed equals gluttony here. Overeating could literally kill people in the family.

Folks who are fat still draw laughter, though today there are a lot more of them and the amount of fat it takes to draw laughter is much higher. When I was a kid in the 1960s someone 250+ pounds would draw states at the mall. Now it takes at least 350+ pounds or more to draw stares.

There was a time when poor people were all thin. That time is past. Now you can tell rich nations from poor at a glance. In a rich nation the poor are fat, in a poor nation the poor are thin.

Now in western civilization overeating can still kill, but for a different reason. It's now unusual to have a famine in the winter but serious overeating will cause medical problems of a type that nenver existed in anciet times in the north. Still true advice, very different reasons.

Stanza 21

21. Cattle know when to go home,
    and then from grazing cease;
    but a foolish man never knows
    his stomach's measure.

The modern cliche is "too stupid to know enough to come in from the rain". Since this is a rephrased repeat of the last stanza it is there for stress. There are lots of cautions against over drinking and here's one against over eating.

Cows seem to eat all day long. Biting off grass leaves, chewing their cud. Look at pretty much any cow any time and there is a very high chance it's chewing. In today's world there is enough food that many people can be like that. A thousand years ago it seems there was enough food that some could.

Stanza 23

23. A foolish man is all night awake,
    pondering over everything;
    he than grows tired; and when morning comes,
    all is lament as before.

Worrying isn't the way to resolve issues. Action is. This
stanza is one of the sources for industriousness in the
NNV and for my stance that in Asatru it's your actions
not your thoughts that matter.

Interesting that it says the foolish man doesn't solve anything by pondering over it. It certainly doesn't say that the wise or intelligent man can't solve anything by pondering over it. if all you do is worry that won't help. If you think and ponder and apply as much intelligence you have on a problem, that often does help.

So is this about worries and feelings where spending the night worrying can't help, or is it about knowing whether you have the intelligence to be able to solve a problem? Other translations I've read suggest it's about the uselessness of worrying.

Stanza 33

33. Early meals a man should often take,
    unless to a friend's house he goes;
    else he will sit and mope, will seem half-famished,
    and can of few things inquire.

Say, the advice to have your meal early before going out to visit, that's standard advice of diet support boards. It works a bunch of different ways.

Interesting that friends are expected to feed friends. Come on over to my place and have dinner. It's interesting because earlier stanzas were about being a good host and feeding travellers. We're out of the section about being far from home and we're into a section about acting well in your own neighborhood.

Hunger causes depression and muddles the mind so you can't speak well. Well that's a level of hunger that has become rare in western culture. Today being fat is a sign of being poor. Wanna bet back then being thin was a sign of being poor? If they thought of hunger as being so strong it trashed your wit, they meant hunger on a scale like in the third world not some skipped meal.

Back to the neighborhood compared to distant travel aspect - The locals know who is who, so the locals know who is generous, who to be generous to, who is important, who is not. Folks from a distance can't know that so the rules on hospitality are broader for distant travellers. More like if you ever travel you want hospitality so on the principle of think globally act locally the way to do that is to be hospitable at home. Also locals carry gossip, remote travellers carry news from distant places. Whether the distant stuff is gossip as well, that would be a matter of tastes.

The early meals thing also calls to my mind Ben Franklin - Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Ben added in some parts but he sure drew on ancient sources.

Stanza 34

34. Long is and indirect the way to a bad friend's,
    though by the road he dwell;
    but to a good friend's the paths lie direct,
    though he be far away.

This is about attitude, concentration and motivation.

If you're visiting someone out of some sense of weak
duty the motivation just isn't there and distractions
abound. Say! Look where that big old oak tree fell.
Let's stop and look at the badgers nesting in the root
hole ...

If you're visiting someone you really want to see, say you haven't been to a Blot in months and there's a kindred only 3 hours drive away doing Blot tonight that neat old fallen oak, it only gets a glance in the rear view mirror. Look, there's a Waffle House! Nah, I followed the advice in stanza 33 and had a meal and filled the tank before getting on the Interstate.

Note also this addresses something Scott mentioned
recently. Levels of friendship. I don't know what a
"bad friend" is, maybe "fair weather friend" or
acquaintance, but it sure isn't enemy or opponent.
Someone I like but I'm just not that motivated to go
see this minute.

Let's say we're going out on a trip to visit Scott in Utah. One of my best friends Peter, best man at the wedding, is "just across the street" in Pasadena, CA. Where do we stop first? It'll be fine stopping to see Scott on the way back. Besides we haven't seen Michael or Mike or Stacy or Eric in years. Let's tour California a bit on the way home. Hey! Look in the triple-A guide. That natural bridge thing is in a national park near the route and it's only a day's deflection. I've always wanted to see that some day and Scott will still be there as we pass ...

As opposed to visiting another best friend Neil in Maine. What do you mean I can't get a direct flight from O'Hare to Portland, ME? What good is an indirect flight through Nashville other than that really good rib place in the terminal? I don't have time for ribs, get me to the car rental desk in Portland. Too bad Kennebunkport can't have its own airport ...

Stanza 35

35. A guest should depart,
    not always stay in one place.
    The welcome becomes unwelcome,
    if he too long continues in another's house.

Even if your host says you haven't worn out your welcome
doesn't mean that he isn't just feeling sorry for you.

There are versions of this that say 3 nights is enough.

If you leave before you've worn out your welcome, you're a
gracious guest and your welcome refreshes itself while
you're away. Welcome back.

"Moss doesn't grow on a rolling stone." I wonder if that's
tied with this. Moss is often considered a bad thing.

The next stanza is "Be it ever so humble, there's no place
like home" and the two stanzas fit together very nicely.
One's about wearing out your welcome and the next is
about being able to welcome people. One's about
developing a dependence the other about developing an
independence.

The longer you stay a guest the more you owe your host in some sense. Servants stay on semi-permanently and servants depend on their employers for any outside material. There's a sliding scale down from guest to vassal to servant to thrall. Know when you're going to start down that slippery slope.

Stanza 36

36. One's own house is best, small though it be;
    at home is every one his own master.
    Though he but two goats possess, and a straw-thatched cot,
    even that is better than begging.

37. One's own house is best, small though it be,
    at home is every one his own master.
    Bleeding at heart is he, who has to ask
    for food at every meal-tide.

It was a point important enough to repeat and to phrase it two different ways. "Be it ever so humble there's no place like home." It's better to own your own little place than to rent a big place.

The thing about goats appears to be a comment on levels of wealth. It takes vary little to be able to keep goats. Cattle take far more grazing land and horses take a lot more work. A goat, you can put it on a hill covered with spiked berry bushes and the furry smelly milk/cheese-factories will chomp down on the spikes and clear the slope. My SIL actually did that and ended up finding a piece of farming equipment no one had seen in decades, yet she'd gotten the goats because she thought they were cool not because they were living lawn mowers and hill clearers.

The part about bleeding hearts is interesting. I wonder if this is the source for the term "bleeding heart liberal"? It talks about a path to lower social status. Someone who can't house themself ends up in a soup kitchen/mission begging.

But it's also about the price of renting. Get deep enough in debt and you end up in someone else's house working for them. And so I've begun working on owning rental units this year. May as well follow the advice in the Havamal and supply folks with housing in exchange for them sending me money.

Stanza 38

38. Leaving in the field his arms,
    let no man go a foot's length forward;
    for it is hard to know
    when on the way a man may need his weapon.

This is one of the most popularly quoted stanzas in the
entire Havamal. Maybe even second favorite after
"Cattle die, men die ..."

It's also probably the single most controvertial stanza in the entire Havamal. There are flame wars about it all the time, and discussion of it has gotten the topic of gun control banned by the charter of at least one mailing list. Even for groups who almost all take one side on the topic discussion of it tends to get too heated and verbose. When I started doing commentary a stanza at a time I evn wondered if I should skip this one for the flame war it usually triggers.

This is advice that people should go armed when going
about their regular business. Clearly there were no
airplanes or hijackers back then. And 911 is always for
taking care of the aftermath not keeping the bad guys
away when they've already just arrived.

Notice that the skalds composed the songs of the Eddas for performance in front of the Jarl class. The Jarls were the warriors. It's natural they would have expected to be told to go armed at all times. Any distillation of wisdom being told to a crew of warriors would be discarded as idiocy if it lacked such advice. <A Marine officer going around without his rifle slung on his back and his combat knife not in its sheath? What are you, a fool?> would be the reaction.

Also notice that the songs were written down for Karls or at least collected and popularized by Karls. The Karls were the skilled craftsmen and farm owners. They would have travelled some though less than the Jarls. And being free men subject to military conscription when a levey got called up, Karls would have considered such advice natural as well. Think of the Swiss reserves were every citizen has to serve active duty for a while and is then subject to military recall for the rest of their lives, the society of the Norse and most of feudalism was a lot like that.

Doubly also notice that few Thralls would have been told
such stuff!

Some of the standard discussions that surround this stanza - Folks who've corresponded with me over the years typically know my stance runs towards favoring going armed. So if I depict the opposition wrong please correct me.

If we're told to go armed, doesn't that make the gun control people servants of Surtr? Opposed by - This stanza was advice that was important it the social context that existed at the time but now it's no longer necessary in most areas and most segments of society to go armed. Going armed is for Somalia or Iraq not the US or Canada.

If this was by class then shouldn't the lower classes still not go armed? After all that would match it's context best. Opposed by - Thralls were the hard labor class back then. Realistically what they called thralls then we now call major appliances and other types of machines, so when you start discussing giving guns to robots come back and we'll continue the discussion.

Most translations mention a spear and that's a very poor weapon, so clearly it means the guy on the street needs to be less well armed than the military or police or whatever. Opposed by - A spear is the weapon that the guy on the street back then could afford, so clearly today's equivalant would be an assault rifle with bayonet and grenade launcher attachment.

Stanza 39

39. I have never found a man so bountiful,
    or so hospitable that he refused a present;
    of his property so liberal
    that he scorned a recompense.

"It is better to give than to receive" and it is a moment of adulthood realised when you experience it as reality instead of view it as a nice sentament. But no matter that who ever turns down gifts? Even folks who blush and tell you you shouldn't have still take the box and open it.

Folks who give to charity generally see their own life materially improve, to the point there are people who give to charity with the expectation that will happen. Now arguably that defeats the point. Giving without expectation of return shows a mental attitude that there will always be more than enough, and attitudes tend to express themselves in the mundane world.

I think this topic points out that there's more to life
than a business proposition. Folks give, folks receive,
most like both and the two directions aren't always
linked in someone's mind. It's the times when it isn't
linked that can become among those priceless moments
in a person's life.

Stanza 40

40. Of the property which he has gained
    no man should suffer need;
    for the hated oft is spared what for the dear was destined.
    Much goes worse than is expected.

I hadn't been able to build a clear vision on what this stanza means as a whole, but the two parts made sense to me separately. So I will deal with them as such. Then after a bunch of discussion I'll attempt to tie it together. My conclusion in the end is that this may be the most undervalued stanza in the whole of the Havamal.

Of the property which he has gained
no man should suffer need;

This is an appeal against excess materialism. We've all read stories about rich folks who are miserable, or folks who lose large amounts of money and commit suicide or whatever. If you don't value the immaterial parts of life the material parts become more and more of a burden. Money can and does buy your way out of the misery of poverty but it can not buy happiness because wealth and happiness are only linked in the lacking. Poverty can cause unhappiness but once our material needs are met happiness is up to us in our minds not up to our stuff.

"The best things in life are free" and "The things that matter most in life are not things" are both modern expressions that convey the idea.

Consider the song in Fiddler on the Roof "If I were a rich man". Tevia describes the life of a rich man but realistically given Tevia's character I doubt he would actually like it if he got to live that way. Wealth could turn him miserable in a way poverty never did. I think he actually gets more of value from singing the song then he would from living it. From an foreign culture and religion but it shows that this is a feature of human nature shared by all for the idea to occur in such widely different sources. (Pretty cool that the author of a musical about Jews in Russia would include lessons from the Havamal, isn't it? I'm sure it's not deliberate. Does anyone recall the movie "Enemy Mine" about a human and an alien pilot stranded on an obscure world? When they finally learn enough of each other's language they start discovering lines of their sacred books say the same thing. The reaction is "Of couse. Truth is truth.")

for the hated oft is spared what for the dear was destined. > Much goes worse than is expected.

This is a commentary on life's unfairness. Bad folks often get more material wealth by hurting others than gentle folks get by helping others. Also "If left to their own, things tend to go from bad to worse". It's bad humor but funny in its own way. It may be bad humor, but it's also far too true.

In the Lokasenna there's a complaint that Odin often takes the better warrior during a battle. It's because he's recruiting for Ragnarok, and it's a lesson that random events abound in the heat of battle. It's also an extreme commentary that says life is materially unfair.

In the conversion era the sorthron missionaries used this topic as an excuse to call Asatru "fatalistic" and "negative", but look in the rest of the Lore. The saga of the Volungs is about a family line doomed by wyrd to go extinct. Yet they are among the greatest of human heroes. Isn't that odd? Even the Aesir are faced with a doomed situation where they can't hold off the Jotnar forever and most will die in that battle. Yet we heathens follow the Aesir with joy and pride. Isn't that odd?

I've long said that Asatru is about actions not thought. This half stanza tells me that Asatru is about something else, too. It's something Sven Lugar has long stressed and that only slowly sank into my thoughts of the Lore. Asatru is about the journey not the destination. Asatru is about living well and that winning is secondary to fighting well. The Volsungs fought the good fight in the face of unbeatable odds and it was their struggle that made them heroes. It isn't the victor that's the hero in Asatru, not always.

It's the Asatru value on doing the right thing that was one major reason the Christians managed to convert Europe. They didn't care what sort of underhanded tactics they used, but the Heathen wanted to do the right thing even if it meant losing. That in addition to being open to adding some new diety to the pantheon. Lesson to be learned on both fronts.

Okay, so I managed to summarize half with "The best things in life are not the things" and half with "It's not whether you win or lose that counts; it's how you played the game". Stepping back and looking at those two ideas placed side by side it summarizes many of my ideas about the value of Asatru. Not just "The load that does not break my back makes it stronger" which is a pretty grim view. Not just the Abraham Lincoln quote "Most folks end up about as happy as they decide to be".

Asatru teaches that the value in our lives doesn't come from the stuff, and the value doesn't come from how fair our surroundings are. The value comes from how we decide to react. A good attitude matters more than almost anything else. Because a good attitude means we are always headed in the right direction. "It's not where you start in a journey; it's what direction you're headed."

Asatru in general, and this stanza in particular is a challenge. The challenge is something Sven Lugar says regularly: "Love well. Fight well. Live well. Die well."

Ponder well on this diamond in the rough, this undervalued
stanza of the best wisdom of Asatru heritage.

Stanza 41

41. With arms and vestments friends should each other gladden,
    those which are in themselves most sightly.
    Givers and requiters are longest friends,
    if all (else) goes well.

A shotgun with a scrimshawed wooden stock and an etched leather holster is a good gift. So's a tuxedo with a shiney red cumberbund. Okay, so folks gave out really strange gifts a thousand years ago. ;^)

The principle is good enough. You're going to visit a good friend, may as well take a gift. Make it something pretty. Then your friend will show it off and say "Look at this hand etched water buffalo drinking horn. Isn't it cool? Doug gave it to me." Then folks will flock to your place to find out how to get water buffalo horns. Fun way to "Win friends and Influence People" in an overly materialistic world.

Note that it doesn't say exchanging friends makes friends tried and true. It says that once you're already friends trading gifts keeps the wheels greased. There's another stanza that says to visit friends often. This is another less direct way of saying that again.

