From the Poetic Edda, translated by Henry Adams Bellows
The Hárbarðsljóð (Old Norse: "Poem of Harbarth") is the sixth poem in the Codex Regius, the principal manuscript of the Poetic Edda. It is the most metrically irregular poem in the collection — written predominantly in Málaháttr ("in the manner of conversation"), but so freely that some speeches break into other metres entirely, and a few are simply prose. The poem is a flyting: a contest of insults, boasts, and provocations between Thor and Odin, the latter disguised as a ferryman called Harbarth ("Gray-Beard"). Thor, returning from a journey in the East, finds the ferryman on the far shore and cannot get across.
The structure is deceptively simple. Thor boasts of killing giants; Harbarth boasts of seducing women. Thor speaks of battles and strength; Harbarth speaks of cunning, magic, and the prerogatives of the noble dead. The contrast between the two gods — Thor the straightforward champion, Odin the trickster and aristocrat — is drawn with coarse humor and surprising psychological sharpness. Bellows accepted Mogk's judgment that the author was "a first-rate psychologist, but a poor poet," and translated the poem as it stands in the manuscripts, preserving the metrical confusion of the original. The poem is dated by linguistic evidence to approximately the eleventh century, though the core tradition may be older.
This is Henry Adams Bellows' translation from The Poetic Edda (1923), published by the American-Scandinavian Foundation in New York. The poem is found complete in the Codex Regius; from the fourth line of stanza 19 to the end it is also preserved in the Arnamagnæan Codex. The translation was verified against the Wikisource proofread edition, transcribed from the original 1923 printed text.
Thor was on his way back from a journey in the East, and came to a sound; on the other side of the sound was a ferryman with a boat. Thor called out:
"Who is the fellow yonder, on the farther shore of the sound?"
The ferryman spake:
"What kind of a peasant is yon, that calls o'er the bay?"
Thor spake:
"Ferry me over the sound; I will feed thee therefor in the morning;
A basket I have on my back, and food therein, none better;
At leisure I ate, ere the house I left,
Of herrings and porridge, so plenty I had."
The ferryman spake:
"Of thy morning feats art thou proud, but the future thou knowest not wholly;
Doleful thine home-coming is: thy mother, methinks, is dead."
Thor spake:
"Now hast thou said what to each must seem
The mightiest grief, that my mother is dead."
The ferryman spake:
"Three good dwellings, methinks, thou hast not;
Barefoot thou standest, and wearest a beggar's dress;
Not even hose dost thou have."
Thor spake:
"Steer thou hither the boat; the landing here shall I show thee;
But whose the craft that thou keepest on the shore?"
The ferryman spake:
"Hildolf is he who bade me have it,
A hero wise; his home is at Rathsey's sound.
He bade me no robbers to steer, nor stealers of steeds,
But worthy men, and those whom well do I know.
Say now thy name, if over the sound thou wilt fare."
Thor spake:
"My name indeed shall I tell, though in danger I am,
And all my race; I am Othin's son,
Meili's brother, and Magni's father,
The strong one of the gods; with Thor now speech canst thou get.
And now would I know what name thou hast."
The ferryman spake:
"Harbarth am I, and seldom I hide my name."
Thor spake:
"Why shouldst thou hide thy name, if quarrel thou hast not?"
Harbarth spake:
"And though I had a quarrel, from such as thou art
Yet none the less my life would I guard,
Unless I be doomed to die."
Thor spake:
"Great trouble, methinks, would it be to come to thee,
To wade the waters across, and wet my middle;
Weakling, well shall I pay thy mocking words,
If across the sound I come."
Harbarth spake:
"Here shall I stand and await thee here;
Thou hast found since Hrungnir died no fiercer man."
Thor spake:
"Fain art thou to tell how with Hrungnir I fought,
The haughty giant, whose head of stone was made;
And yet I felled him, and stretched him before me.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?"
Harbarth spake:
"Five full winters with Fjolvar was I,
And dwelt in the isle that is Algrön called;
There could we fight, and fell the slain,
Much could we seek, and maids could master."
Thor spake:
"How won ye success with your women?"
Harbarth spake:
"Lively women we had, if they wise for us were;
Wise were the women we had, if they kind for us were;
For ropes of sand they would seek to wind,
And the bottom to dig from the deepest dale.
Wiser than all in counsel I was,
And there I slept by the sisters seven,
And joy full great did I get from each.
What, Thor, didst thou the while?"
Thor spake:
"Thjazi I felled, the giant fierce,
And I hurled the eyes of Alvaldi's son
To the heavens hot above;
Of my deeds the mightiest marks are these,
That all men since can see.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?"
Harbarth spake:
"Much love-craft I wrought with them who ride by night,
When I stole them by stealth from their husbands;
A giant hard was Hlebarth, methinks:
His wand he gave me as gift,
And I stole his wits away."
Thor spake:
"Thou didst repay good gifts with evil mind."
Harbarth spake:
"The oak must have what it shaves from another;
In such things each for himself.
What, Thor, didst thou the while?"
