Hávamál
A guest comes in from the cold
A tired, frozen traveller arrives. The household is asked where he should sit, and what he needs is listed: fire, food, clothing, water and a welcome.
Reference: stanzas 2–4 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 2–4
2.
Hail, ye Givers! a guest is come;
say! where shall he sit within?
Much pressed is he who fain on the hearth
would seek for warmth and weal.
3.
He hath need of fire, who now is come,
numbed with cold to the knee;
food and clothing the wanderer craves
who has fared o'er the rimy fell.
4.
He craves for water, who comes for refreshment,
drying and friendly bidding,
marks of good will, fair fame if 'tis won,
and welcome once and again.
- Olive Bray (editor and translator), The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems (opens in a new tab) (1908), stanzas 2–4 (Bray’s numbering) Rights: Public domain. Published in 1908, so in the public domain in the United States. Text as edited online by D. L. Ashliman, Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts, University of Pittsburgh.
In plain English
A guest has arrived, and the household is asked where he should sit. He is hard pressed and wants the hearth and its warmth.
He is numb with cold after crossing the frozen fell, so he needs fire, food and clothing. He also needs water, a chance to dry himself, a friendly invitation, signs of good will, a good name if he earns one, and a welcome given more than once.
- Olive Bray (editor and translator), The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems (opens in a new tab) (1908), stanzas 2–4 (Bray’s numbering) Rights: Public domain. Published in 1908, so in the public domain in the United States. Text as edited online by D. L. Ashliman, Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts, University of Pittsburgh.
In the manuscripts and scholarship
In Bellows’s edition, the first two lines of stanza 2 probably had nothing to do with the last two. He reads the closing lines as being about the general danger of defending your opinions with a sword, not about host and guest at all. If so, the stanza was put together from two separate sayings, which fits the common view that the Gestaþáttr is a gathering of independent proverbs rather than one composed argument. The stanzas come to us from a single medieval manuscript, the Codex Regius, so there is no second version to compare the wording against.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Read today, the passage is a plain list of what hospitality is made of: warmth, food, dry clothes, and being made to feel wanted. That is a modern way of putting it; the poem is describing a traveller in winter.
Questions to sit with
- Think of a time you arrived somewhere cold, tired or unsure. What did the people there do that made you feel welcome, and what did you most need?
- Who might be standing at your door right now needing one of the things on this list?