's Blogs
Hávamál, The Saying of Odin, Stanza 4
Hail and welcome! This is Huginn's Heathen Hof, with your Daily Hávamál.
Original-
Vats er þörf
þeims til verðar kømr
þerru ok þjóðlaðar
góðs um œðis
ef sér geta mætti
orðs ok endrþögu
Translation-
When a guest comes,
he will need food and drink.
Give a warm welcome,
friendly speech,
and listen to his tales.
-Hávamál: Stanza 4
According to the skalds at the time this text was written, if you were hosting a guest (friend or stranger), it was considered polite to let your guest do most of the talking. As a guest, it was generally considered to be rude NOT to do most of the talking! It was seen as the sign of a glutton who just wanted the food, and (as we saw in yesterday's Daily Hávamál) this was one of the few ways that people were able to learn about what was going on beyond the borders of their village.
Stanza four doesn't really add anything new to the discussion of hospitality, rather it lets repetition bear it's weight. The authors of the Hávamál often use repetition of a phrase or a theme in order to denote it's importance. With three of the first four verses of Odin's advice for mankind pertaining to the proper applications of hospitality, it's easy to imagine exactly how fundamental the skalds must have felt this virtue was. A core ethic not JUST of their culture, but of the character of Odin himself.