Now let's take a step back and think about the stuff that looks the nicest and how that stuff came into being a thousand years ago. Back then the nice stuff was either handicrafts you made for yourself, or stuff you traded valuables for, or family hierlooms. If you're trading family hierlooms with someone and it goes both ways, that's one of the best friends you'll ever have. Invite that guy to family weddings and try talking him into wearing a tux and joining the photo line-up.

But if it's just a regular old friend-friend not a best-man-friend, isn't he worth spending the day in the shed whittling up a nice trinket? Make his house look nicer, make him look richer to his other friends, just a bit of personal effort to make his life a bit better. Worth doing for an established friend even once you're past remembering about how much who's given who. You want the best for your friends and this is a way to make that happen with your own hands. In the modern world when folks gift such trinkets pix of them end up getting posted on-line.

Funny thing about handicrafts is they aren't about materialism but they are material. This stanza gives a linkage among friendship (might be called a spiritual bond between individuals), personal time and effort (which includes the magic of intent and effort), and material wealth that's better when it's not carefully accounted. And it's about an approach that shows abundance in a world where material goods were often lacking. And it's about being able to be friends and exchange gifts that don't have monetary parity as long as they have the value of care. A richer friend might give a gold bangle, and a poorer friend might spend several nights etching a protrait of a family member on a wooden plank. Such an exchange is likely to increase their bond without having any objective way to gauge isn't material worth parity.

Stanza 42

42. To his friend a man should be a friend,
    and gifts with gifts requite.
    Laughter with laughter men should receive,
    but leasing with lying.

This is the second in a sequence of many stanzas about friendship. More stanzas on a topic, more important the topic. Pretty simple to have repetition be used for stress.

Is this about reciprocity or about forbearance? Both in
my opinion. "To his friend a man should be a friend"
is about forbearance. Think the best about a friend
even when they've been clueless and said something
insensative. "And gifts with gifts requite" is about
reciprocity. And about fun.

Note that mention of gifts moves into mention of laughter. Laughter IS a gift and a gift isn't always material. When I spend time with an old friend just plain hanging out together and laughing over our adventures of old is a gift precious enough that I'll travel most of the day to get to the visit.

I don't quite get how the word "leasing" is used here and I've deliberately chosen to resist going to the Old Norse sources or alternate translations before doing my commentaries. So what's leasing? It's renting or using that which is someone else's. Sounds like storytelling to me at this point. So with the lying we're moving from laughing about adventures of old through fishing stories to just plain making sh*t up for the fun of it just to have laughter with a friend. Remember the time back in high school ... Remember the time that whale almost rolled over the boat ... Remember the time the Martians came into the bar ...

Have you heard the one about the time a Christian and a Heathen walked into a bar? The Christian got his alu, made a sign of the cross and said "Jesus forgive me". So Jesus did. And died. Again. No earthquake this time, though. At least there was a really nice thunderstorm just like that famous time though. The Heathen got his alu, made the sign of the hammer and said "Thor come join us. Two's company and three's a crowd. Always more fun to drink in a crowd!". So Thor did. And with another roll of thunder the door slammed open and Thor came into the bar to join them. Without dying. And with thunder. No earthquake this time though. Again. Ha, ha, ha! Chortle. Okay, your turn when I get back from refilling our horns. Say! This looks like a bighorn sheep horn. Who'd you get it from?

So there's more to exchanging gifts then handling over a hand crafted pair of suspenders to go with your friend's lederhosen. There's also sitting around telling stories and laughing. Even better if you end up laughing enough that you make up new stories.

Stanza 43

Over a quarter way through as of yesterday's stanza 42. Any suggestions on what to cover next? Under a year to go. ;^)

43. To his friend a man should be a friend,
    to him and to his friend;
    but of his foe no man shall
    the friend's friend be.

Yesterdays' discussion about the 42 line of trading lies with lies brought up an interesting point. Plenty of lines are duplicates or near duplicates. Of course part of this is a poetic mechanism that makes the words easier to memorize. But I think there's more to it than that. I think that repetition in the first half of a stanza is for stress and repetition in the second half of a stanza is for contrast.

This is one of a bunch that discuss friendship. Stanzas 41 through 44 are about dealing with established friends and then the poem moves on to folks with other types of status. Friendship and maintaining friendship is important. It's important on more than just a practical plane. The Aesir are friends among themselves and they try to build friendships with other classes of wights. They occasionally build friendships even with various giants and they recruit mates from their opponents. The network of friendship weaves a web of wyrde with positive feedback.

And that brings us to the non-practical view of the second
half. Asatru teaches about opponents and enemies as
being conceptually different. Today's opponent might be
tomorrow's ally but a real enemy can be trusted to shift
allegiences just to stay in opposition to you.

Since friendships weave a web of wyrde with positive feedback and enemyships weave a web of wyrde with negative feedback, you need to think long and hard about entaggling with an opponent. Is the guy on the far end of the web someone who just happens to be fighting you now because of circumstances, or is he on the other side because he's a dedicated opponent? Are you recruiting friends in an attempt to change the balance of power or are you risking contamination from your devoted enemy? It takes a great deal of wisdom to judge such an issue.

If someone's on the other side today but it's just a matter of timing, you won't lose much by waiting until the circumstances change. Keep building that web of friends. Someone who's opposing you now could become a potential friend later so let that happen then. Right now the risk is too high to figure out the odds.

Staying on the up-and-up is a simple but effective tactic in life. Befriend your allies to keep them on your side. Avoid your opponents and there friends to avoid the risk. As circumstances change keep sweeping up more folks on your side. As mundane as Machiavelli's The Prince, as spiritual as the game played by the Aesir to keep their side strong, as simple as the fact that it's easier to remember the truth than what you made up to whom.

There's always time to swing your partner dose-ie-doe and
build more friends as the dance of life progresses to when
they guy calling the square dance says switch your partners
dose-ie-doe.

Be a friend today and into the past. Let tomorrow hand you what it will. If it hands you more allies, befriend them. If it hands you more opponents, go to your friends.

Okay, now let's take the paranoid approach to this stanza. They're all out to get you, ya'know. So be paranoid and don't get sucked in. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and the friend of my enemy is my enemy so act like it. The trouble with that logic is it's the middle-eastern all-or-nothing approach. The advantage with that is it is a very effective short term tactic.

Ah, the dance of tactics and strategy. Always try to have
both in mind.

Stanza 44

44. Know, if thou has a friend whom thou fully trustest,
    and from whom thou woulds't good derive,
    thou shouldst blend thy mind with his,
    and gifts exchange, and often go to see him.

Another in a series dealing with friendship. This one goes
far beyond trading gifts to keep the friendship going.

"Blend thy mind with his" means all sorts of things. Part
is trying to take his viewpoint and from long practice
managing to do a good job of it. Part is knowing enough
about him that you have a good idea of how he'll react
(predictive emulation software).

It can't mean Vulcan mind meld because there's a
millenium of missing overlap, but it can mean tons of
shared memories and so on. Shared experiences to the
point your orlogs are tied together.

Note the comment about full trust. Other stanzas show how that can be built. Someone who's an opponent is to be viewed with suspicion. Someone who's a business associate is to be treated in action like a friend but suspicious thought held inside. Someone who's a good friend is to be visited often. Someone who's an established friend is to be treated like there's a mutual commitment pact. And here we have that spectrum moving all the way to fully trusted and blending minds.

At each step there's an instruction to act like you're heading towards closer and closer friendship, and at each step there's an istruction to keep your mind a step behind your actions. Yet I've always said that in Asatru it's the actions that count not the thoughts.

Here's another example of how in Asatru it's the actions that count not the thoughts. The thoughts follow the actions in this sequence not the other way around. We all know that taking action requires thought, but our own thoughts have a wide span. This is about selecting actions that will eventually steer our range or thoughts.

Full trust with a friend is only built up over time and with many actions. But once those actions have been taken and mutual trust established thoughts are to follow.

This is about steering our own thoughts and emotions. It's about doing so using a deliberate plan that tends to make the world a better place. It's also a cautious plan with many steps before it reaches the point of significant trust.

Stanza 45

45. If thou hast another, whom thou little trustest,
    yet wouldst good from him derive,
    thou shouldst speak him fair, but think craftily,
    and leasing pay with lying.

After 4 consequative stanzas about reenforcing the value of friendship, now there are two stanzas on dealing with folks not trusted. As far as I can tell this means business associates, acquaintances and so on. Friendship is a sliding scale so this might include "fair weather friends" or "office friends" who you don't keep contact with after moving or changing jobs.

Speaking fairly is a way to build towards a trusted friendship. Notice that if both parties speak fairly and only think suspiciously eventually the suspicious thought gets old and worn and the casual relationship slowly drifts towards friendship.

The expression "speak him fair" is a fun one. It isn't speaking to his face only. It's also speaking about him to others. Don't backstab your officemates or neighbors even if you don't trust them. That sets a higher standard. and one way to build mutual trust is to have a chance to back-mouth someone, deline to do so, and have it get back to them that you stood by their good name. It's a way to gradually build trust through taking the moral high road.

Note that the "leasing pay with lying" part appears here as well as for trusted friends. I've already covered that this can't mean the same thing in the different circumstances so it must be for contrast, ease of memorization, and ease of oral recitation.

But what is truth and lying anyways? There are two sides
to every story. Everyone has their own viewpoint of what
happens. Is my perspective a lie just because I saw the
events differently than you did?

And so this advice can be taken on many levels.

The literal level is once you know someone is not being truthfull with you don't feel the need to stay truthfull with him. It's a big step to know someone is lying and not just mistaken or biased, though. Idiots blither not lie. Lunatics babble not lie. Honest folks flub stuff not lie. None of these should be viewed as having established a pattern, but the story of the boy who cried wolf applies. Once you know there's an established pattern feel free to return it but not until. Once you know someone is an idiot blither to them. Once you know someone is a lunatic don't work at being rational with them. Once you know someone is a chonic liar don't bother with the truth with them.

The next level is trying to take their perspective into account. In addition to the issues above folks have natural biases. Try to take that inot account. One may be greedy, another may not be interested in analyzing and perfers shooting from the hip. This has the perspective of ending up "Treat others the way they treat you" which is so common in other faiths. But note the difference from the Golden Rule in Christianity. In Christianity it's to keep your own biases and to treat people the way you'd like them to treat you. In Asatru it's observe how people start out treating you, figure that's how they want to be treated, so treat them that way figuring it's what will make them comfortable.

In this perspective Scott is harsh and insulting so he should be treated harsh and insulting. I'm arrogant and verbose so I should be treated with arrongance and verbosity. And so on going down the line of the personalities here.

So we move into the modern idea of "active listening" and mirroring. Lies with lies, engineering jargon with engineering jargon, runic fluffery with runic fluffery and so on. Each person establishes their niche, so go into that niche when dealing with them.

Stanza 46

46. But of him yet further, whom thou little trustest,
    and thou suspectest his affection;
    before him thou shouldst laugh, and contrary to thy thoughts speak:
    requital should the gift resemble.

The second of two consequative stanzas on folks who might some day end up friends or who might end up disappearing into your personal history as acquaintances.

Compare with the mention of laughter with a tried and trusted friend in stanza 42:

Laughter with laughter men should receive,

One is laughing together with your friend. The other is laughing at the same time as your acquintance. Is sharing a matter of internal perspective or a matter of outside actions? Hard to judge when one gradually fades into the other.

requital should the gift resemble.

With an old friend you've been exchanging gifts for so long neither pays much heed to a balance in the business sense. One springs for a prime rib dinner, the other brings over a pizza the next week because it hasn't been a profitable year and there isn't the money. In the end it's the time spend together and the laughter shared that is remembered not the balance.

It doesn't work that way with a new acquaintance. A gift looks to a gift. It's much more business balanced.

Friends can just be themselves, business colleagues do mirroring and active listening.

Stanza 47

47. I was once young,
    I was journeying alone, and lost my way;
    rich I thought myself, when I met another.
    Man is the joy of man.

Here through stanza 52 it discusses the relationship
among relationships, material wealth, attitude.

Humans are social creatures. More than just the necessity
of mutual support in a hostile climate, humans take joy in
the company of other humans everywhere. Families,
clans, crowds. Villages, towns, cities, nations.

This stanza supports a stance that Asatru is a social activity not for the solo pracitioner, though it's fairly isolated so as such it's a relatively weak support.

Asatru on the Internet has allowed heathens to find one another across the world. I was once young, and I got an account on the Internet. I was journeying alone surfing UseNet (okay, I've been on-line a lot longer than the web or mailing lists have existed), and lost my way. Rich I thought myself, when I met another. I was on the old alt.pagan because that's the closest I could find and someone used the word "Asatru". Hmmm, others like me existed! Man is the joy of man.

More similar folks or more well known folks give more
joy. That's building empathy. But take a step back and
look at the world around us. Among all the animals
humans prefer other humans. Among humans we prefer
other humans more like us.

All life in the world is a web of bloodline relation. So are close like folks we've met at family reunions. Others are remote by billions of years like bacteria.

Consider what every astronaut experiences when they get to orbit. They look down at Migard and it's the most beautiful thing they've ever seen. From the outside, life itself is the joy of life. From the inside, our own close associates are the joy of life. Circles within circles.

Some folks think there's a conflict between the Folkish who want folks like themselves to be in Asatru, and the religious who will accept any but end up with folks like themselves anyways, and with people of related heathen-like faiths, and with atheists, and with folks in wierd foreign religions. Not in this stanza there isn't. Funny how that works.

The closer you are the bigger the differences loom. The
farther you are the smaller they seem. Man is the joy of
man. Get right here right now and it's an office emptying
out so I want to go home. Get out in orbit and it's every
human here on Earth. And at each distance in between
the perspective shifts a bit.

All that and I haven't been started on the fact that stanza 47 says two people being together equals rich when compared to one person alone. Not exactly a materialistic view. Not that it objects to the material, just that it's the people who put the value in life. Rich I thought myself when I met another.

Stanza 48

48. Liberal and brave men live best,
    they seldom cherish sorrow;
    but a base-minded man dreads everything;
    the niggardly is uneasy even at gifts.

{A coward dies a thousand deaths; a hero dies but once}
is half of this stanza. It's still in common usage.

A parallel message is that generousity is equated with
heroism and miserliness is equated with cowardice.

Actions and materiel are interchangible on some level.
Fighting in battle is an act of giving just as making an
item with your own hands and gifting the item is giving
just as gifting money is giving. Makes me wonder about
the case of buying your way out of military service, a
loophole of sorts.

Stanza 49

49. My garments in a field
    I gave away to two wooden men:
    heroes they seemed to be, when they got cloaks:
    exposed to insult is a naked man.

On one level this is a discussion of scarecrows. Not just actual scarecrows in fields but the scarecrow function itself - Give someone the cloak of the frithgard (modern terms give them a temporary deputy's badge) and they will be fierce enough to do their job. From the directly physical of a scarecrow in the field to the metaphorical effect that uniforms or costumes have.

This is also about the us-vs-them mental set-up of wearing a uniform. "The blue religion" among the police is a popular topic in detective novels. The camaraderie among soldiers wearing the same uniform is very real. Heck, there's even camaraderie among uniformed folks wearing different uniforms. Ranging from the Army-Navy football game to seeing soldiers on the other side of a conflict differently yet somehow better than the local civilians at times.

On another level this is about levels and types of anonymity and what that does to boldness. UseNet, e-mail and web boards are a perfect example of this. Let someone hide behind a cool sounding alias and all too often they become braggerts and bullshitters. They have their cloak of anonymity so they are bold. Such folks see posting their real name as a grave breech of ettiquette. It's a bizarre feature to me as someone who's used his real name on-line since forever.

