Hávamál
A house of your own
One’s own home is best, even if small. A man with two goats and a bark-thatched hut is better off than one who has to beg for his meals.
Reference: stanzas 36–37 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 36–37
36.
One's own house is best, though small it may be;
each man is master at home;
though he have but two goats and a bark-thatched hut
'tis better than craving a boon.
37.
One's own house is best, though small it may be,
each man is master at home;
with a bleeding heart will he beg, who must,
his meat at every meal.
- 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 36–37 (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
One’s own house is best, however small; each man is master at home. Even with two goats and a bark-thatched hut, it is better than begging a favour.
The man who has to beg his meat at every meal does it with a bleeding heart.
- 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 36–37 (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.
How the stanzas are built
Stanzas 36 and 37 share their first two lines. Stanza 36 ends on the small hut, and stanza 37 on the cost of having to beg.
- 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 36–37 (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
Two small textual points affect these stanzas. In stanza 36 the manuscript reads “little” where editors read “a hut” in the first line; the change is generally accepted because the manuscript reading breaks the alliteration of the line. In stanza 37 the scribe abbreviated the first two lines, which are presumably the same as the first two lines of stanza 56, and editors restore them from there. Both stanzas sit in the Gestaþáttr and come only from the Codex Regius (1270s).
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Today this is often read as a point about independence: having a place and the means to be master of your own life. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What does “master at home” mean for you now? What would you give up to keep it?