Hávamál
The Sage’s Seat
The speaker opens the counsel by saying it is time to speak from the Sage’s Seat by the Well of Weird, where he watched, kept silent and listened to men talk of runes.
Reference: stanzas 109–110 (Bray’s numbering) (The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Sæmund’s Edda, part I: The Mythological Poems)
The text, stanzas 109–110
109.
'Tis time to speak from the Sage's Seat;
hard by the Well of Weird
I saw and was silent, I saw and pondered,
I listened to the speech of men.
110.
Of runes they spoke, and the reading of runes
was little withheld from their lips:
at the High One's hall, in the High One's hall,
I thus heard the High One say: --
- 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 109–110 (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
It is time, the speaker says, to speak from the Sage’s Seat. Close to the Well of Weird he saw and kept silent, saw and thought, and listened to men’s speech.
They spoke of runes and the reading of runes, and little of it was withheld from their lips. At the High One’s hall, in the High One’s hall, he heard the High One say the words that follow.
- 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 109–110 (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 speaks
Stanza 110 says “I thus heard the High One say”, so what follows (the counsel to the Stray-Singer) is reported as the High One’s words, heard by the speaker.
- 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 109–110 (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 numbers this stanza 111 and calls it corrupt. He thinks the first four lines may once have formed a complete stanza, with the remainder added later. It opens the Loddfáfnismál, the counsels Bellows numbers 111 to 138, and its phrase for “the speech of Hár” is the source of the poem’s name, Hávamál.
Bellows adds that Urðr is one of the three Norns. The Codex Regius, c. 1270, is the poem’s only full manuscript. Wikipedia’s summary also lists 111 among the stanzas that are defective in the manuscript.
- Henry Adams Bellows (translator), The Poetic Edda (1936)
- Wikipedia, Hávamál (opens in a new tab)
Modern interpretation
Read today, the opening is about learning first by watching and listening, then speaking. That is a modern reading.
Questions to sit with
- What have you learned by watching and staying silent where others were speaking?