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Each copy of the   Hávamál purchased here will fund a free copy of the paperback black n white version to be sent to an active duty military personnel! Please allow up to three weeks for delivery, as these are ordered in bundles from the printer.

The Hávamál, or ‘Words of Hávi [the High One]’, is presented as a single poem in the Codex Regius, a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking age. The poem, itself a combination of numerous shorter poems, is largely gnomic, presenting advice for living, proper conduct, and wisdom. It is one of our most important sources on Old Norse philosophy.

The stanzas of the Hávamál are attributed to Odin; the chief God of the Æesir.  For the most part composed in the metre ljóðaháttr, a metre associated with wisdom verse, The Hávamál is both practical and philosophical in its content. Following the gnomic “Hávamál proper” comes the Rúnatal, an account of how Odin won the runes, and the Ljóðatal, a list of magic chants or spells. 

This book is by NO MEANS meant to be a “direct translation” of the Hávamál, but rather an “every day English for the working class” version. I’ve tried to sum up the translations of several others, to put the stanzas into language we can all understand, without the “thee’s” and “thou’s”, and twisted around sentence structures.