Hávamál
The Frost Giants ask, and the ring-oath
The next day the Frost Giants enter the High One’s hall to ask whether he is back or whether Suttung has killed him. The speaker then says that Odin took a ring-oath and asks how his word can be trusted.
Reference: stanzas 107–108 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 107–108
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.
- 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 107–108 (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
Next day the dread Frost Giants came forth and entered the High One’s hall. They asked whether the Baleworker was back among the Powers, or whether Suttung had slain him below.
The speaker says he thinks Odin had taken a ring-oath, and asks how anyone can trust his word, because he was the one who stole the mead from Suttung and left Gunnlod weeping.
- 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 107–108 (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.
Who is speaking
The poem is presented as the High One’s own words, but in stanza 108 the speaker names Odin in the third person and doubts his oath. Odin is also named in stanzas 79, 96, 137, 142, 144 and 159.
- 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 107–108 (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
Bellows explains the allusions: Hár is Odin, and the frost-giants did not realise that Odin and Bolverk were the same. The ring-oath the stanza mentions is Odin’s oath, sworn on his ring and then broken.
The Hávamál survives in the Codex Regius, c. 1270, and Wikipedia’s summary describes it as a composite of shorter poems. This passage closes the mead story, which comes just before the counsels to Loddfáfnir.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Read today, the passage is a pointed comment on a promise-breaker: the poem’s own hero is not let off. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- How do you decide whether to trust someone’s promise when they have broken one before? What would you need to see?