Hávamál

The sayings of the High One — Odin's own wisdom verses on how to live, travel, love and stay shrewd.

Core Characteristics

A stanzaic collection of gnomic wisdom in the Poetic Edda, centuries older than its 13th-century manuscript.
Includes Odin's account of winning the runes and the mead of poetry through self-sacrifice and cunning.
Its counsel is practical and unsentimental: praise the day at evening, the wife on the pyre, the sword when tested.