Hávamál
Leading comrades to war
The eleventh song is sung beneath the shields so that old comrades go into battle safe, come out safe and return safe.
Reference: stanza 155 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanza 155
155.
An eleventh I know: if haply I lead
my old comrades out to war,
I sing 'neath the shields, and they fare forth mightily
safe into battle,
safe out of battle,
and safe return from the strife.
- 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 155 (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 eleventh song: if he leads his old comrades out to war, he sings beneath the shields, and they go forth mightily, safe into battle, safe out of battle and safe back from the strife.
- 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 155 (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 judges the last line of the stanza on leading friends into battle an unwarranted addition, and the fourth line may also be spurious. It is one of the charms in the Ljóðatal.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Read today, this is a leader’s charm for the safety of those who follow him. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- Who depends on you to come back safe? What are you doing to make that likelier?