Step 8 of 12 · Spells, Songs and Runes
A burning hall, and rising hate
Why this step
The seventh song saves a blazing hall, however fiercely it burns. The eighth calms hate growing among warrior sons, and the speaker says all can sing it for their good if they learn it well. The entry notes that this is the only song he says anyone can learn. Of all the claims in the list, it is the one closest to what ordinary words between people can do.
The text, stanzas 151–152
151.
A seventh I know: if I see a hall
high o'er the bench-mates blazing,
flame it ne'er so fiercely I still can save it, --
I know how to sing that song.
152.
An eighth I know: which all can sing
for their weal if they learn it well;
where hate shall wax 'mid the warrior sons,
I can calm it soon with that song.
- 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 151–152 (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 seventh song saves a blazing hall, however fiercely it burns. The eighth, which anyone can learn, calms hate among warriors.
Questions to sit with
- When have words calmed something that was getting worse? What did those words have that others did not?