On the other hand often folks don't understand the rules of privacy either. A person-to-person e-mail message is every bit as private as if you'd printed it on paper and used a first class stamp. A post on UseNet or some web board is more public than you could acheive by taping a printout to the door of city hall. But mailing lists, those are in between without clear rules to the same degree. How cloaked and how exposed is a mailing list hosted by Yahoo or whoever? I've never been sure of that.

Stanza 50

50. A tree withers that on a hill-top stands;
    protects it neither bark nor leaves:
    such is the man whom no one favours:
    why should he live long?

Moving from trees covered with clothes to trees covered
with leaves and becoming family trees. Nice poetic
way to move the topic.

A tree alone compared to a tree in a forest is like a
person alone compared to a person in either a village
or a large family. The lone tree struggles to stay alive
and so did the lone person.

More than a life of struggle, aloneness causes a short
life. Or is the question about why one of worth and
feelings of worth? They tie in together on a poetic level
better than they tie in together on a logical one.

Consider that the first tree to pioneer a hilltop might not
live long, but it is also a pioneer. Other trees follow
and the hill can become a forest. Even if it's bare rock
each tree grows and converts some rock to soil. Across
centuries or millenia trees can cover bare rock.

It works that way with pioneer humans, too. Go to some
place, take up some unpopular banner, stand out in
some way to the point where others reject you. Do that
and you're in for a rough life. But consider

The stanza is about the one who stands out form the herd
and also about the folks who form the herd. This view is
about how hard it is on the one who stands out. Is that a
good or a bad thing? I dunno. Asatru teaches that heroes
stand out so maybe it's a good thing. This stanza teaches
that standing out cuts lifespan so maybe it's a bad thing.

The modern cliche is . One
thing the modern cliche fails to address, and so does this
stanza, is whether safety is the goal in the first place.
Maybe adventure is the goal. Maybe safety is the goal.
The decision is up to the individual but better to make an
informed choice than to go in blind.

Since trees are also symbolic of warriors, this stanza also discusses military strategy. A lone warrior on a mission is in trouble, while a team might be able to handle it easily. Anyone with military training may be that line and think <What a shock, teams work>. But just how tempting is it to strike out on your own? And maybe end up not a dead hero but an unsung loner who disappeared.

If you want to be a pioneer, take a team with you. If you can pitch the idea to a whole team your chances are better anyways.

Stanza 51

51. Hotter than fire love for five days burns
    between false friends;
    but is quenched when the sixth day comes,
    and friendship is all impaired.

This one is about "fair weather friends" or friends at the office. How many friends last the rest of your life? Not many. How many friends do most people have at the moment? A bunch.

Duration of a friendship is a filtering process. The more times a friendship makes it through the filter the more value there is on that friendship and the fewer friendships remain.

While this says a lot about old friends being good friends, make sure not to add in any value judgement about new friends. "Man is the joy of man" as it says in a previous stanza.

Note that it's six days not a seven day week. I don't know if the ancients even had the concept of a week.

Stanza 52

52. Something great is not (always) to be given,
    praise is often for a trifle bought.
    With half a loaf and a tilted vessel
    I got myself a comrade.

This is one of the more popular stanzas.

Generosity isn't measured with market value of the gifts.
Sharing matters. Attitude matters.

An idea so simple we teach it to our children as a basic
of society. An idea so hard it takes our entire childhood
to learn.

Stanza 53

53. Little are the sandgrains, little the wits,
    little the minds of (some) men;
    for all men are not wise alike:
    men are everywhere by halves.

Stanzas 53 through 57 are about the consequences of wisdom and intelligence. This one is about idiots. The god(desse)s must like idiots because they made them in droves.

The impact of increased intelligence is exponential not linear. As with Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect there are problems that can't be resolved with infinite effort by someone without enough wit. Set someone smart enough to the task and like that ultraviolet photon the task falls to the intensity.

Perhaps the sea is as high as it is so that the highest wave can reach where it does. It's a very elitist attitude to see the entire rest of the ocean as a support structure for that one highest wave but it also shows the value in the masses. Without the masses even a genius would not be able to reach heights because the genius stands not alone but on the support of the masses.

It takes a lot of grains of sand to make a beach, and any one grain doesn't appear to have much value. But a beach is a thing of beauty and grace. Start removing the grains and the see covers the beach completely. It takes a lot of people to make a society, and any one person doesn't have much value in this view. But society as a whole is wonderfull.

Parts of the Havamal value the individual. Parts value the group. Parts value society as a whole. There's a great deal of inconsistancy in having those stances at the same time. That's the way it goes. There's plenty of inconsistancy in the world. The value of the individual is higher now than it was a thousand years ago. But the value of society is greater still.

Stanza 54

54. Moderately wise should each one be,
    but never over-wise:
    of those men the lives are fairest,
    who know much well.

Stanzas 53-57 are about levels of wisdom and intelligence. Only 53 is about the value of fools. Only 57 is about how to tell the fool from the genius. But 54-56 are three stanzas in a row that repeat the theme that there are problems being a genius. This stanza is about knowing a lot, but also about knowing too much.

"If ignorance were bliss .." goes the modern saying, but it's too big an "if". Ignorance is NOT bliss because the ignorant live lives of hard labor. The ones who make their living thinking have better lives than the ones who make their living lugging, but the ones who make their living thinking don't generally have better lives than the ones who make their living in skilled labor.

So there's a limit to it. Get smart enough and you might end up having an ulcer worrying about global warming. Or you might end up like Odin on an eternal quest to make small changes in something that can't be avoided. And people hate the smart folks. Children are bitterly mean to the genius among them. Even though folks end up working for the nerd few like him.

Stanza 54 shows that some amount smarts is good, maybe even to the point of the best life being lived by the ones a small amount above average in intelligence. The artisan and skilled laborer do better than the unskilled or semi-skilled and idiots don't do well in highly skilled fields. But beyond some point more smarts just come with more load and life doesn't improve.

My commentary about the value of the pioneer in stanza 50 stands in stark contrast to this section on intelligence and wisdom.

Why isnt great intelligence to be valued? Why does middle wisdom give a better life than either idiocy or genius? Because the world is about heart more than it's about head I think. And because thinking is of value to society more than to self in a lot of cases.

I constantly say that Asatru is about what you do not about
what you think. This stanza is about that topic.

Thinking becomes a subject of diminishing returns for the person doing the thinking. In the previous stanza's discussion I mentioned the effect that a genius can solve a problem that no one else can. But once solved generally a medium smart person can repeat the solution. How often do inventors or artists get rich off of their creations? How often are inventors or artists seen as happy people? Thinking has great value, but the value is to the advancement of society not to the quality of the thinker in many cases.

Stanza 55

55. Moderately wise should each one be,
    but never over-wise;
    for a wise man's heart is seldom glad,
    if he is all-wise who owns it.

Stanzas 54-57 are about wisdom, and stanzas 54-56 start
with the same words. Repetition like that is done for
stress.

Since the Havamal is supposed to have been dictated by
Odin during a visit to Midgard in human form, it should be
expected that there's plenty of discussion of wisdom.

By the way, I see Odin visiting Midgard in human form to
be symbolic of inspiring a human poet. Probably a double
indirection with the mead of inspiration the step in the
middle between a poet struck by inspiration and a person
actually being Odin in disguise.

It's important that a human not get too wise. Interesting that the sothron heathen-like faiths took "hubris" as one of the greatest offenses against the god(desse)s but the northern heathen-like faiths don't seem to except in this group of stanzas.

Yet the advice in the Havamal is supposed to be about practical every day life not about offending the Aesir. In practice wise folks end up melancholy. Ignorance isn't bliss, but wisdom is a burden.

When Odin learned of Raganok he went on an unending quest to delay it and change its outcome. When Frigga learned the workings of wyrd she fell silent. And when human kings are faced with life or death decisions any good king will feel guilt at taking wither side of a choice the ends in death.

Any wise person can see there is more misery in the world than any one person can aleviate. Even if you dedicate your life to resolving some part of it there's always more.

Why is there so much misery in the world? This is one of life's great questions and it is more that the JCI faiths fail miserably at answering. Buddhism even dodges the question by suggesting escapes not resolutions.

Asatru gives a good answer to the question. The Jotnar are on an unending quest to bring about Ragnarok. All misery in the world leads to that a little bit at a time. The better we react to our own miseries the better we serve the Aesir and the more we help Odin in delaying the battle from starting.

But the better you know the lore the better you know that even the Aesir can't hold off Ragnarok forever and that's a melancholy thought. Even knowing that the next cycle of the universe will be better for our actions and the Aesirs' actions, the switch from cycle to cycle will be traumatic and will destroy the world. Christians look forward to that day and as such seem to serve Surt. Heathens look forward towards that day wondering how we can help. And the melancholy is from knowing that any one person can do very little.

Stanza 56

56. Moderately wise should each one be,
    but never over-wise.
    His destiny let know no man beforehand;
    his mind will be freest from care.

Stanzas 53-57 are about wisdom, a topic important to Odin.
Stanzas 54-56 start with the same words for added stress.

There are as many problems with being overly intelligent as
there are with being stupid. But since the problems with
stupidity are so obvious the ones with intelligence need to
get extra space to cover them.

This one is about knoing your destiny beforehand. Odin sure freaked out when he learned his. No wonder he advises against it for humans.

On the mundane level worrying about outcomes tends to be a waste of effort. Work on the outcome, think about the plans, approach your task with vigor. But just plain fussing becomes counterproductive.

On the mystical level Asatru puts a lot less emphasis on the afterlife than other religions. Live well and the afterlife will work itself out just fine. Simpel as it sounds it has a profound effect on day to day activities when taken seriously. Ah, but that taken seriously part is so hard. Witness discussions of "straw death" which don't make sense except using an overly simplistic view of the afterlife (one of the points of my recently reposted Ten Ways You Can Tell an Oldtimer Heathen blurb) combined with a level of interest in an afterlife taken from other faiths.

Stanza 57

57. Brand burns from brand until it is burnt out;
    fire is from fire quickened.
    Man to man becomes known by speech,
    but a fool by his bashful silence.

This stanza is the last in a sequence on wisdom, and it's the one that draws the most from other literary traditions.

The symbol of the torch of knowledge is common in many traditions. Fire as wisdom is the story of Prometheus in the Greek myths and is to be found in many other tales.

Seeing speech as both the source of human wisdom and as the test of it is an interesting view. Wise men speak well, stupid men speak poorly. It's a view that remains popular into the modern world and few notice the loophole. What if a smart person choses to sound dumb as a deliberate strategy? Consider current US politics. President Bush is one of the worst public speakers in elected office since George Washington. But George Washington is remembered now through his writing not his speech and he is viewed as brilliant. George W Bush is currently viewed as stupid because of his habitual poor public speaking, but he has shined in a few speeches. The man got re-elected as President of the United States and a stupid person couldn't have pulled that off. He uses dumbed-down speach as a deliberate strategy and it works well for him. Maybe he's cunning rather than intelligent, but the words are shades of wisdom, different views into the same quality. (Don't see my appreciation for his cunning as approvavl of his policies ...)

Setting aside the loophole and focusing on the standard pervasive view, this stanza is about learning by what Plato called the dialectic. Get a bunch of smart people together and have them dissuss a topic. The better they think it through and the better they discuss it, the more valuable their conclusions. Until the advent of the scientific method, this was the best method available for the advance of human thought. Stanza 57 is about what was then the best known method for classifying and organizing thought.

But there's a pair of twists based on the nature of the poem. The stanza is about learned debate, smart people and fools showing their mental strength in their discussions. But it's remembered in a poem and the poem is remembered because it was written down.

What's the single biggest difference between humans and the other types of animal? Is it metal smithing, agriculture, our control or fire, our use of tools? The composer of the Havamal thought the most important difference between humans and the other animals was "Man to man becomes known by speech". The composer also harshly thought that those incapable of speech were no better than animals because "a fool by his bashful silence". When men start to talk, the other animals fall silent (probably a defense against the most feared predator on the planet), and when smart men start to talk the dumb ones shut up. It's a hierarchy that happens naturally of its own accord without any planning.

There are two tales of Odin paying great prices for methods that extend memory and knowledge. Speech was already in place before either of the tales, at least speech among the Aesir.

The first is the tale of the mead of poetry. Poems are more easily memorized than prose speech. This message is a prose discussion of manings I find within the Havamal, but who will remember it long? The Havamal itself is memorized by people to this day, more than a thousand years after it was written. Poems are so valuable that Odin expended his honor to bring poetry back to the Aesir and to humans as the kettle of mead splashed during his flight.

Let's step back and think what this poem meant to the skald and the audience. Good poems are/were sung, chanted, recited with or without music. The audience listens in rapt silence. When other skalds are in the audience those skalds will memorize the song and be able to sing it to other audiences. All of the rest of the audience merely listen in "bashful silence". This is quite a brag by the composer and quite a dig at his audiences. It's a brag that would have shined through to fellow skalds. It's a dig that may have been missed by the scholars ahd speechmakers in his audience.

Level after level - Family and vistor with the smart folks saying more. Candidate debate at the county Thing with the audience thinking about what's said. Court case at the national Althing with the lawyers and witnesses. Skald and court audience. Mythical vision with one of the Aesir speaking and a shaman in a trance listening. Nature making a thunderstorm and the humans waiting under a shelter. Lady Sunna shining as she winds her way up and down across the sky driving the seasons as Midgard obeys her cycle. As above so too below and conveniently enough the skald appears at a very high level. ;^)

The second tale of Odin is when he expended his life for the runes. Odin died on the tree for the ability to remember longer than a poem could survive. After he had sacraficed himself to himself and spent his life, he fell from the tree and onto the runes. His life was the price of literacy.

And so here we are reading the Havamal. In translation not even in the original Old Norse. Thanks to writing the meanings in the poem have lived longer than the language the poem was spoken in. The Havamal could have been etched on stone and it wouldn't have lived as long as it has since it was written on short-lived paper. Writing survives. Writing is gradually filtered across time so less and less of it survices, but the filtering process sees to it that the best and better survive the longest.

And so here we are reading the Havamal in silence. Few
speak the words allowed as they read. Over time some don't
even subvocalize as they read. Who but a speechwriter ever
voices the words that are being written?

Brand burns from brand until it is burnt out;

The fire of knowledge moves from person to person. But
once it's in writing it may not burn out for millenia.

fire is from fire quickened.

Speech comes from thought. Poetry comes from speech.
Writing comes from poetry. The conflagration of knowledge
grows.

Man to man becomes known by speech,

And by writing.

but a fool by his bashful silence.

And by lurking. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, hint, hint to all those lurkers out there ...

Stanza 58

58. He should early rise,
    who another's property or life
    desires to have.
    Seldom a sluggish wolf gets prey,
    or a sleeping man victory.

{Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy,
wealthy and wise}. Ben Franklin's version is far
milder than the original in the Havamal.

In the predator-prey view {It's the early bird that
gets the worm}.

This stanza is about aggressive behavior. Criminal
theft or murder, army maneuvers, hunting for meat.
Anything from predatory through business.

By extention it's also about being agressive in business,
alert even while at home, and about listening for things
that go bump at dawn.

So is this stanza about murdering your neighbor or is it
about honest competition? It doesn't have to be either or.

Having someone's property or life can mean going in, killing him, and taking over his farm. It can also mean doing it the non-violent way. Having someone's property can mean "keeping up with the Joneses" on a material level. Having someone's life can mean getting married, having kids, being able to get in your sleigh and going to visit your kids and see your grandkids. Or it can mean joining the Merchant Marine because the guy down the street did that so you want to.

