Book Review: The Wanderer's Hávamál

The Hávamál ("Words of the High One") is a circa 900 A.D. text from the Viking era that survives in a single document, the Icelandic Codex Regius written down circa 1270 A.D.  It presents itself as being the sayings of Oðinn (Odin).  Along with The Poetic Edda, it constitutes the bulk of what we know about the myths of the Vikings.

Dr. Jackson Crawford (Ph.D., Scandinavian Studies, currently at The University Of Colorado, Boulder) has dedicated his education and his teaching career to the study of Old Norse (He has a website here and a YouTube channel, both worth your time, if for no other reason than he has one of those deep voices that I could listen to forever and the backdrop for his videos are the Rocky Mountains) and part of his career involves translating different texts. Today's consideration:  The Wanderer's Hávamál. 

The book is divided into five sections:  A rather complete introduction including the history of the text, notes on the translation, a pronunciation guide, and further reading,  the text of the Hávamál itself (all 164 stanzas) followed by footnotes and some supporting materials from other sagas.  

The Hávamál (argues the translator) is as much a commentary on living life in the Viking Age as it is a a religious text.  It has suggestions on hospitality, drinking, measures of wealth, situational awareness, and life and death - all relevant in an age where life was a struggle and death came quickly.  

The stanzas themselves are organized in such a way that the Old Norse and translation are side by side.  An example:  

 Hávamál Stanza 36

Bú er betra

Þótt lítit sé -

halt er heima hverr,

Þótt tvær geitr eigi

ok taugreptan sal,

Þat er Þó betra en bøn.

It’s better to have a home,

even if it’s little -

everyone should call somewhere “home”.

Even if you own just two goats

beneath a faulty roof,

that’s still better than begging.

In the notes, Jackson explains how he arrived at certain meanings - and (the sign of a good translator) explains in some ways why he translated it differently in an earlier text but how he has come to change his mind.

An added bonus at the end is The Cowboy Hávamál, where Jackson translates the sayings into a form of modern cowboy English (he states that the Hávamál sayings reminded of advice his grandfather would give him).  For example, here is his "translation" of Stanza 36:

"It dudn't matter where you live,

as long as you have a roof over you.

Better to call some place home,

even if it ain't much to look at,

than to beg for ever'thing."

I admit, translations of old texts are not common reading material and not necessarily considered entertaining.  But this is a well researched, well explained, fun (if you can call spending your evenings stumbling through a badly pronounced language not spoken for 800 years "fun"), and entertaining book.  It certainly has encouraged me to do a little more digging (Dr. Jackson has two other translations and more coming).

If you are looking for an introduction to Medieval literature or Viking sagas, or even just wondering what a side by side translation would be like, this is likely a book you will enjoy.  And if you are at all an aficionado of Cowboy Poetry or Cowboy Wisdom, The Cowboy Hávamál is worth the price of admission.

My guess:  you will leave hungry for more.