Step 10 of 12 · Sorrow and Healing
Help, and the healing song
Why this step
Stanzas 145 and 146 open the speaker’s list of songs. The first is called Help, and it brings help in all woes, sorrow and strife; the second is the one a person must sing who would heal the sick. The entry reads the passage today as the start of a list of skills for protecting and helping people. The healing song counselled in stanza 119 comes back here.
The text, stanzas 145–146
145.
Those songs I know, which nor sons of men
nor queen in a king's court knows;
the first is Help which will bring thee help
in all woes and in sorrow and strife.
146.
A second I know, which the son of men
must sing, who would heal the sick.
- 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 145–146 (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
The speaker says he knows songs that no one else does. The first is Help, which helps in all woes; the second is the one a healer must sing.