The bold life is the successfull life. The greatest risk is to never play the game because all who do not play lose.

But wolves hunt in packs and armies in squadrons. This is not only about individual boldness. It's also about joining the team that's the boldest.

The Japanese classic "The Book of Five Rings" by Miamoto Musashi (never name your computer "musashi" it's way hard to type quickly) is an entire book on tactics that is in wide use in military and business fields. Above I massaged the text so it became "The Stanza of Five Lines" to reflect its parallel with "The Book of Five Rings".

Needless to say the Samurai book has far more detail than this one stanza. But as such it's a wonderfull commentary on all of the meanings encoded within this one stanza. The stanza points in the same direction as the book. It points to use in individual life and on teams. It points to military campaigns and to business campaigns.

The word "Bushido" doesn't appear anywhere in the Lore. I don't even know of explicit references to the Way of the Warrior within the Eddas and sagas. But the ideas of the warrior path run throughout with or without a single word or expression. In science fiction there's "Shai Dorsai!" or "You have a Klingon heart". In Japanese anime there's Speed Racer aggressively winning a race because his kid sister asked it as a birthday present. All expressions of the aggressive wolf getting the prey.

What I find interesting is that this stanza is about being aggressive but it's not about being in charge. It's about having the same life as another not about being a king over that other. It's about being aggresive but it's not about being a pioneer. It's about having a life that someone else already has not about having a life no one else ever has.

This stanza begins a sequence about doing well among others, moving from working at home through having support at the Thing. Where the one-stanza context is about the general and "The Book of Five Rings" the next several stanzas move into a group cooperation context not a general-in-charge context. Since the Havamal was composed to be recited to nobles of many relative ranks, it was beneficial to teach the value of different types of teamwork among aggressive folks.

Stanza 59

59. Early should rise he who has few workers,
    and go his work to see to;
    greatly is he retarded who sleeps the morn away.
    Wealth half depends on energy.

The Havamal was composed to be recited to the Jarl class
and ended up written down and read by the Karl class. It's
addressed to the supervisors and managers not to the
laborers. In today's world much of the labor is done by
machines so this advice works for even more than it did
back then.

For those who have read Robert Kiosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "Cash Flow Quadrant" books, this stanza is the source for those books. Just like Musashi's "The Book of Five Rings" is the best known expansion and exposition on stanza 58 among the classics, Kiosaki's books and his "Cash Flow 101" board game are the most popular expansion and exposition on stanza 59 in the popular book market today.

Wealth depends on energy, but notice that it doesn't mean
just plain hard work. It means working smart more than
working hard, and it means working more effectively
more than working more hours. Once you get to
managerial status, resting on your laurels ensures your
projects will not suceed.

The first half of the stanza is about acheiving managerial status in the first place. It's about being able to exit the rat race, about having your passive income pay your bills. Whether it's from your business and the folks working for you, your farm and the thralls working it, your rental buildings and the tenants, until they all cover your bills you need to keep your day job.

The second stanza appears to be about the folks who have already managed to exit the rat race. They no longer need their day job. At that point "wealth HALF depends on energy". Hmmm, half? That's right, half. Once you've gotten to the point YOU can retire, doesn't that mean you're then working to start your descendents out ahead of the game? Or about being able to volunteer in the community, or about being able to work on the kindred so it thrives, or similar?

Really it's about both. Once you've worked your way out
of the rat race, work some to get the other members out
of the rat race, work some to make the entire world a
better place.

All the business and trust fund and volunteer work advice
in the world, condensed down to 29 words. While
"industriousness" is in the list of the modern Nine Noble
Virtues, so should "brevity". The Havamal is as terse and
compact as the Tao Te Ching. Unlike my commentary
here on ARA. ;^)

Stanza 60

60. Of dry planks and roof-shingles
    a man knows the measure;
    of the fire-wood that may suffice,
    both measure and time.

This is the third of three stanzas about work. Where I
compared the two others with well known books
classic and popular, this one I take simply.

The Norse were famous carpenters. They put carvings
on all sorts of wooden objects, to the point carving must
have been considered like doodling is today. And so I
think this stanza is about the work of everyday life. Our
day jobs, the stuff folks do for a living whether they like
their job or not.

Know your day job. Get expert at it. Do it efficiently
so there's the least waste of effort and the least waste
of material. Do it because it pays the bills.

Notice that it isn't about carving and decoration. Those
would have been done for fun. It's about the laborious
basics that go into building a house and keeping it warm.
It's about the parts that aren't fun.

Some folks are lucky to have day jobs they love. It
doesn't look like this stanza is about them.

Stanza 61

61. Washed and refected let a man ride to the Thing,
    although his garments be not too good;
    of his shoes and breeches let no one be ashamed,
    nor of his horse, although he have not a good one.

Very modern content - Bling and brand name mania is
fluff. What really counts is doing your civic duty.

The guy who shows up to jury duty who can barely
afford a Casio watch and bus fare is to be respected
over the guy hires a lawyer to get out of jury duty
who has lots of amber jewelry and a nice sports car.

Our ancients also liked folks to be clean. Take your
shower.

I had to look up "refect" in the dictionary. It means you had your meals. Showing up famished at Thing was frowned upon. While brand names may not have mattered, poverty to the level of hunger did. It's a view that's very materialistic among the starving and steady less materialistic as your wealth grows.

Stanza 62

62. Inquire and impart should every man of sense,
    who will be accounted sage.
    Let one only know, a second may not;
    if three, all the world knows.

The first half of the stanza is a statement that every learned person should be both student and teacher, scientist and speaker. Ask questons, figure stuff out, teach what you know. It is why there are now journals in every field to spread knowledge.

The second half of the stanza deals with the nature of secrets. One person can keep a secret. Two people might keep a secret. Every single person who is told a seceret increases the chances that the secret will get out. It's why security clearences take work to get and why they expire so soon.

On the surface it would appear that these are two different topics covered in the same stanza. Not the case at all. This stanza discusses the basic reason that the scientific principle of peer reviewed journals and of the first to publish a discovery being the one to get the credit. This stanza discusses the original reason why copyrights and patents were enacted into law. From a practice matter of pragmatic advancement in the material realm in society, this is one of the most important stanzas in the poem. Other stanzas deal with personal excellence, with leadership, with friendship. This one deals with scholarship, learning, study, discovery, science, technology, craft and skill. It deals with the material advancement of culture across generations and it deals with material stagnation of cutlure across generations.

Why are the two halves of this stanza linked in such a way
as to have that profound a result that several centuries of
following its advice led humans from ships going across the
wide ocean to ships going across space to the Moon?

Before the development of the Scientific Method with its
publications and peer reviews, before the developement of
trade journals that teach recent developments in the field,
there were just as many geniuses and idiots as there are
today.

But back then there was a master/apprentice sytem and some masters had the foolish idea that trade secrets needed to be kept secret within their own line of teaching. Teacher to student the craft went and to no one else. If the student never became a teacher there was a risk that the knowledge would die forever. If the master never taught a student his knowledge would die forever.

As a result the level of culture grew to the point where there was more knowledge than could possibly be accumulated in one generation but each and every bit of knowledge not written down eventually perished. All skill was transient and culture was stuck in a middle age of stagnation. Great methods like the varnish used by Stadivarious to makie his violins, the bronze alloying methods used by the Romans to make armor as light and strong as steel but made of leather and bronze, trips across oceans to discover new places, they have all been lost and discovered, lost and discovered, lost and discovered again and again.

If you're a master at some craft, study, knowledge, the fewer students you teach it to the sooner that knowledge will fade from the world and be lost to civilization. If you're a master at some craft, study, knowledge, the more students you teach the longer that knowledge will remain in civilization and the more likely it will be used as a stepping stone to another advancement in making life better for humanity.

And what's the greatest way to make a discovery not be kept secret? To write it down and see to it your writings will be seen by others. Across the millenia the methods have ranged from master/apprentice, chanted poetry, runes and other carved writings, writing on paper, use of the printing press, regularly printed journals, and now UseNet and other on-line storage methods.

What would have happened if Guttenberg had kept his printing press secret? An explosion of knowledge would not have happened until some other genius invented it a year or a millenium later.

Patents are a way to reward an inventor for telling the public how something is done. Copyrights are a way to reward authors for printing books. Peer prizes among scholars and scientists are a way to reward scholars and scientists with the accolades of their peers for making discoveries and for working to create new knowledge. All because:

62 Inquire and impart should every man of sense,
who will be accounted sage.
Let one only know, a second may not;
if three, all the world knows

Inquire and then don't make it be a secret. Or inquire and know how to keep it a secret and see your work lost to future generations.

Knowledge dies, men die, your own discovery will die, but one thing I know that will live forever, and that is a discovery properly published and diseminated ...

Stanza 63

63. Gasps and gapes, when to the sea he comes,
    the eagles over old ocean;
    so is a man, who among many comes,
    and has few advocates.

The first half sounds rather like a sea gull coming from shore into a large crowd of other gulls more than like eagles. Maybe the word used for eagle also works for gulls?

The second half sounds like substituting humans for gulls. A hick arrives in the city, gapes, and ends up getting ripped off. This is a standard story but i'm far from convinced how often it happens. Among other things these days the schools out in the country are better than the schools in the inner city so the image of the hick works very poorly. But without formal schools I get that it might have happened like that in ancient times.

The image of humans being a flock of birds is amusing. Birds chatter, so do humans. Birds hover about, circle any interesting event, so do humans. Birds form flocks, so do humans. Birds fly in the air, well that isn't something the ancients knew about but ultalights and hang gliders must be a blast.

This is an example of as-above so-below. Humans look at flocks of birds and watch their antics. Odin looks at flocks of humans and watches our antics. Birds eat crickets. Humans eat chickens. Chuthulu eats humans. Ooops, wrong religion. ;^) Chuckle. Better stick with the watches their antics ...

Stanza 64

64. His power should every sagacious man
    use with discretion;
    for he will find, when among the bold he comes,
    that no one alone is the doughtiest.

This stanza is a citation from the Tao Te Ching. Power is to be applied as leverage and used through associates not directly. I doubt that the skald who composed this stanza had ever heard of the Tao Te Ching, though. Parallel evolution - truth is truth and wisdom is the ability to see truth.

It's also a part of a sequence that discusses teamwork and
the danger faced by an individual. One person facing a
team, it's the one who is overwhelmed not the team.

Note how the discussion has moved from what happens to folks who go it alone to an indirect reference to how to not be alone when you go.

Don't abuse your power. Don't just tell someone to go with you even if it is in your power. Convince them they want to join you. Don't depend on your power. If you depend on an ability to give orders you're in trouble when you move up towards the big leagues. Instead, use your power to build your base discreetly.

Asatru teaches us that each of us should be strong and
that we should develop our independence. I think modern
Asatru has spent a lot of years putting too much emphasis
on individual independence. Stanzas 63 and 64 discuss
teambuilding.

Note that I am NOT advocating One True Asatru, nor am I avocating getting along just for the sake of getting along. There are divisions within Asatru that are based on differences that are real. I have no desire for a level of unity where it appears that someone can end up in charge. What I am advocating is that there be enough local contact, enough cross organizational contact that bickering is kept to a dull roar. Sure enough, in around the last 5 years or so that's about what has been happening within Asatru. Maybe a bit of spontaneous developement, maybe a bit of inspiration out of the Havamal.

Stanza 65

65. Circumspect and reserved every man should be,
    and wary in trusting friends.
    Of the words that a man says to another
    he often pays the penalty.

Interesting how the two halves of this stanza tie together.

There are a bunch of other stanzas that discuss how to evolve an acquaintanceship gradually into a friendship. There's mention of friendships that have been tried and tested, of good friends and bad friends, of acquaintances and business associates that you haven't had time to build up friendships with.

So is this bit about hesitating to test a friendship about the caution necessary when the friendship hasn't been tested yet, or is it about not abusing a friendship that has been tested? It sure is in my opinion, both of those. When testing a friendship, do it in some throw-away situations where you aren't hurt if you end up getting betrayed. And with an established friend don't expose yourself to his mercy if you can avoid it. A good friend won't burden a good friend except in face to face discussions. Expressing your frustrations and so on. Earlier mention of how many can keep a secret tie in with that.

Folks repeat what they heard. At times friends repeat what they heard from friends. When you're explicit that you want to keep some topic in confidence, sometimes your friends will keep the secret, sometimes they'll forget and slip up, sometimes they aren't as reliable as you wish and they repeat it anyways, sometimes they forget that you wanted it closely held. Stuff gets out there.

So what does that say about dealing with friends? A friend is someone you can bare your soul to, someone who can tell you your faults and you won't take offense. Think over how you bare your soul to your friends. Put it carefully and you can discuss your feelings but not discuss specifics that could be a problem if repeated. "I feel so frustrated at the office, how about you?" works just as well as "Let me tell you what frustrating thing happened at the office today .." when you're dealing with a friend.

Sure, you'll want to tell a good friend plenty of stuff, but sometimes the details are a burden you shouldnt unload onto someone else.

And what if you aren't as good a judge of character as you think? Then stuff you'll tell will get repeated and you could end up screwed. So share your feelings but not the details.

Let's consider what is NOT said in this stanza nor in other stanzas about dealing with friends and secrets. What's NOT mentioned is that if you live a sufficiently noble life you might not end up with secrets in the first place. Why isn't that mentioned? I think it's not mentioned because it's not a realistic goal to set. Humans are too imperfect.

Also, humans are goal pursuers with an interesting twist. The human mind will pursue goals, but it will edit out the negatives from the goal statement. If your goal is to live a life nobily enough that you will not have embarassing secrets, sure enough your mind will end up delivering to you a life lived nobilty enough but you'll still have some cleverly inserted embarrasing secrets. There's quite a difference without the "not" in that goal.

Perfection in life is not acheivable and it can't even be asked for in a way that has proactical use. We can strive for the good. We can take our goal each year to be a better person than last year, and the results will be amzing excellence over time. But start asking to be perfect and it starts coming out as a list of not's. And there goes our goal pursuing subconscious minds erasing the not's and delivering the rest.

With not telling a friend your embarassing details, the way to acheive that is to not say it. In life the way to acheive it is to not think about it.

Have you ever done deep dark night vision work? The way to see very dim stars in the sky is to adjust your sight to the dark, and then to look to a spot not directly at your target. Then you see the dim object in the side of your field of view. This works because the retina has color sensativity in the middle and that takes more light, and b/w sensativity around the edges and that takes less light.

It turns out that personal excellence works the same way as seeing very dim objects. It's done by focusing on other stuff and acheiving it as a side effect of those projects. It's not done with direct focus. Try the direct focus and you still end up with secrets. Try telling your friend and you still don't know if it will ge tout accidentally.

Notice how the concept of using peripheral vision ties in with the origins of the word "circumspect"? Very nice how it works out that way in this English translation.

Stanza 66

66. Much too early I came to many places,
    but too late to others;
    the beer was drunk, or not ready:
    the disliked seldom hits the moment.

I laughed my butt off when I read this through.

There's a joke that explains the difference between the Yiddish words schlamiel and schlamozel (however they are spelled):

A waiter spills a bowl of hot soup on a cutomer. The waiter is the schlamiel. The customer is the schlamozel.

On the surface this sounds like the lament of someone who is accident prone. He's unlucky. Stuff just doesn't work out easily.

