Step 9 of 12 · Spells, Songs and Runes
The hanged man speaks
Why this step
The twelfth song, in stanza 156: if the speaker sees a corpse hanging from a halter in a tree, he writes and paints runes so that the being comes down and speaks. The entry calls it the darkest of the charms, a power over the dead that the poem claims for its speaker. It also points to Odin’s own hanging on the windy tree earlier in the poem, and says the poem does not connect the two.
The text, stanza 156
156.
A twelfth I know: if I see in a tree
a corpse from a halter hanging,
such spells I write, and paint in runes,
that the being descends and speaks.
- 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 156 (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 twelfth song makes a hanged corpse in a tree come down and speak, by writing and painting runes.