Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Hávamál (The Words of the High One), (known also as "The Sayings of Har", or the "High Song of Odin"), a work of Old Norse poetry, is a source document for the study of Norse mythology, being a set of rules for wise living (and survival) purportedly written by Odin. It is both practical and metaphysical in content. The only extant source for this poem is contained within the Codex Regius. An early reference to the poem is by Eyvind the Plagiarist in Hakonarsmál , c. 960.
Hávamál consists of a number of poems, which shift in tone and tenor and narrative position.
Many modern proponents of Ásatrú place the Havamal at the centre of their religious beliefs.
The first section Gestathattr , the "guest's section", strophes 1 - 79, comprises a set of maxims for how to comport oneself when a guest and travelling, focussing particularly on the etiquette and behavioural relationships between hosts and guests. The first stanza exemplifies the practical behavioural advice it offers:
- When standing at an unfamiliar door,
- Take care before entering:
- Look this way and that:
- Who knows up front what foes may be
- Awaiting in the hall?
Number 77 is possibly the most known one of the Gestathattr, it goes as follows.
- Cattle Die,
- Friends Die:
- Even you die:
- But I know one that does not die
- Judgment over dead men
The next major section of Hávamál deals with morals, ethics, correct action and codes of conduct. It is directed to Loddfaffner ("stray-singer"), hence the name for this section, Lodfafnirsmál , who stands in the place of the reader (or, as was the case at the time, the listener).
Odin talks of his self-sacrifice (to himself) in stanza 138, in the section known as Runatals :
- Wounded, I dangled on a wind-swept gallows
- For nine long days and nights,
- Impaled upon a spear, sacrificed to Odin,
- An offering, self to self
- Upon the Tree whose roots ascend to heaven
The last section, the Ljodatal , which is spectacularly metaphysical, deals with the transmission of knowledge, and the Odinic mysteries. It is essentially a list and a key to a sequenced number of runic charms. There are correspondences between this section and with the Sigrdrifumál , in which the Valkyrie Sigrdrifa details a number of the runes at her command.
In the sixth charm, for example
- A sixth I know, lest any mean me harm:
- Write runes upon a sapling's roots
- Dispatch them to the author of the hate
- To taste what he has wrought
the sending of a root with runes carved on is well documented in Norse literature; it was, for example, the cause of death of Grettir the Strong .
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