Hávamál
Earth, fire, oak and rye
When you drink ale, call on the might of earth. Then follows a list of what prevails over what, ending with runes over harm.
Reference: stanza 136 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanza 136
136.
I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
when ale thou quaffest, call upon earth's might --
'tis earth drinks in the floods.
Earth prevails o'er drink, but fire o'er sickness,
the oak o'er binding, the earcorn o'er witchcraft,
the rye spur o'er rupture, the moon o'er rages,
herb o'er cattle plagues, runes o'er harm.
- 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), stanza 136 (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
When you drink ale, call on the might of earth, because it is earth that drinks in the floods. Earth prevails over drink, fire over sickness, oak over binding, ear-corn over witchcraft, the rye spur over rupture, the moon over rages, herb over cattle plagues, and runes over harm.
- 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), stanza 136 (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.
Where it sits
Stanza 136 is the last stanza of the Stray-Singer’s counsel in Bray’s numbering. Its last item, “runes o’er harm”, leads into the next part, “Odin’s Quest after the Runes”.
- 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), stanza 136 (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
The Hávamál is preserved in one medieval manuscript, the Codex Regius (c. 1270), where it follows the Völuspá. Bellows says the list of household remedies in this stanza is doubtless an interpolation, meaning it was probably added to the poem after the original advice was composed. It falls in the Loddfáfnismál, the last advice section before the account of Odin and the runes.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Read today, the stanza is a list of folk remedies and charms. The text gives no explanation of any of them. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What is your own remedy for harm, a habit, a person or a place you turn to?