Step 8 of 9 · Slow Growth and Craft
Do you know how to write?
Why this step
Stanza 143 asks eight questions: do you know how to write, to read, to paint, to prove, to ask, to offer, to send, to spend? The entry reads them as being about using knowledge, not just having it. After a trail about practice, it asks what the practice is for.
The text, stanzas 143–144
143.
Dost know how to write, dost know how to read,
dost know how to paint, dost know how to prove,
dost know how to ask, dost know how to offer,
dost know how to send, dost know how to spend?
144.
Better ask for too little than offer too much,
like the gift should be the boon;
better not to send than to overspend.
........
Thus Odin graved ere the world began;
Then he rose from the deep, and came again.
- 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 143–144 (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
A string of eight questions on what you know how to do, followed by advice not to give more than the gift deserves, and a closing line about Odin.