Hávamál
Runes made by the Powers
You are told to seek hidden runes and interpreted signs, fashioned by the high Powers. Odin graved runes for the gods, Daïn for the elves, Dvalin for the dwarfs, All-wise for the Jötuns, and the speaker some for men.
Reference: stanzas 141–142 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 141–142
141.
Hidden Runes shalt thou seek and interpreted signs,
many symbols of might and power,
by the great Singer painted, by the high Powers fashioned,
graved by the Utterer of gods.
142.
For gods graved Odin, for elves graved Daïn,
Dvalin the Dallier for dwarfs,
All-wise for Jötuns, and I, of myself,
graved some for the sons of men.
- 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 141–142 (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 hearer is told to seek hidden runes and interpreted signs: many symbols of might and power, painted by the great Singer, fashioned by the high Powers and graved by the Utterer of gods.
Odin graved runes for the gods, Daïn for the elves, Dvalin the Dallier for the dwarfs, All-wise for the Jötuns, and the speaker himself, of his own accord, graved some for the sons of men.
- 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 141–142 (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.
Where it comes back
Stanza 79 already spoke of runes “which the high Powers wrought, and which Odin painted”. Stanza 142 lists who graved runes for whom; the speaker names himself last, for men.
- 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 141–142 (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 thinks the pair of stanzas on runes cut, coloured and given to gods, elves and dwarfs probably comes from a lost poem on the origin of the runes, and many editions join them. In the manuscript some lines follow a later one; Sophus Bugge proposed another order. "King of singers" means Odin, and runes were commonly carved in wood and coloured red. The names Dáinn and Dvalinn also occur as harts in Grímnismál 33, and Bellows says the list looks like a reciter's mix-up of names.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Read today, the passage places the runes at the root of every people’s knowledge, and the speaker’s own runes as the ones meant for humans. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What would you want to be “graved” for you, a sign or a skill? Who would you pass it on to?