But this is the Havamal we're talking about here. It can't just be the lament of an accident prone guy, thrown in for amusement as a sort of intermission. Okay, the part about the accident prone guy was just recited. That's hilarious. Everyone take five. Go out back and wizz, refill your horns, grab some leftovers. The recitation will continue after the skald has a chance to do all that. Catch you in a bit ...

Thing is the previous stanza is about spilling secrets and the next stanza is about what should have happened but didn't. The three form a unit. They work together more than as just a joke about being accident prone. They seem to be about how you get accident prone. The previous stanza was about talking dirt about people. This one is about people avoiding you. The next one is about times you should have bene invited but weren't.

In ancient times one of the worst punishments was outlawry. Get labelled an outlaw and helping you was a criminal act. Outlaws could be killed with no protection from the frithgard, with no weregild required. And getting declared an outlaw in the first place took the sorts of crimes that were sure to leave you with some enemies who would be happy to kill you on sight.

But the spectrum between close friends and outlaw isn't binary. It's floating point. From blood brothers on one end and criminals executed on capture at the other end of the sprectrum, there's an unlimited number of gradations in between.

In a social culture being a butterfly helps and being a wallflower hurts. But there's more to it than your own inclinations towards introvertion and extrovertion. There's the reputation you've built up in the community. Build up a reputation as a backstabbing gossiper and you might not be as screwed as someone declared outlaw at the regional Thing, but you're still pretty screwed. Folks will consciously or unconsciously see to it that "the disliked seldom hits the moment".

Tha Havamal discusses how to make friends. It also in these stanzas discusses how to make passive opponents.

The Saga of Burnt Njall shows that sagas teach social values by what happens when they are breached. Rather like the Star Trek episode with Harry Mudd and the robots - Harry is taken as the worst example of humanity. The Havamal shows the same type of negative instruction here. This is how to make people dislike you - Say stuff in confidence that you wouldn't want repeated and even if your friends don't repeat it they'll figure you're saying the same sort of stuff to other friends. Say stuff in confidence that you wouldn't want repeated and if it gets out it will count against you and folks will avoid you.

Tit for tat early acquaintances build towards a friendship. Start well and trade what the other gives for what you give in return. Build up a friendship and you have a long enough history that you're just exchanging good without accounting. But start speaking ill of anyone, and you've begun to poison the well. Eventually people will start avoiding you.

This principle still works in business today. Whichever field you're in, chances are across the decades you'll keep encountering the same folks. Build a good history with everyone and across the years your career will go smoothly. Build a nasty history and you'll encounter more and more passive roadblocks. The "good old boy network" remembers who's bad as well as who's good.

Stanza 67

67. Here and there I should have been invited,
    if I a meal had needed;
    or two hams had hung, at that true friend's,
    where of one I had eaten.

Another stanza about folks avoiding you. Trash talk folks
and at some point you're going to be in need and you're
screwed. It's a very hard lesson to learn, much harder
in the harsh on-line world than in the mild face-to-face
world.

The bit about the two hams elsewhere but only one needed at a friend's place is about sharing. I've seen it cited every so often as an example that friends share. I'm not convinced at this point that's what it means. Since this sequence is about what happens when you screw up, I figure it means if you didn't screw up your friends would have been willing to share. But since you did screw up you even managed to alienate your friends.

A random reference to ham. I don't recall much other
reference to specific types of food elsewhere in the
Havamal. I wonder how specific the word is in the Old
Norse or if it just meant dried/preserved meat.

Stanza 68

68. Fire is best among the sons of men,
    and the sight of the sun,
    if his health a man can have,
    with a life free from vice.

We're heading into the most popularly quoted part of the
poem, so there are some stanzas of the skald warming us
up with imagery.

One of the hits from the rock group The Doors was "Come
on Baby Light My Fire". Jim Morrison was writing most of
their songs at the time and the author of this song figured
the only way he could compete was by writing a song about
fire and love and deah all wrapped together. That's this
stanza, sorta.

The linkage between fire and the sun is poetic, so this
stanza should be taken both literally and poetically.

Fire is best because it is one of the things that make humans different from other animals. We use fire to make a bit of our own day in the night. But humans are dirunal so we are up and about during the day.

In the north the sight of the sun would have been a good thing. More sunlight gives better mood on the literal level, more inspiration on the symbolic level. And the wording sounds really nice in English so it must have been wonderful in Old Norse.

Notice that health is linked with sunlight and fire literally and figuratively. Light for warmth, vitamin-D, ellevated mood, growth of crops. Fire for protection, cooking and so on.

How is sunlight linked with a life free of vice? There's got to be far more in there than just "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise". That part is there of course, but what else? Mental illumination - the healthy pursuit of wisdom not folly. Spiritual illumination - while Asatru isn't a sun-worshipping religion sunlight is a symbol for spiritual cleansing in so many faiths.

Also this stanza is not about material wealth but about health and a linkage between health and virtue. That next several stanzas expand on aspects of life other than wealth.

Blindness is mentioned in a couple of stanzas. I wonder how much the sight in this stanza ties in with the blindness in that upcoming stanza.

Stanza 69

69. No man lacks everything,
    although his health be bad:
    one in his sons is happy,
    one in abundant wealth,
    one in his good works.

Stanzas 68 through 72 form an arc that discusses the
non-material treasures in life. Love, health, friendship,
usefullness.

The previous stanza was about how health itself is a
form of wealth. Noone who is in good health is truly
impoverished in their heart.

This stanza moves on to point out that it doesn't even
take good health to have important types of wealth.
so it catalogoes other forms of wealth - children,
money, good works.

Health as a form of wealth. When healthy you have
time and energy to acquire the other types of wealth.

Family as a form of wealth. When you have children
and grandchildren you have a type of survival past
death that doesn't take the afterlife into account.

Money as a form of wealth. Money allows power,
even when you don't use it for that purpose.

Noble efforts as a form of wealth. Study, writing,
discovery, exploration and on and on among the
skills and crafts of humanity. Civilization is built on
the backs of the people who work the hardest or
the smartest.

Note that these forms are considered separately. Given the bumper sticker joke "Driver carries no cash. He has children" it is known that fathers often sacrafice their chance at wealth to raise their children. Many famous artists, scientists and so on had no children or neglected their families to acheive greatness. The the existance of the term "trophy wife" shows that men who focus their lives on gathering money rarely have time to have or to keep families. Lots of people have some of each of these types of wealth, but frequently those who focus completely on one type end up lacking in the others.

Is this a warning against over specialization on one
type of wealth? Is it an endorsement of those who do?
Is it a call for most to try to have balance in their
lives? Is it a recipe to show how to acheive greatness
in one realm and also to show the usual price in the
other realms? Maybe all of the above.

The Havamal is supposed to have been dictated by Odin. How did he fair on those fronts? In health he is missing an eye and should carry plenty of scars. He even died at one point and had to recover from it to bring the runestaves to other beings; that sure must have made him sickly. On the family front he has already lost one son and a part of his unending quest preparing for Ragnarok is knowing that he'll lose another so his efforts are really for his grandchildren. For wealth, that doesn't seem like a big deal to one of the Aesir. He has Gungnir and the other great treasures are held by his fith and kin. And so what remains are his acts in preparation for the next cycle. But Odin lives a much longer lifespan than any human. He has his chance to spend millenia focusing on each of the realms.

Stanza 70

70. It is better to live, even to live miserably;
    a living man can always get a cow.
    I saw fire consume the rich man's property,
    and death stood without his door.

Stanzas 68 through 72 are about a spectrum of types of happiness in life and appraches that are non-materialistic. This one is the most explicitly anti-materialistic. There aren't all that many parts of the Havamal that are easily interpreted as anti-materialist though many point out that it's the other parts of life that are the best: "The best things in life aren't things" is the modern expression.

The first half is a call against suicide from depression. No matter how low you sink you can always change your attitude, knuckle down in your efforts, and improve your situation. Insert joke here about "Don't have a cow, man". Chuckle. What a surprise that it turns out that The Simpsons is the reverse of the Havamal. Teaching by showing the bad example, The Simpsons is an echo of several of the sagas that way.

Cattle were a symbol of wealth. Thor's goats may have been viewed as just another form of cattle or may have been to symbolize that Thor was the defender of the poor as well as the other classes. Getting a cow meant a source of milk, a draft animal to help the plowing, the potential for calves to build a herd, and a reason to work continuously. Cattle take a lot of work to maintain.

Note how something to work on is used as an opposite
for depression. Idle hands lead to depression. Both the
time occupation of labor and the effect that work has on
the body serve to stave off depression. Work gives a
person a sense of value. The next stanza will cover this
attitude more extensively.

Moving on to the second half of the stanza we see that the ancients didn't have fire suppression systems, fire alarms, fire departments, fire resistant materials, lightning rods, or any of the other safety conveniences of modern life. Buildings caught on fire and burned down often enough that most people could have been expected to see a fire at least once in their lives. And fires burned out of control and couldn't be put out. Compare with a perhaps a grease fire in a kitchen today - pull the extinguisher off the wall and you have a mess in the kitchen not a burned down house.

My commentary on fire protection is quite incidental to
the important meaning of those two lines. While the rich
man's house was burning "death stood without his door".

To me this means death was standing around watching not actively going into the house as an executioner. If the rich guy was willing to abandon his stuff and run out of the house, he would pass by the watching death figure and emerge into life. And be poor again. (Another aside, this stanza explains the basis for diversification of your inventment accounts to avoid having all your eggs in your house).

The stanza does NOT say if the rich man rushed out of his house and saved his life or if he stayed with his burning stuff and died. It doesn't say if he rushed in and saved his family, either. Nor his dogs and cats for that matter. It sets out the choice that the rich man faces when he smells the smoke, not which choice he will make. In Burnt Njal's saga we encounter a situation where a fire was used to kill a family. Some rushed out to face the armed foes, others huddled together and waited for the smoke to kill them. Interesting how this one stanza gets several pages in that saga.

The modern answer to that choice is fairly clear - Get
the members of your family out and only go back in to
save stuff if the flames and smoke haven't reached that
part of the house yet. The stuff can be replaced but the
people can't.

To the ancients that choice might not have been as clear. The other stanzas of the Havamal put a stress on how well a life has been lived not on how long it is, with the first half of this stanza as "the exception that proves the rule". This stanza doesn't give any hint on how many rich men died in their burning houses and how many rushed out to a life of poverty.

First half - dignity of labor. Second half - the price of
attachment to material goods. Very Zen. Not all that much
in the ancient Lore seems Zen to me but this stanza does.

Stanza 71

71. The halt can ride on horseback,
    the one-handed drive cattle;
    the deaf fight and be useful:
    to be blind is better than to be burnt:
    no ones gets good from a corpse.

And the verbose can post, too! ;^) No one is completely
useless. Some make entertaining background noise in
various Asatru forums posting extremely verbose stuff
about familiar bits of lore ...

Stanzas 68-72 discuss variations on values other than the
material. The previous one pointed out that there is value
in work, dignity in work. This one points out that there
are a lot of different types of work that folks can do so
none are really handicapped enough that they shouldn't
try to contribute.

Now don't get all fired up and start ranting about folks on
disability payments. Some are lumps on logs, others
contribute much to the non-monetary values of civilization.
Think of Ingeborg and her Viking Answer Lady web pages.
her stanza is:

The wheelchair bound can write.

As society has progressed, even the last line has broken
down and is no longer completely valid:

no ones gets good from a corpse.

Tell that to a transplant recipient! Or to a CSI or coronor or whatever who learns lessons from deaths can be applied to lives.

Everyone has intrinsic value. Everyone should seek to
contribute. Everyone has ways they can contribute.

Maybe in ancient times these were requirements not
choices, but now most folks get to pick and chose among
occupations.

Steer your career, folks! When you have no target, you are certain to hit it. We'll all face plenty of choices about occupation in our lives. Some we'll be good at, some bad at. Some we'll like, some hate. Find the ones you are good at AND like. If you hate your job the person you have to thank for that is the one at the steering wheel. Youself. There'll be years you have to do whatever, but as long as you have decided to take charge of your life and to head the direction you decide to go, you'll end up doing what you chose to do in a few years. Give up early, and you know who to thank. With economic swings it might take several years, but people build careers good economy or bad.

This is also a call to diversity. It takes all types to make a village. Folks interested in this and that. Folks who like expounding on the Lore, folks who aren't interested in that. Folks who brew mead, folks who don't even drink it. And on and on through the stuff heathens do.

Stanza 72

72. A son is better, even if born late,
    after his father's departure.
    Gravestones seldom stand by the way-side
    unless raised by a kinsman to a kinsman.

With stanzas 68-72 about mostly non-material values,
this one boils down to "blood is thicker than water".

Let's try combining these bits:

-- Cattle die, men die, you yourself shall die.
-- One thing I know that will never die,
-- and that's the well earned reputation
-- of a life well lived.

-- If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one
-- there to hear it, did it really make a sound?

So for all the discussion of "unsung heroes"
actually being one is a waste. I take the gravestone
as the public memory not the literal carved rock.
I also take the son in the context of stanza 69's
list: descendents, money, good works.

Descendents do remember their ancestors. Then they
had tales and drawings and stories. Now we also have
photographs. A good parent gets a lot more story
time than a bad one. Our children are our spiritual
gravestones just as our children get to write what they
chose on our physical ones.

On a completely mundane level (who knew that the
Havamal would work on a completely mundane level ;^)
folks who die without family tend to get put into
unmakred graves.

The idea of charitable foundations was invented specifically to give a person's money an on-going life of its own. There can hardly be a better memory of Andrew Carnegie than a top-10 college named Carnegie-Mellon University. The J Paul Getty Museum outside of Los Angeles is a similar example of someone's money being able to contribute for a very long time after the person dies. One should expect that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with it's medical research funds will continue for generations. With the advent of foundations, our money can now be our gravestone. With the advent of corporations, our businesses can be as well.

Possibly the best gravestone in the entire history of money is the Nobel Prize. Alfred Noble invented dynamite and became rich off of this destructive product. When his brother died the newspaper mistakenly thought it was him and printed "Merchant of death dies". Noble set out to make his name one of positive contribution. Did he ever suceed. After a century of Nobel Prizes the people who carry his name now ar ethe best the world has to offer.

And good works of sufficient majesty make it into college textbooks or museums. Manage to become a hero of the folk like Erwin Rommel or George Patton and your name will be repeated at Sumbl for decades. Shine like Einstein and your name will become a synomyn for genius. Compose like Bach/Beetoven/Wagner and your name will mean music. You wanna contribute enough to Asatru that you get remembered with Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson? Then get cracking doing something with great meaning within Asatru! I could spend the rest of my life doing Lore commentary like this series and not get that type of gravestone, so I continue to fish around looking for ways to contribute.

In Japan the nail that stood out got hit down. In Asatru the nail that stands out gets remembered. Stand out! And in the spirit of stanza 71, don't let any supposed disadvantage slow you down.

Stanza 73

73. Two are adversaries:
    the tongue is the bane of the head:
    under every cloak
    I expect a hand.

This is yet another example of my stance that Asatru is
actions not thought. Words are part way in between
action and thought, and here we have words and action
in disagreement.

On the surface this is about caution. Words of peace don't
always really mean piece. And words sometimes get turned
into strife. My on-line commentary causes more than
enough strife without intent. It's quite common on UseNet
but more than average in my case. Anyways, the Havamal
refereces to UseNet a millenium in advance, amazing.

On the humorous level, when I first glanced at this stanza I thought of the Greek play Lysistrata. In it the women of Athens and Sparta decide to refuse sex until their husbands stop their war. There are the predictable scenes of unlaid husbands showing up for parleys thinking te other side has a sword under their cloak. Sword, hand, ah well, not a close enough mapping on closer inspection.

