Hávamál
The hoary singer
Do not scorn the old singer: the counsel of the old is often good, and wisdom can come from withered lips, even from one left hanging among hides.
Reference: stanza 133 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanza 133
133.
I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
hold never in scorn the hoary singer;
oft the counsel of the old is good;
come words of wisdom from the withered lips
of him left to hang among hides,
to rock with the rennets
and swing with the skins.
- 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), stanza 133 (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
Never hold in scorn the hoary singer, because the counsel of the old is often good. Words of wisdom can come from the withered lips of one left to hang among hides, to rock with the rennets and swing with the skins.
- 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), stanza 133 (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. In Bellows's notes the last four lines of this stanza were probably added later, and the three final lines look like a matching set. The picture of the old singer's wrinkled skin is compared to hides and animal bellies hung up to dry in an Icelandic house. The stanza sits in the Loddfáfnismál, the section of advice addressed to Loddfáfnir (stanzas 111 to 138 in Bellows).
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
The last three lines are a picture of an old man hung up among hides, and the text does not explain it. Today the stanza is usually read as a reminder to listen to elders. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- Which older person have you stopped listening to? What might they still be able to tell you?