Hávamál

Odin’s Quest after the Song Mead

Stanzas 101–108 of the Hávamál, in Olive Bray’s 1908 translation.

Reference: stanzas 101–108 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems); Introduction (The Poetic Edda)

Myth and literature · Quotation

The text, stanzas 101–108

101.
In thy home be joyous and generous to guests
discreet shalt thou be in thy bearing,
mindful and talkative, wouldst thou gain wisdom,
oft making mention of good.
He is "Simpleton" named who has nought to say,
for such is the fashion of fools.

102.
I sought that old Jötun, now safe am I back,
little served my silence there;
but whispering many soft speeches I won
my desire in Suttung's halls.

103.
I bored me a road there with Rati's tusk
and made room to pass through the rock;
while the ways of the Jötuns stretched over and under,
I dared my life for a draught.

104.
'Twas Gunnlod who gave me on a golden throne
a draught of the glorious mead,
but with poor reward did I pay her back
for her true and troubled heart.

105.
In a wily disguise I worked my will;
little is lacking to the wise,
for the Soul-stirrer now, sweet Mead of Song,
is brought to men's earthly abode.

106.
I misdoubt me if ever again I had come
from the realms of the Jötun race,
had I not served me of Gunnlod, sweet woman,
her whom I held in mine arms.

107.
Came forth, next day, the dread Frost Giants,
and entered the High One's Hall:
they asked -- was the Baleworker back mid the Powers,
or had Suttung slain him below?

108.
A ring-oath Odin I trow had taken --
how shall one trust his troth?
'twas he who stole the mead from Suttung,
and Gunnlod caused to weep.

Historical evidence

In the manuscripts and scholarship

This section tells how Odin won the mead of poetry from Gunnlöð. Bellows numbers it 103 to 110, about one stanza above Bray’s range here. He treats it as a separate piece, one of the narrative additions to a poem that began as a collection of proverbs.

The story is told in the first person by Odin, and the Hávamál preserves it only in the Codex Regius. Because the poem is a composite, scholars debate whether this section, like the Billing episode before it, belongs with the older core or was added later; one reference describes Bellows’s stanzas 81 to 102 as possibly an ad hoc insertion, and the mead story follows directly after that block. Dating is uncertain: Bellows thought some parts of the poem could be very old and others fairly late, and that how and when the pieces were joined is unknown.

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