Nowadays it's overcoat or raincoat instead of cloak. And we have metal detectors to warn about hidden weapons. Spoils the mystery of what someone's words might mean ...

Back to the head and the tongue and stuff. It sets up a linkage. The tongue is the bane of the head because it's so easy to blurt out undisciplined thoughts. Thoughts race but usually aren't converted into words. And then once the words undiscplined words escape maybe they will motivate someone to come with concealed armaments.

Go back farther into the previous stanzas and you could conclude that this is a reverse take on the "an armed scoiety is a polite society" stance. That even in an armed society folks have loose tongues that get them into trouble.

Stanza 74

74. At night is joyful he who is sure of travelling enjoyment. (A ship's yards are short.) Variable is an autumn night. Many are the weather's changes in five days, but more in a month.

The poem shifts gears at this point, and the translation's
flow changes as well. It looks like the original went from
one poetic pattern to another. From largely pragmatic
stuff in a lot of earlier stanzas, this one seems like
poetic imagery for its own sake. It doesn't make sense
on the surface.

The first half seems to boil down to a statement that the
ocean is beautiful at night when you're out on a ship and
the water is nice.

Then there's an ancient take-off on the modern "March
comes in like a lion and out like a lamb" but about an
autumn month not a spring month.

Then there's the old standard "If you don't like the weather here in Buffalo, just wait a minute".

Not much moral or spiritual commentary on the surface, so
I'll try some speculation about what's under the surface.

At night is joyful he who is sure of travelling enjoyment.

Night time is when most people are sleeping. The ones who
are still awake are the elderly who doze and wake day and
night, the insomniacs, the ones on watch duty who'd rather
be asleep, the few herb guards who are on the night shift
watching to keep predators from the flocks, and the few who
dediced to be out at night. Oh yeah, and the animals too.

I like to stand outside and listen to the noises. I can hear the occasional coyote howling, dogs and other animals, birds, bugs, plants, traffic. I sometimes here folks in my area say there aren't any coyotes in Chicago but I hear their howls regularly and in 3 ears here I've seen 3 coyotes.

Just standing and listening at night, you can take joy in auditory travel. It can be a spirit quest without any reference to mediation, trancework, ghosts or wights. Just plain listen into the quite of the dark for stuff that you can hear but not see, and chances are critters that can see you but you can't see.

With the natural world delivering so many creatures that can see us that we can't see, that we can hear but not see, no wonder folks expected spirits to exist, and to take joy in wandering among the psirits during trancework.

(A ship's yards are short.)

If you're on a ship the hull is a lot closer than the horizon. There's ocean as far as you can see and there are lots of critters under that water. Same principle of the natural world hinting at the spirit realm. Unseen critters as deep as any line can reach and they get wierder looking as they get deeper.

Variable is an autumn night.

No need to get into the spirits of the Wild Hunt. If this is to be taken as a poetic reference to the spirit realm, then the spirit realm changes with the seasons. Since the unseen critters change with the season it makes sense that the spirits would as well.

Many are the weather's changes in five days,

Does this imply the ancients had a five day week, if they
had the concept of a week at all?

Back to taking this as a poetic reference to travelling in the spirit world, if you fair out each night you'll encounter different spirits each night. Some wights are fixed in their place, others appear to wander.

but more in a month.

The world comes in cycles but the cycles used in the spirit
world are longer than a week.

Stanza 75

75. He (only) knows not who knows nothing,
    that many a one apes another.
    One man is rich, another poor:
    let him not be thought blameworthy.

People tend to copy each other, but there are always some who march to the beat of a different drummer. To some extent being different is correlated with intelligence. I've known a lot of smart people and they all were out of the ordinary. But being out of the ordinary isn't a sign of intelligence. There are plenty of just plain wierd people out there.

So it's a tradeoff that values intelligence a bit higher than normal but not a lot higher. And it's a tradeoff that values being different but not too different. Be too the same and folks will ignore you. Be too different and folks will shun you. Other stanzas put it - Middle wise a man should be.

In the second half it states that being rich or poor isn't a matter of blame. There are certainly folks who'll point out that in most western nations being poor is defintely a decision made by each person because anyone who sets his mind to it can move out of poverty. And while it's easy to think that folks only get rich by stepping on others that isn't the way most who manage to stay rich got that way. The ones who step on others to get rich tend to get sued and lose their wealth so most of the rich folks don't hurt others. Not that you could tell that given the news, but most rich folks avoid publicity.

So to me it isn't about being able to decide your way out of poverty that's the issue. It's that being poor, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. So long as you have food and settle and health, it's quite doable to have very little money and still have a good life. That's not the extremes of poverty more like the working poor. There's no indignity in being working poor. Likewise being rich, in and of itself, is not a good thing. Money can't buy you happiness. It can just let you arrive at your problems in a limo. There's no dignity in being rich in spite of what it says in the popular song "If I were a Rich Man".

The fact that people can and do decide and act their way
out of poverty doesn't mean poverty is a bad thing. And
just being rich isn't reason to condemn anyone. Jealousy
on your part isn't the same as badness on their part.

Combining the two halves, what I get is that people may tend to act like each other and imiitate each other, but people are different and no amount of effort will make people the same. Every person is unique in every way. People have different bodies, minds, situations, belongings and on and on listing the differences. For all that humans are human and the same species, no two humans have ever been alike.

Stanza 77

77. Cattle die, kindred die,
    we ourselves also die;
    but I know one thing that never dies, -
    judgement on each one dead.

Pour actions into the Well of Wyrde. Eventually you'll die. But your actions happened so they won't. The current universe is the result of all the actions of all the people ever.

The first half is a repetition of the previous stanza, so one view of the second half is that it is a poetic parallel of the version in the previous stanza. That's not a bad idea since the third line is repeated as-is in some translations or paraphrases and seems very similar. So it makes sense to call fame judgement and vice versa.

History judges the famous. Contemporaries know of the
famous but the results of their needs takes time to be
seen and time is also needed for opipions to settle. Folks
who knew them in person need to age out of the scene
before history can start pretending to be objective.

But there's another level to be considered, the difference between the stanzas. Number 76 was about fame among humans. Might number 77 be about judgement among the Aesir? If so then this is one of the few references to the afterlife to be found in most of the poems of the Eddas. And it's a particularly askance reference easily seen as not refering to the afterlife.

If it's about the afterlife, is it even a JCI import? There's a sense of finality that doesn't jive with other views of the afterlife in the Lore. There was real hope that Balder could return from Helaheim for example. Some view the souls being sttored in Helaheim as awaiting rebirth into new bodies. There's also the issue that Ragnarok isn't actually forever into the future. There isn't any never in that final sense in Asatru. Either the never means from now until Ragnarok or the idea of the stanza is a sothron import.

Cattle die

Scott pointed out that sometimes references to cattle are
actually references to cattle. True enough, but I've been
focusing on symbolism even if I've had to dream up those
symbols to have stuff to discuss.

But sure enough, I've never heard of an immortal cow. Not an immortal of any type of multicellular animal for that matter. There's no way to tell if one celled critters are immortal but even the oldest trees on the planet line "only" a few millenia.

kindred die

No type of animal is immortal. Humans are animals that can speak and make fire and tools and space shuttles and stuff, but they are still animals. Thus, humans are mortal. Scientists note that that most mammal species have a maximum lifespan near 1 billion (10^9 US billion not 10^12 UK billion) heartbeats. For a human the billionth heartbeat is around age 30ish. So while humans already live a lot longer than other related animals we are still animals and still related by common descent. We're not immortals.

we ourselves also die

Except teenagers, I guess. They are immortal in their own
eyes. I remember being a teenager and being immortal.
But the clock kept ticking and one day I was neither a
teeanager nor immortal any more.

but I know one thing that never dies

Right. And if "never" really does span past Ragnarok then that one thing is an import from the sothron faiths. Or it means stuff that lasts until Ragnarok and that's the afterlife. Or it's just a figure of speech not a technical term and it means a really-really long time compared to living memory. As in stuff gets written on a wooden stick with runes and since that stick will still be around when my grandchildren are old that's forever.

judgement on each one dead

Other religions are a lot bigger on judgement at time of death than Asatru. Live well and the afterlife will take care of itself. Or this is a paraphrase of the previous stanza and it's about the judgement of historians in the next couple of centuries.

Pour actions into the Well of Wyrde. Eventually you'll die. But your actions happened so they won't. The current universe is the result of all the actions of all the people ever.

Stanza 78

78. Full storehouses I saw at Dives' sons':
    now bear they the beggar's staff.
    Such are riches; as is the twinkling of an eye:
    of friends they are most fickle.

The previous two stanzas start with "cattle die" and that's usually taken to mean that wealth is temporary. Which is an opinion from before the invention of trust funds that can make wealth as immortal as regular human endeavors can make business stuff.

This stanza expands on the idea and gets poetic about it.

Dives' sons - I don't know the story of Dives's sons, but from context it seems like a parallel of the Croisus legend. In fact that makes this a better example now than it was then: You know that guy legendary for being the richest in the world across several centuries? Ooops! No one even remembers him any more. Gone into the footnote pile of history books. Such are riches that if your time scale is long enough they are gone in the twinkling of an eye. The Aesir have that long term time scale. The lore has that long term time scale. Living humans can occasionally pull it off.

Beggar's staff - Even the poor went armed as best they could afford. A human with a big stick is match for nearly any other type of animal on the planet. Not the larger of the bears, but the type native to Eurasia can be defeated by a skilled human with a big stick. You wouldn't want to face a polar bear like that, though. Wolves, coyotes and so on also not a match for a skilled human with a big stick. Tools rule. And a well trained human with a good staff could hold off a mediocre trained human with a sword for at least a little while.

Twinkling of an eye - This is an expression in Santa Claus stories so it refers to Odin. Funny how a poem dictated by Odin should contain random little references like that. But I doubt the wording of the original evolved into the Santa expression. In the original it probably was "In the blink of an eye" but twinkling sounded nicer.

Riches as friends - Much of the Havamal is about various
types of value. Action, love, descendents, money, friends,
knowledge, understanding, fame and so on. All are valued,
but like riches all are temporary.

Queue the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are A Changing" ...

Stanza 79

79. A foolish man, if he acquires
    wealth or a woman's love,
    pride grows within him, but wisdom never:
    he goes on more and more arrogant.

I don't get a whole lot of hidden meaning to this stanza. It's practical advice that most of us have seen in real life.

Foolishness confuses one type of success with all types
of success, wisdom knows its bounds.

Take for example an engineer claiming expertese in politics. More than one such among the regulars so I don't even have to look in the mirror to find an example. Or doctors spouting on about what diet you should be on like they got more than one seminar on the topic in med school. Or pretty much any expert mistaking expertese in one field for expertese in many.

Entertainers sometimes get rich from making popular movies or songs or whatever. Watch recordings of the Oscar ceremony or the Grammys or whatever. They have a stream of folks getting an award in their own field who suddenly think they are experts in anything from politics to the environment. Some end up knowing their new fields (Bono seems to know how to get further funding for his feed-the-poor missions), but most just come across as clueless and arrogant to folks who actually know those fields.

Extreme examples can be found in lists of the highest
paid entertainers or lists of the "world's sexiest men".
Like getting on such a list makes you an expert on
anything outside the entertainment field. But is there
such a thing as bad publicity? ;^)

On a more common scale, I had a feeling of elation at my first kiss and first credit card. Suddenly I felt like standing at the bow of the ship and shouting "I'm king of the world!".

Stanza 80

80. Then 'tis made manifest,
    if of runes thou questionest him,
    those to the high ones known,
    which the great powers invented,
    and the great talker painted,
    that he had best hold silence.

Other stanzas have been about wise men and fools. This
one is about literate and illiterates.

If the runes it refers to are the futhark, I had best go silent. If it just means a writing system than ASCII Roman is fine and I contunie typing. Well, this is neither a democracy nor a moderated newsgroup so my typing contniues.

This stanza tries to be poetic in translation. Other stanzas have been poorly translated but I suspect that this one would sound wonderfull to a native Old Norse speaker. Unfortunately, like so much in Old Norse, I figure Shakespeare put it well for me. "They were speaking Greek. But as to me, it was all Greek to me." If Will had spelled it Old Norse, that's me.

I do like the linguistic ambiguity -

those to the high ones known,

High ones can be either human nobles of Aesir depending
on the listener.

which the great powers invented,

Ambiguous between the Aesir and scientists/scholars/skalds.

and the great talker painted,

Nice multimedia reference on the surface. Note how a talker would write done a speach, and the process of wrting down in runestaves was to carve then paint. But it's also a reference to colorful language.

Stanza 81

81. At eve the day is to be praised,
    a woman after she is burnt,
    a sword after it is proved,
    a maid after she is married,
    ice after it has passed away,
    beer after it is drunk.

This is the first in a long group of stanzas about testing
stuff, doing stuff at the right time and such. This one is
about the fact that sht happens, so judge stuff when it's
finished not when there's still a chance for the sht to
happen. The superstitious view is don't tempt fate.

At eve the day is to be praised,

"It's a nice day isn't it?"

"It ain't over yet! What are you, the weatherman?"

a woman after she is burnt,
a maid after she is married,

Interesting how girls are considered more different from
women than boys are from men. And this is mention
that burial was less popular than cremation at the time
this stanza was written.

Given the suspicion women are viewed with, praise at a funeral is praise well earned. So much for "Great job dear". Then again Men die, cattle die, you yourself shall die ... so this is a theme that runs through the poem. A woman can turn hurtfull in her old age (Would anyone like a slightly used mother-in-law? No need to even take over the payments ...) same as a man. There's also the fact that in a society where men travelled a lot and there were no DNA tests it could take quite some time before an educated guess could be made about the biological fathers of her children.

Yet girl-dom is to be judged at marriage. I guess it mattered if she came into the marriage already a mother, if it was a shotgun marriage (whatever it would have been called before gunpowder), if she managed to wed not yet ever pregnant. Also, kids or not girl-dom ends with marriage.

a sword after it is proved,

Pretty sword that breaks in the first swing, ugly sword that holds up through an entire battle. Wanna bet folks could actually figure out the quality of their steel and this actually referred to the warrior not the blade? No matter how much a soldier trains, that first battle tells the warriors from the freezers.

ice after it has passed away,

In a time when folks starved during winter, the time to state with certainty that you survived the winter is when there are some nice fresh greens on the dinner table.

Or is this one a reference to human relations, about building a friendship to the point it's old, tested and comfortable?

beer after it is drunk.

Also called attitude adjustment. Of course it's better after it's inside you. Alcohol does that! ;^)

Stanza 82

82. In the wind one should hew wood, in a breeze row out to sea, in the dark talk with a lass: many are the eyes of day. In a ship voyages are to be made, but a shield is for protection, a sword for striking, but a damsel for a kiss.

More pretty poetic imagry about doing stuff in context.

In the wind one should hew wood,

Does a calm interfere with wood cutting? Maybe the trees
sway in the breeze so the final break is easier?

I like the image of an axeman swaying as he swings and
the tree swaying in the breeze. Back and forth they row
together.

in a breeze row out to sea,

What with those sail things working best in a calm, uh,
okay. At least sails work best once you're out there.

I like the image of a rower's heavy breathing as matching
the breeze. Pull, puff, pull, puff.

in the dark talk with a lass: many are the eyes of day.

This sounds better than it is. It turns out hearing is
better at night than in the daylight. So the day may have
many eyes, but the night has many ears.

So the image I get may include assorted lips, but talk
is only a small part of it.

In a ship voyages are to be made,

No starships back then.

