Step 7 of 9 · Hospitality and the Stranger
The gate and the bar
Why this step
Stanzas 134 and 135 put the cost on the host. Do not drive guests from the gate; be gentle to the poor. The bar on the door is heavy to move for everyone who enters, and the host is told to shower his wealth. The entry says the passage is about the cost of keeping a door open and the cost of keeping it shut.
The text, stanzas 134–135
134.
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:
growl not at guests, nor drive them from the gate
but show thyself gentle to the poor.
135.
Mighty is the bar to be moved away
for the entering in of all.
Shower thy wealth, or men shall wish thee
every ill in thy limbs.
- 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 134–135 (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
Do not growl at guests or drive them from the gate, but be gentle to the poor. The bar on the door is heavy to move for everyone to enter; spend your wealth, or people will wish you ill.