Hávamál
Nine songs and the Mead
The speaker says he learned nine mighty songs, drank a measure of the Mead and then bore fruit, grew in wisdom and found words for words and deeds for deeds.
Reference: stanzas 139–140 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 139–140
139.
Nine mighty songs I learned from the great
son of Bale-thorn, Bestla's sire;
I drank a measure of the wondrous Mead,
with the Soulstirrer's drops I was showered.
140.
Ere long I bare fruit, and throve full well,
I grew and waxed in wisdom;
word following word, I found me words,
deed following deed, I wrought deeds.
- 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 139–140 (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 speaker says he learned nine mighty songs from the great son of Bale-thorn, Bestla’s sire, and drank a measure of the wondrous Mead, with the Soulstirrer’s drops showered over him.
Before long he bore fruit and throve well. He grew and waxed in wisdom; word following word he found words, and deed following deed he wrought deeds.
- 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 139–140 (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.
Names the text leaves unexplained
The “son of Bale-thorn, Bestla’s sire” is not named further in the text. The Mead and the Soul-stirrer were also named in stanza 105 (see “Gunnlod and the Mead of Song”).
- 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 139–140 (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 regards one stanza in this group as an interruption of the account of winning the runes, probably an interpolation from the story of the mead of poetry, and says its meaning is very obscure. Bolthorn is named as Odin's grandfather and Bestla as his mother; the unnamed uncle who teaches nine songs has been guessed to be Mímir. The mead vessel's name is spelled differently in different editions.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Today this is often read as a picture of how learning grows, one thing leading to the next. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What did you learn that opened the way to the next thing? Where did one word lead to another for you?