The image of the bold explorer in the bow of his ship is
much more romantic than a group marching and using
wagons to carry their stuff.

but a shield is for protection,

No condoms back then so they had to settle for a less
effective method.

a sword for striking,

No condoms back then but sometimes a sword really
is just a sword.

but a damsel for a kiss.

That would be a part of the process.

Stanza 83

83. By the fire one should drink beer, on the ice slide;
    but a horse that is lean, a sword that is rusty;
    feed a horse at home, but a dog at the farm.

More in a series about doing stuff in context. Nice
sounding words, simple pragmatic meaning, not a
lot of spiritual depth that I can even make up at this
point.

By the fire one should drink beer, on the ice slide;

Drinking may make you feel warmer but it doesn't
actually make you warmer. Drinking in the snow
is a ticket to freezing to death. Good practical advice.

but a horse that is lean ... feed a horse at home ...

Well that part makes sense anyways. Scot got a free
horse that was lean and feed it at home by doing
nothing but giving it a big yard to run around in and
mow the lawn.

a sword that is rusty ... but a dog at the farm ...

Doing the line mix the same way this time doesn't make
any sense. I've never met a dog trained to polish metal.

Taken on it's own, the comment about the dog says don't feed a dog table scraps. Nice little bit of well known animal husbandry toosed in there.

Stanza 84

84. In a maiden's words
    no one should place faith,
    nor in what a woman says;
    for on a turning wheel
    have their hearts been formed,
    and guile in their breasts been laid;

This is one of the stanzas often cited as evidence that the Norse were anti-woman (compared to what other cultures?) or that the Havamal shows too much Christian influence (I guess because those 8th century Saxons were such feminists). I don't think so. I think it's fair symetry with other stanzas of the Havamal.

Earlier stanzas of the Havamal are instructions to men on how, when, where, why and in response to what to lie. Earlier stanzas of the Havamal warn men that lies are everywhere. Men lie, god(desse)s lie (oh wait, that's from other poems in the Eddas), pretty much any type of animal but dogs lie. For that matter even sleeping dogs lie! ;^) So should at come as any surprise that women lie? Wanna bet somewhere in the lost lore is a similar poem chanted among the ancient women about how, when, where, why and in response to what to lie but it's been lost across the centuries? If it existed I bet it would have complained about how men are unreliable as well. Fair's fair and turnabout is fair play.

In a maiden's words no one should place faith,

Here's that distinction between girls and woman again.
There are trials that separate the men from the boys,
and lying isn't one of them. There are also trials that
separate the girls from the women , and lying isn't
of of those either.

nor in what a woman says;

To this day it is said that it is a woman's perogative to
change her mind.

for on a turning wheel have their hearts been formed,

Just the same as men that way. The sun and moon turn
round and round. The heart beats, the lungs breathe,
the seasons turn, the generations are born and die.
And through it all stuff changes. Stuff that includes
feelings and promises.

and guile in their breasts been laid;

For directions on how men have guile laid in their breasts, refer back to previous stanzas. For directions on how women have guile laid in their breasts, that's a mystery for another poem so quick get distracted by the titties ...

Stanza 85

85. in a creaking bow, a burning flame, a yawning wolf, a chattering crow, a grunting swine, a rootless tree, a waxing wave, a boiling kettle,

More than half way through. I'll stick with this poor translation through the end then if I continue on to other poems of the Eddas I'll try some other translation. I wonder if I'd be able to take the sources from the University of Texas sites and do my own translation, probably end up at least as poor as this one. So far the ones I'm considering next are the Volspa, Harbards Lay, and Val-stuff the lore contest one with the heads as the prize, the one I don't even try to spell out not to mention attempt to pronounce without choking.

The context for this stanza and the next few is trust:

no one should place faith,

It's a discussion of what is and isn't quality. What can be depended on and what can't.

in a creaking bow,

I haven't pulled enough bows to know for sure, but the good make a different sound from the cheap ones. I figure this line is about what a bow starts to sound like when it is too old and no longer safe to use.

More generally, if you bend something to the point it creaks, it is near breaking. This applies to crowds doing a protest against employment conditions, the mast of a ship at sail, a load being placed on a wagon, a horse puffing at too heavy a load, the population rumbling before a revolt.

a burning flame,

No Franklin stoves back in that era. Fireplace or not, sparks escaped from flames and houses burned down. Fire may be one of the major differences between humans and other animals but fire is NOT safe and is NOT to be taken for granted.

More generally, during a battle it's always dangerous.
During a riot same as a battle. Earlier stanzas also
described friendship and early passionate love as flame.

a yawning wolf,

This sounds more like legend than hard data. Dogs yawn
when they are bored and tired, so yawning dogs tend to be
safe. Wolves are NOT dogs. A yawn helps oxygenate the
brain so a yawning wolf could could easily be energizing
in case it needs to attack.

More generally, soldiers were termed wolves. Do don't
want soldiers hanging around yawning and craving
IHTFP messages in the latrines. When that happens the
army is in serious trouble.

a chattering crow,

Never more - quoth the raven. For too recent an image for the author of this stanza! Crows caw to tell each other where food is. Crows eat corpses. Not a great combination.

More generally, this could apply to any chatter. Lose lips
sink ships. There are warnings against gossip in other
stanzas.

a grunting swine,

Pigs grunt for all sorts of reasons. Since my relatives tend to live in dairy country not pig farming areas, I never lived enough about pigs to know what the grunts mean.

Pigs grunt when they are digging for roots, but likely they
also grunt before charging or whatever.

More generally, it can be a really good idea to pay
attention to what that mean looking guest is actually
saying when he leans over and says something to the
next person at the table, but all you manage to hear a
a grunt.

a rootless tree,

Timber! Look out below!

More generally soldiers are described as trees and an
army without a home is an army about to cause problems.
View this comment as about parentless people who have
noting to lose and it's about lawless havoc on the home
front.

a waxing wave,

No way, dude. That's the best time to catch a wave and
surf.

More generally the wave could be anything from a bump
of water you need to row your boat through to a high
tech stock investment bubble.

a boiling kettle,

Think burned tongue. The morning grewl must have been
eaten after the fire went down and the porridge cooled.

Or that kettle could be on the wall of a castle under siege
and you're one of the poor bastards assigned to putting
up a ladder and going over the wall at the start of an
assault.

Or it could be at home but since you're an explorer and viking and trader and raider and stuff, you don't get home much. Somehow you never did learn how all those levers work to keep that big caldron over the fireplace at home. No, don't pull on the one that looks obvious because you want a bowl of stew. Not unless you want to swim in boiling stew, that is.

Stanza 86

86. a flying dart, a falling billow, a one night's ice, a coiled serpent, a woman's bed-talk, or a broken sword, a bear's play, or a royal child,

More stuff that is not to be trusted.

a flying dart,

Some arrows are straight and their flight can be
predicted. Others wobble in flight. Plus vision is
not always good enough to deal with a speeding
arrow and the wind makes the uncertainty worse.

a falling billow,

I had to look billow up in the dictionary. It's any
type of wave. Maybe a freak wave on the sea, maybe
a wave of soldiers doing a charge, maybe the shape
of a flag flapping in the beeze. Definitely something
transient that will be different in a few seconds.

a one night's ice,

Ice might look strong but still be thin. In ancient times
they didn't have rulers embedded in ponds to be able
to tell the thickness, and with lower population
density they had neither 911 service nor medevac
choppers. They didn't even have neighbors likely to
notice you broke through the ice.

a coiled serpent,

A coiled one has the ability to strike out in any
direction, and it's in the nature of the poisonous ones
to strike when threatened. Since it's hard to understand
a snake's perspective when you have not yet noticed
the snake is even there, snakes often appear to strike
at random.

a woman's bed-talk,

Odin gives instructions on sweet talking women to
get them into bed. Why shouldn't women do their
own sweet talking once they are there?

or a broken sword,

Even if it still looks pretty in that scabard.

a bear's play,

Bears may play, but they are NOT domesticated like
dogs. A playing bear could easily get distracted by
your delicious looking arm and decide it's time for a
snack.

or a royal child,

A sword held by a villian may be a potent weapon,
but an army led by a bad king is even worse. And if
the kid in question isn't the heir apparent there's far
too much chance he'll try to gather his own army and
start a civil war to be able to reach the throne over the
dead bodies of his siblings, and a lot of other citizens.

The Havamal was to be recited to nobles. This one
quip would have chilled the blood of numerous folks in
the audience.

Stanza 87

87. a sick calf, a self-willed thrall, a flattering prophetess, a corpse newly slain, (a serene sky, a laughing lord, a barking dog, and a harlot's grief);

We're still in a bunch of stanzas about stuff that should not be trusted. Two more stanzas after this one before the topic shifts and becomes more interesting.

a sick calf,

With cattle being wealth, a calf is a promise of furture
wealth growing. A sick calf is a gamble in the short term
because it could die and give no wealth, but it's a worse
gamble in the long term because there's a chance that
it's illness is genetic and it will breed other sick cattle
if it lives.

a self-willed thrall,

Chortle! The Anglo-Germanic world has given the most
self-willed individuals in history. Peasant revolts are in
our lore in at least a couple of stories (Volung, Frodhi
and the World Mill). And peasant revolts are the history
of the pan-Germanic world.

The peasantry can be trusted, alright. They can be
trusted to hammer their plowshares into swords as soon
as the crops are planted.

a flattering prophetess,

So this is why Odin trusted the Seeress in the Volspa?
Because she predicted his death and how it would
happen but not when. Fortune tellers are good at
telling their customers what they want to here, so one
way to filter for the relatively more sincere is to value
more the ones that say stuff you don't like.

a corpse newly slain,

On the battlefield perhaps? There are plenty of stories
of a soldier pretending to be dead then shooting an
arrow into the enemy leader by surprise.

Unless the word slain is really the more general dead
and this becomes a caution against catching the
disease that killed the person. That's the same story
as the soldier pretending to be dead but you need a
microscope to see the arrow and the ancients had no
microscopes.

(a serene sky,

It's always calm just before the storm! It's really Thor
winding up before the pitch.

a laughing lord,

Because he just finished reading Machiavelli's "The
Prince" and he's laughing about the plans he has for
you just after you get thrown in chains.

a barking dog,

Some bite, some don't. But they all tend to wake up
the security troops.

and a harlot's grief);

You get what you pay for in the coin you pay it. Pay with loyalty or love, get loyalty or love in return. Pay with money, get your services as long as the cash lasts. If she's a harlot then her grief is over the lost income not what she's pretending to grieve. The movie Pretty Woman is as much a myth as any tale of ripping the arm off a monster or slaying a dragon.

Stanza 88

88. an early sown field
    let no one trust,
    nor prematurely in a son:
    weather rules the field,
    and wit the son,
    each of which is doubtful;

Still in the catalog of stuff not to be trusted.

The lines are intermingled but explicit.

Don't count your chickens before they hatch - the modern
version of don't trust a sown field because of the weather.

There's always hope in every child but some grow up
good and some bad no matter the rearing. Good rearing
or bad can effect the chances and so it's worth the
effort, but rearing isn't a guarantee.

Everyone talks about the weather but no one seems to
do much about it - the modern version of weather rules
the field, each of which is in doubt.

Note that parallel of planting a field with seed and of
bearing children. To a farmer a field is a crop, one plant
is rarely valued. To a king a generation is a crop. To
the Aesir humanity is a crop.

Also note that it's an early sown field and a prematurely in a son. There's some ambiguity in the wording about time in grown or time in planting. Marriages do happen when girls are pregnant so the parentage of the first child is even more in doubt than the later ones. If she can escape her chaperone to get pregnant by one suitor, she could also do so to meet others. The firstborn is often valued in stories but this stanza also shows there was some amount of ambiguity over that extra value on the part of husbands.

Stanza 89

89. a brother's murderer, though on the high road met, a half-burnt house, an over-swift horse, (a horse is useless, if a leg be broken), no man is so confiding as to trust any of these.

Still in the catalog of stuff not to be trusted.

a brother's murderer,
though on the high road met,

Takes the principles of "the enemy of my enemy is my ally" and "the enemy of my friend is my opponent" and mixes in kinship. If someone got to the point of murdering my brother (by blood, adoption, oath, comradship, whatever) you sure better not trust him about anything more complex than where's-the-concealed-weapon. Even if you're out and about travelling and he doesn't recognize you, figure he's pretending to not recognize you.

It doesn't matter if the wereguild has been paid and oaths sworn. Njal's Saga is all about folks ignoring those issues and persuing blood feuds in the face of becoming forsworn.

a half-burnt house,

"Lightning doesn't strike twice" is nonsense. It burned once it may burn again. Also they didn't have professional fire fighters going through the ruins checking for smoldering embers so houses could burst back into flames.

But this is poetry and this does come directly after mention of a family member being slain. A family is often poetically called a house in sorthron stories so it could easily mean that here as well. Back to Njal's saga. Just because you paid the money at Thing doesn't mean the surviving members of the half-burnt house won't decide that your house may as well end up half-burnt as well and try to kill you.

an over-swift horse,
(a horse is useless,
if a leg be broken),

One thing I learned as a child was "Rushing is breaking".
Clearly it works for horses as well as clumsy humans.

Moderns note - Our roads are a LOT better than theirs. On our roads the fastest living horse is the one in the trailer behind the pick-up rushing to lunch.

no man is so confiding
as to trust any of these.

The word confiding is about giving trust to someone or
something.

Stanza 90

90. Such is the love of women, who falsehood meditate, as if one drove not rough-shod, on slippery ice, a spirited tw0-years old and unbroken horse; or as in a raging storm a helmless ship is beaten; or as if the halt were set to catch a reindeer in the thawing fell.

More on stuff not to be trusted. Now we've reached the point wehre the composer suggests he doesn't understand woman. What man ever does? And while women have been known to claim they understand men, it's hardly a believable claim given the assertions I've heard women make about men. At least it's mutual.

Love is like slipping on ice. You tend to fall down into it at unexpected times. Nice image.

Love is like riding a young unbroken horse. It will run around at random and try to throw you off. Amusing image around a decade later when you have time to look back at the events from a distance but it sure sucks when it's actually happening.

Love is like a ship without a pilot. Well, young love is like that. The principle of one-burned twice-cautious does apply to some folks who are able to be carefull the second try. BTDTGtTS.

or as if the halt were set to catch
a reindeer in the thawing fell.

For folks who understand what that means it must be dramatic. It seems to be some sort of trap involving a hole dug in the ground and covered so the animal will walk over it and fall into the trap, but in the thaw it ends up falling into a pool instead of into a pit. If I understand the lines right.

So I think it means love is like a sudden splash into the dark. One second you're walking around in public and the next thing you know you're in the dark drowning.

Ah, the joys and terrors of first love.

Stanza 91

91. Openly I now speak,
    because I both sexes know:
    unstable are men's minds towards women;
    'tis then we speak most fair
    when we most falsely think:
    that deceives even the cautious.

We've moved from stanzas about stuff not to be trusted to love. Funny how that works given how fickle love is. They say "Love is blind" is what they really mean is love is a-rational. It's a wild fire that crosses the praries of our hearts following the fickle wind, until it's had time to settle deeply into a marriage.

Openly I now speak,

Sure, and Doug is making sh*t up about any stanza he can't find any obvious meaning. I'm just as open about that. The speech may be open ...

because I both sexes know:

... but it's a load of crap even from Odin. Open doesn't mean the words are making sense! The old guy's got brass balls saying that where Frigga will hear of at, I gotta say.

unstable are men's minds towards women;

Even in a marriage you need to work to keep the relationship working. They say that being married doesn't mean being blind so a don't-touch rule can't include a don't-look rule. But for the more poorly disiplined among the men once they eyes wander so does the brain, the brain in the pants. Maybe the Norse invented pants with that in mind, but it never does seem to work any different than a toga.

