Appetite, Ale and Measure

How much is enough, of drink, of food, of pleasure? This trail follows that question through twelve entries from three collections: one rune, four tarot cards and seven passages from the Hávamál, a poem that comes back often to ale and appetite.

The entries do not agree. The Hávamál warns against too much ale but never forbids it, tells a traveller to take plenty of food, and laughs at its own speaker’s hunger. The cards and the rune are this site’s own readings, and one card tells the winning of the mead differently from the poem. Hávamál stanzas are from Olive Bray’s 1908 translation. The connections are editorial choices made for this site, not a claim that the old sources formed one system.