Learned Runes

137 I advise you, Loddfafnir, to take this advice,
it will be useful if you learn it,
do you good, if you have it:
where you drink ale, choose yourself earth’s power!
For earth soaks up drunkenness, and fire works against sickness,
oak against constipation, an ear of corn against witchcraft,
the hall against household strife, for hatred the moon should be invoked—
earthworms for inflamed parts, and runes against evil;
land must take up the flood.

138 I know that I hung on a windswept tree
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows
from where its roots run.

139 With no bread did they refresh me nor a drink from a horn,
downwards I peered;
I took up the runes, screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.

140 Nine mighty spells I learnt from the famous son
of Bolthor, Bestla’s father,*
and I got a drink of the precious mead,
I, soaked from Odrerir.

141 Then I began to quicken and be wise,
and to grow and to prosper;
one word from another word found a word for me,
one deed from another deed found a deed for me.

142 The runes you must find and meaningful letters,
very great letters,
very stiff letters,
which the mighty sage coloured
and the huge Powers made
and the runemaster of the gods carved out.

143 Odin among the Æsir, and Dain among the elves,
Dvalin among the dwarfs,
Asvid among the giants,
I myself carved some.

144 Do you know how to carve, do you know how to interpret,
do you know how to colour, do you know how to question,
do you know how to ask, do you know how to sacrifice,
do you know how to dispatch, do you know how to slaughter?

145 Better not to pray than to sacrifice too much:
one gift always calls for another;
better not dispatched than too many slaughtered.
So Thund carved before the close of nations’ history,*
where he rose up, when he came back.


- Poetic Edda, Havamal