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Chapter 2. Connections 55
with many a pearl of shrewd wisdom, of terse humor, of noble sentiment.
We single out for admiration the deeply moving stanzas on having a home of
one’s own, however humble (Sts. 36-37), and those magnificently asseverating
the lastingness, in a world subject to the law of change, of a fair name (Sts.
77-78).” 42
The poem, however, is far more than a simple list of suggestions. When one reads
the poem in terms of interacting with the Flow of the Waters of Life, a different
picture of early Germanic ”morality” begins to emerge.
The only things gained by participating in life for these ancient Scandinavians
was ”worth” and a “fair name.” “Worth” went with the individual into the Land of
the Ancestors, and the only thing left behind on Midgard after death was a starting
point for descendants, good or bad depending on the individual’s choices in life.
“Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself eke soon wilt die;
but fair fame will fade never
I ween, for him who wins it.
Cattle die kinsmen die,
thyself eke soon wilt die;
one thing, I wot wilt wither never;
the “doom” over each one dead.”
Hávamál” Sts. 76-77, Hollander, tr.)
The “doom over each one dead” is the individual ørlög, the swirls and eddys left on
the surface of the Waters in the Well of Urð and the layers directly below, after one
has left Midgard. These layers become part of the starting point for the following
generations. By interacting knowledgeably with the flow of luck seething up from
the original source, a person is able to leave a “fair layer” in the Well of Urð for those
coming up later to act upon, and, in this way, then, one has led a life of worth.
The “Sayings of the High One” is much more than a testament of Teutonic
morality; it is a manual for interacting with power/ luck in a fashion which will
benefit all who come later. The 165 stanzas of the poem stress acting with knowledge
and how to act so that knowledge does not pass one by. As Hollander mentioned in
her introduction, there are many stanzas which deal with moderation, a sentiment
not commonly associated with the Viking era, because without moderation one is
42 Hollander, Lee The Poetic Edda (University of Texas Press; Austin TX) 1962, p. 14.