Hávamál
The first-sown fruit, and a son too soon
Do not put your faith in the first-sown fruit or in your son too early: a child is ruled by whim and a field by weather, and both are open to chance.
Reference: stanza 87 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems); Notes to the Hovamol (The Poetic Edda)
The text, stanza 87
87.
Let none put faith in the first sown fruit
nor yet in his son too soon;
whim rules the child, and weather the field,
each is open to chance.
- 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 87 (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
Let no one put his faith in the first-sown fruit, or in his son too soon. Whim rules the child and weather the field, and each is open to chance.
- 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 87 (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
Bellows calls the stanza on hoping too early for harvest and trusting a son too soon “pretty clearly an interpolation” wherever it stands, because it breaks into the list of untrustworthy things. He numbers it 89. In the Codex Regius it comes before the stanza on the brother’s slayer and the half-burned house, and many editors have put those two in the other order so that the list runs on without it.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936), Notes to the Hovamol
Modern interpretation
Today this is often read as a point about patience and not counting on early results. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What are you counting on that has not yet had a full season to prove itself?