'tis then we speak most fair
when we most falsely think:

My wife, her I'll tell bad news. You think I'd say the same to a girl I'm dating? There are earlier stanzas that discuss going easy on testing friendships early on. That advice doesn't fall out of wisdom in the realm of romance.

that deceives even the cautious.

When sauve is obvious it's easy to tell. When it's just withholding some of the bad bits but releasing other bad bits enough to be believable it isn't easy to tell.

Note that this can be viewed on how to be fair/soft before marriage to win a good mate, and also on how to be fair/just after marriage to build stability into the relationship. From prior stanzas we already how that friendship is to be built up gradually by trust, that the minds of women are unstable and need to be anchored by trust. Here we get the turn-about-is-fair-play by being reminded that the minds of men are just as unstable and also need to be anchored by trust.

Stanza 92

92. Fair shall speak,
    and money offer,
    who would obtain a woman's love.
    Praise the form
    of a fair damsel;
    he gets who courts her.

We're in the middle of a string of stanzas on love. It started bad mouthing intent and moves gradually through stages of emotions. Viewed across a dozen or more stanzas it's quite a set of tales.

I'm busier at work lately so my posting rate has dropped off. I continue to not promise that I will continue but I haven't stopped yet. Expect a slower pace for a while.

Again we see a distinction between a woman and a girl.

Fair shall speak, and money offer,
who would obtain a woman's love.

Woman want kindness and financial stability.

Praise the form of a fair damsel;

But girls want to be called pretty. Form vs substance,
child vs adult.

he gets who courts her.

There's quite a profound bit of advice - If you don't ask the guy that did ask is the one who gets to the yes.

There's also a spectrum of feelings around love and marriage, around seducing, dating, courting and marrying that's only refered to here with specific vocabulary. Without looking at the Old Norse original I can tell the wording would have been finely wrought here and the subtlety of it mostly lost in this translation. Obtaining love is only part of the goal of courting. Courting is persuing marriage, but there's the ability to push the relationship to sex and then abandon the pursuit. That would have been a high risk method of seduction in a time of armed chaperons.

Stanza 93

93. At love should no one
    ever wonder in another:
    a beauteous countenance
    oft captivates the wise,
    which captivates not the foolish.

The modern expression is "Love is blind".

This version is more complete and more pessimistic. It
suggests that smarter folks seek prettier mates. Modern
genetics suggests that looks are correlated with health,
so this isn't as pessimistic as that sounds but it still
seems shallow.

But for the ones not wise "Fools rush in where angels
fear to tread."

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from
making mistakes. Making mistakes comes from lack of
experience and wisdom. So the only way to become wise
is to start out not wise and make mistakes. Maybe, just
maybe, those mistakes can be done by others and learned
from.

"Once burned, twice cautious" is every bit as true of love. Young fools fall in love for random seeming reasons. Cautious and previously burned old farts are far more carefull the second time around. Been there, done that, got the divorce records. And being twice cautious worked out fabulously - My wife and I are both on our second marriages and we are going strong.

Stanza 94

94. Let no one wonder at
    another's folly,
    it is the lot of many.
    All-powerful desire
    makes of the sons of men
    fools even of the wise.

We're in the middle of a long sequence of stanzas about love and this one doesn't even mention love.

Is it even about love or lust? The folloy of following a dream or having an obession doesn't always have to be about love, but to the once dreaming or obsessing it will seem like love.

The artist has to create, scientist puzzle, gardener plant. For someone with a devinely defined Calling to Profession their work can be enough like love that it gets to be discussed as love.

But on another level the stanza works just fine as more about love. It's a rephrasing. Another "love is blind" and "fools rush in".

Is there an "All-powerfull desire"? There is for animals. One why to tell humans is we don't have to give in to our desires. But the desires are there nagging anyways.

Stanza 95

95. The mind only knows
    what lies near the heart,
    that alone is conscious of our affections.
    No disease is worse
    to a sensible man
    than not to be content with himself.

In a section about love, there are a couple of stanzas that get very philosophical and general. Along with 94, this one is more general than just love or lust.

The mind knows what's near the heart. I take it that's inside one person. So you'll never know what's dear to another.

Thinking bad thoughts about yourself is a terrible cancer. In the news we read about "poor self esteem". That's is what the second half of this stanza is about but the self esteem trend takes that too far.

Stanza 96

96. That I experienced,
    when in the reeds I sat,
    awaiting my delight.
    Body and soul to me
    was that discreet maiden:
    nevertheless I posses her not.

Still in the long sequence about love.

That I experienced, when in the reeds I sat, awaiting my delight.

Wow. Hanging out in a swamp planning to get laid. Now this guy needs lessons in what's romantic.

Body and soul to me was that discreet maiden:

But it worked anyways so he should give lessons. And she didn't even tell.

nevertheless I posses her not.

No kidding. Getting laid isn't getting married and getting married doesn't include obedience to any heathen I've met. Even in theory it may say that in that foreign Christian marriage ceremony but it's so rare in those marriages folks talk in amazement (and often disgust) of an obedient Christian wife. I can't even imagine an obedient Asatru wife. The ladies with minds of their own are far more my style anyways.

Stanza 97

97. Billing's lass
    on her couch I found,
    sun-bright, sleeping.
    A prince's joy
    to me seemed naught,
    if not with that form to live.

Now we've transistioned from stanzas about love to stanzas
that tell the tale of stealing and restealing the mead of
inspiration from the viewpoint of love.

Billing's lass on her couch I found, sun-bright, sleeping.

Shades of the tale Sleeping Beauty.

A prince's joy to me seemed naught, if not with that form to live.

While he needed to seduce her, he laments that he really wanted a long term relationship.

The thing is, folks have discussed this in terms of the tale of Billing's daughter and the mead and the mountain. I disagree with that viewpoint. I think this is a sequence of several stanzas that tells a horror tale about the arc of how a shotgun marriage tends to progress.

First the couple want sex and lament that that's all they are to get when the really want a long term relationship. Over the next several stanzas there's the reaction of the families when the fling is discovered all the way through a bitter divorce and the anger that a divercee feels. Watch as the next several stanzas are read how that arc progresses.

So to me this is a lesson about getting what you ask for,
about thinking over what you really want, about knowing the
dangers of marriages, about what can go wrong in an
allegiance between families through marriage.

Stanza 98

98. "Yet nearer eve
    must thou, Odin, come,
    if thou wilt talk the maiden over;
    all will be disastrous,
    unless we alone
    are privy to such misdeed."

We've moved from a general discussion of love to a tale
of a shotgun marriage leading to a bitter divorce. It's
told as an allegory of the tale of Odin and Billing's
daughter - parallel in general with Frey and Gerd but
different in symbolism.

In the previous stanza the man looked at the woman
and wanted a long term relationship not a one night
stand. Here we have to woman deciding the same but
using devious methods. The woman has seen the
emotion and has decided to ensnare the man into
marriage.

But as the story proceeds we will see neither of the
couple has planned it out correctly and disasters of
several times are ahead. Fools rush in where wise men
fear to tread ...

Stanza 99

99. I returned,
    thinking to love,
    at her wise desire.
    I thought
    I should obtain
    her whole heart and love.

We're in the middle of a sequence that on one level retells the tale of Odin and Billing's daughter and on another level describes the arc of a shotgun marriage that ends up in a bitter divorce.

So far we've seen the couple waking up after a one night stand and the man wanting more. The woman sees his desire and decides that she wants the influence that a marriage will bring so she gets devious and pulls him in rather than sending him away.

So now the man is returning. He doesn't know she isn't sincere, and hasn't had time to deeply inspect his own feelings to even tell if he is sincere. He just knows lust tends to turn to love and he is in the phase where it's glowing within him, whichever L-word it is at this point. He thinks she is also in that same mental/emotional state.

But tune in next time for a surprise twist in the plot. There will be wizzes and bangs, and even things that burn and explode. But in the meantime, a word from our sponsor Chaucer's Mead ...

Stanza 100

100. When next I came
     the bold warriors were
     all awake,
     with lights burning,
     and bearing torches:
     thus was the way to pleasure closed.

We're in a sequence about love that uses the tale of Odin
and Billing's daughter on one level and discusses ill
conceived marriages rushed into on another level.

Now the chaperones have arrived and it's time for the
shotgun wedding to happen. There's no pleasure not
because there's no sex but because there's no choice.
There's no pleasure not because there's no love or
romance but because there's no freedom.

The marriage has been forced on them. The in-laws
are watching. What burns and explodes are the
decorations for the wedding. What burns out are
the passions of the couple now bound together where
they thought they were going to have just a tryst.

Stanza 101

101. But at the approach of morn,
     when again I came,
     the household all was sleeping;
     the good damsel's dog
     alone I found
     tied to the bed.

I've been tracking a couple of levels of meanings and focusing on one in the current tale. One level is repeating the tale of Odin and Billing's daughter. The other is an ill considered marriage that goes bad quickly.

Now that there's been a shotgun wedding, suddenly both families are putting on pressure to have and raise kids. The wife has started acting like a breeder not a lover, so the sex isn't nearly as spontaneous or creative. And she's been asking around what days are best and what days aren't so the sex is overly planned as well. It's been removed from an animal urge linked with love and passion to an animal urge linked with pressure from the folks. What a way to spoil the bed.

There's also a change in her personality (and of course a
matching and equally bad change in his as well). Dogs can
be either dominant or submissive and neither well becomes a
human. Dogs also bite, but not in a way that humans will
consider playfull.

And she's "tied" to the bed. A woman's place is in the home, except for people who really act human and stuff. She's bitter at being tied down and she's starting to dislike this damn marriage she got herself into.

Stanza 102

102. Many a fair maiden, when rightly known, towards men is fickle: that I experienced, when that discreet maiden I strove to seduce: contumely of every kind that wily girl heaped upon me; nor of that damsel gained I aught.

This stanza completes the double sequence on love and on the tale of Billing's daughter that I took as symbolic for a shotgun marriage gone bad.

Here we're back out of the tale of the daughter into a discussion of how love isn't lust and neither is friendship.

Note the distinction between a maiden and a woman again. Girls get to play before they settle down, and that playing is fickle. But the stanza isn't about women this time just girls. Try to seduce a girl and she's just as likely to consider you a plaything as to consider you potential husband. Let it slip to her that you don't consider her a potential wife and you're instant boy-toy material. And the target of gossip. Men may be quite good at gossip but they sure don't have a monopoly on it. ;^)

Stanza 103

103. At home let a man be cheerful,
     and towards a guest liberal;
     of wise conduct he should be,
     of good memory and ready speech;
     if much knowledge he desires,
     he must often talk on good.

We've moved out of the discussion of love and now comes a pair of stanzas that link speech and intelligence. This one is the positive side of the pair - How to be talkative and in the process draw information out of your guests.

At home let a man be cheerful,

What, we shouldn't be negative? Bummer. Somehow
they never advise sinking into a funk.

and towards a guest liberal;

The word "liberal" sucks because it's overused for far too
many meanings. Generous is the one that applies here.
Ply your guests with food and drink so they will be
satisfied and in a good mood. But it also must mean
generous in speech and in giving out your own knowledge
based on context later in the stanza.

of wise conduct he should be,

This being the stanza of the pair that's about intelligence, may as well mention that so folks know.

of good memory and ready speech;

Note the linkages here. Wisdom is correlated with memory,
memory with speech, knowledge with speech. I don't think
the words had their meanings cut in the same places they
do now.

Since the advent of computers, the model of separated memory and processor has come into use. People have a memory that can store everything they ever experienced and some sort of filing system that ranges from excellent to terrrible. People also have an "intellectual horsepower" that reflects how well they can correlate data and reach conclusions about methods. This modern model does not work for ancient texts.

if much knowledge he desires,

Not all folks desire knowledge in general. Everyone wants
information that will effect their own lives, but knowledge
and information aren't the same thing. Again we have a
shift in meaning between the ancient and the modern.

Since the advent of computers, the model of information or data and knowledge or understanding has come into use. It's easy to gather information without forming conclusions about it. The scientific method is a system for deciding how systems work and the ancients did not have the scientific method. Their boundaries among information, data, understanding, rational thought, and wisdom weren't the same as ours have become.

he must often talk on good.

In a society where few are literate, speech is the primary way to convey knowledge not writing. Today I could read books much faster than they could possibly be read aloud to me but they didn't have easy access to paper (parchment from hides is far more work than pulling out a legal pad from the supply cabinet) and they didn't have printing presses with moveable type. A non-obvious implication of movable type is that fonts are extremely uniform and that makes reading far easier. Just try reading someone's hand written diary sometime and then try reading their typed in blog.

In ancient times discussion was teaching. Knowledge
was stored by remembering discussions. It's why poetry
was so valued. Poetry is easier to remember than prose.

But more than that, discussion was thought shared among people. It was intelligence transferred from one to another. By the way, this seems to be the origin of the military term "intelligence" which means data gathered about an opponent and reported to an authority. It assumes that merely having more data equals having more power. This a mindset that managed to get folks rich in stock markets but each year the flood of data increases and the model works less and less well. Back then data was so scarce, and science was non-existant yet, that having any data at all was enough.

When they say plus sa change, plus sa mem chose, this is a huge exception to that rule. Or is it? Now typing and e-mail and the web has a farther range and speed than speech, but that's a way that a man's reach can now exceed his grasp. The rules still apply every bit as much in writing now as to speech then:

At home let a man be cheerful,

On a newsgroup or mailing list be cheerfull.

and towards a guest liberal;

And be kind and generous to fellow subscribers (like that's
easy among us tempermental heathens!).

of wise conduct he should be,

Don't blurt a bunch of trash.

of good memory and ready speech;

Quote folks accurately; don't put words in their mouths.
Be confident in responding, not a lurker.

if much knowledge he desires,

If, ah there's the rub. What if the topic isn't of interest to you? Then lurk away dude!

he must often talk on good.

As opposed to typing trash.

As before, still now. But the clucking of human voices is
now the clickety of keyboards and the flashes of screens.

Stanza 104

104. Fimbulfambi he is called
     who little has to say:
     such is the nature of the simple.

In the next stanza the Havamal changes to telling the tale
of the Mead of Inspiration. This one closes a wide range
of discussion of various values.

"Why remain silent and by thought a fool, when you can open
your mouth and remove all doubt?" That's the modern saying
and this stanza sure disagrees with it. In a society that
worked on oral transmission of Lore keeping silent was
showing an inability to hold wisdom.

I don't know the Norse words and have decided I would not look them up. Going just on sound it seems to be a play on stuttering, mumbling, uneducated speech. Fimbulthuler is Odin doing runic magic so it also brings chanting or ranting to mind.

The moderated newsgroup will likely come on-line in a couple of days. When that happens I will move my commentaries to there.

Colophon

Doug Freyburger (screen name: "Doug Freyburger") was a practicing Ásatruar based in the United States and a long-standing contributor to alt.religion.asatru. He posted this stanza-by-stanza commentary on the Hávamál in 92 installments from September 26, 2005 to May 22, 2006. The series covered stanzas 1 through 104 of the poem. Freyburger described himself as an engineer by profession, and his approach to the text reflected that background: methodical, empirical, and always asking what a stanza meant in practical terms for how one should live.

The Hávamál translation quoted in each entry is the 1936 Bellows rendering (Henry Adams Bellows, The Poetic Edda, American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1936), which is in the public domain.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original posts to alt.religion.asatru, Message-IDs beginning at [email protected].

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