Step 6 of 12 · Quarrels, Feuds and Making Peace
Never the first to break the bond
Why this step
Stanza 120 says never to be the first with a friend to break the bond of fellowship, and adds that care will gnaw your heart if you cannot tell all your mind to another. The entry reads it today as a point about loyalty and about needing someone to confide in. In a quarrel between friends, it raises the question of who breaks first.
The text, stanza 120
120.
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:
be never the first with friend of thine
to break the bond of fellowship;
care shall gnaw thy heart if thou canst not tell
all thy mind to another.
- 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 120 (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 be the first to break the bond of fellowship with a friend. Care will gnaw your heart if you cannot tell all your mind to another.
Questions to sit with
- In a quarrel you are part of now, who would have to move first, and why?