Hávamál
Knowing the Powers
The fourteenth song lets the speaker name all the gods and elves. The fifteenth is one that a dwarf sang at the gates of Dawn for gods, elves and Odin.
Reference: stanzas 158–159 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 158–159
158.
A fourteenth I know: if I needs must number
the Powers to the people of men,
I know all the nature of gods and of elves
which none can know untaught.
159.
A fifteenth I know, which Folk-stirrer sang,
the dwarf, at the gates of Dawn;
he sang strength to the gods, and skill to the elves,
and wisdom to Odin who utters.
- 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 158–159 (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
The fourteenth song: if he has to number the Powers to people, he knows the whole nature of gods and elves, which no one can know untaught.
The fifteenth, which Folk-stirrer the dwarf sang at the gates of Dawn: he sang strength to the gods, skill to the elves, and wisdom to Odin, who utters.
- 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 158–159 (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.
Odin in the third person
In stanza 159 the speaker names Odin in the third person (“wisdom to Odin who utters”), as he does in stanzas 108, 142 and 144.
- 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 158–159 (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 reports Müllenhoff's view that the poem's original ending came at the fifteenth charm, and that the words "a fifteenth" were inserted once later stanzas had crept in. He adds that the god Delling is rarely mentioned, being married to Nótt (Night) with Dagr (Day) as their son; Þjóðrørir is unattested elsewhere and Hroptatýr is Odin.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Read today, the two songs are about knowing the gods and what each kind of being gives. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What do you know that nobody can know untaught? Who taught you?