Step 1 of 12 · Home, Kin and Belonging
A house of your own
Why this step
The trail starts small. Stanzas 36 and 37 say that one’s own house is best, though small it may be, and that each man is master at home. Even two goats and a bark-thatched hut are better than begging a favour, and the man who must beg his meat at every meal does it with a bleeding heart. The entry calls the reading about independence a modern one. It sets the first question: is a place your own because you hold it, or for some other reason?
The text, stanzas 36–37
36.
One's own house is best, though small it may be;
each man is master at home;
though he have but two goats and a bark-thatched hut
'tis better than craving a boon.
37.
One's own house is best, though small it may be,
each man is master at home;
with a bleeding heart will he beg, who must,
his meat at every meal.
- 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 36–37 (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.
From the Lorebook
One’s own home is best, even if small. A man with two goats and a bark-thatched hut is better off than one who has to beg for his meals.
Questions to sit with
- What place, however small, feels most like your own? What makes it so?