Hávamál
The storm and the night-riders
The ninth song hushes wind and sea to save a ship. The tenth sends witches riding at night home bewildered.
Reference: stanzas 153–154 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 153–154
153.
A ninth I know: when need befalls me
to save my vessel afloat,
I hush the wind on the stormy wave,
and soothe all the sea to rest.
154.
A tenth I know: when at night the witches
ride and sport in the air,
such spells I weave that they wander home
out of skins and wits bewildered.
- 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 153–154 (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 ninth song: when need falls on him to save his vessel afloat, he hushes the wind on the stormy wave and soothes the sea to rest.
The tenth: when witches ride and sport in the air at night, he weaves spells that send them wandering home, bewildered, out of their skins and wits.
- 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 153–154 (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 says the "house-riders" are witches who ride on roofs at night, often in animal form, and that one of the last two lines of the stanza may be spurious. This is one of the charms of the Ljóðatal, a list that scholars think grew by additions.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Today these are usually read as pictures of calming a storm and driving off what haunts the night. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What storm in your life needs hushing? What haunts your nights?