Thor spake:
"Eastward I fared, of the giants I felled
Their ill-working women who went to the mountain;
And large were the giants' throng if all were alive;
No men would there be in Mithgarth more.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?"
Harbarth spake:
"In Valland I was, and wars I raised,
Princes I angered, and peace brought never;
The noble who fall in the fight hath Othin,
And Thor hath the race of the thralls."
Thor spake:
"Unequal gifts of men wouldst thou give to the gods,
If might too much thou shouldst have."
Harbarth spake:
"Thor has might enough, but never a heart;
For cowardly fear in a glove wast thou fain to crawl,
And there forgot thou wast Thor;
Afraid there thou wast, thy fear was such,
To fart or sneeze lest Fjalar should hear."
Thor spake:
"Thou womanish Harbarth, to hell would I smite thee straight,
Could mine arm reach over the sound."
Harbarth spake:
"Wherefore reach over the sound, since strife we have none?
What, Thor, didst thou do then?"
Thor spake:
"Eastward I was, and the river I guarded well,
Where the sons of Svarang sought me there;
Stones did they hurl; small joy did they have of winning;
Before me there to ask for peace did they fare.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?"
Harbarth spake:
"Eastward I was, and spake with a certain one,
I played with the linen-white maid, and met her by stealth;
I gladdened the gold-decked one, and she granted me joy."
Thor spake:
"Full fair was thy woman-finding."
Harbarth spake:
"Thy help did I need then, Thor, to hold the white maid fast."
Thor spake:
"Gladly, had I been there, my help to thee had been given."
Harbarth spake:
"I might have trusted thee then, didst thou not betray thy troth."
Thor spake:
"No heel-biter am I, in truth, like an old leather shoe in spring."
Harbarth spake:
"What, Thor, didst thou the while?"
Thor spake:
"In Hlesey the brides of the Berserkers slew I;
Most evil they were, and all they betrayed."
Harbarth spake:
"Shame didst thou win, that women thou slewest, Thor."
Thor spake:
"She-wolves they were like, and women but little;
My ship, which well I had trimmed, did they shake;
With clubs of iron they threatened, and Thjalfi they drove off.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?"
Harbarth spake:
"In the host I was that hither fared,
The banners to raise, and the spear to redden."
Thor spake:
"Wilt thou now say that hatred thou soughtest to bring us?"
Harbarth spake:
"A ring for thy hand shall make all right for thee,
As the judge decides who sets us two at peace."
Thor spake:
"Where foundest thou so foul and scornful a speech?
More foul a speech I never before have heard."
Harbarth spake:
"I learned it from men, the men so old,
Who dwell in the hills of home."
Thor spake:
"A name full good to heaps of stones thou givest
When thou callest them hills of home."
Harbarth spake:
"Of such things speak I so."
Thor spake:
"Ill for thee comes thy keenness of tongue,
If the water I choose to wade;
Louder, I ween, than a wolf thou cryest,
If a blow of my hammer thou hast."
Harbarth spake:
"Sif has a lover at home, and him shouldst thou meet;
More fitting it were on him to put forth thy strength."
Thor spake:
"Thy tongue still makes thee say what seems most ill to me,
Thou witless man! Thou liest, I ween."
Harbarth spake:
"Truth do I speak, but slow on thy way thou art;
Far hadst thou gone if now in the boat thou hadst fared."
Thor spake:
"Thou womanish Harbarth! here hast thou held me too long."
Harbarth spake:
"I thought not ever that Asathor would be hindered
By a ferryman thus from faring."
Thor spake:
"One counsel I bring thee now: row hither thy boat;
No more of scoffing; set Magni's father across."
Harbarth spake:
"From the sound go hence; the passage thou hast not."
Thor spake:
"The way now show me, since thou takest me not o'er the water."
Harbarth spake:
"To refuse it is little, to fare it is long;
A while to the stock, and a while to the stone;
Then the road to thy left, till Verland thou reachest;
And there shall Fjorgyn her son Thor find,
And the road of her children she shows him to Othin's realm."
Thor spake:
"May I come so far in a day?"
Harbarth spake:
"With toil and trouble perchance,
While the sun still shines, or so I think."
Thor spake:
"Short now shall be our speech, for thou speakest in mockery only;
The passage thou gavest me not I shall pay thee if ever we meet."
Harbarth spake:
"Get hence where every evil thing shall have thee!"
Colophon
The Hárbarðsljóð is the sixth poem of the Poetic Edda as preserved in the Codex Regius (GKS 2365 4to, c. 1270). This is the translation of Henry Adams Bellows, from The Poetic Edda (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923). The poem is a flyting — a formal contest of insults — between Thor and Odin, the All-Father disguised as a ferryman named Harbarth ("Gray-Beard"). It is the most metrically irregular poem in the Edda, written predominantly in Málaháttr with frequent lapses into other forms and even prose. Its coarse humor and vivid characterization make it one of the most distinctive compositions in the collection. Harbarth's parting words — a curt dismissal of the strongest of the gods — remain one of the great comic exits in Norse literature.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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