kylec | Slow Havamal: 89

The 89th verse lists the killer of your brother (even if encountered in a public place), a half-burned house, and a too-fast horse (which is lame if a single leg breaks), then notes of these and all previously listed items that you should never be so trusting that you trust all of these things.

In The Wanderer’s Havamal, the 88th and 89th verses are inverted. Verse 89 appears to continue with and resolve the list we’ve been following for several verses, but 88 is jarring in that it doesn’t seem to pertain to this train of thought. There may have been a scribal error in the Codex Regius. Whatever the case, Crawford transposes them for sense. We’ll return to 88 next week.

This week, I’ll continue the practice of treating each item separately.

It should surprise no one that someone who killed your brother is dangerous. Maybe there were other circumstances, no longer pertinent, that the Old Norse would have excused, at least enough that the man still hangs around. For example, a duel, or a heated mutual dispute. It may seem safe, however, to meet this killer in public, but Odin warns otherwise. You’re not so removed from your brother that what happened to him couldn’t happen to you. To broaden the sense, an act of violation to people or property in your general circle, but not to you, should put you on guard against the same thing happening again. We may be tempted to read deeply into the context of that event, and think that it was more complicated; that those circumstances won’t arise again, especially now that the public is wary. Instead, we have to consider that we haven’t appropriately assessed the what’s and why’s of it, and that we may yet find ourselves faced with the same danger.

It isn’t specified whether our half-burned house is a derelict that a traveler might shelter under in a storm, a smoking structure that may hold our surviving possessions, or an active fire, which tempts us to save what we can. Regardless, we enter at our own risk. Those structures that guaranteed the roof would remain aloft might be compromised, and no matter how old, it should surprise no one when it finally gives out. These events are the ones where we’ve been burned, but still might be able to salvage some good from a relationship, a job, or a literal damaged structure. It’s true, we could get away with it, but we have to accept the possibility of total ruin and weigh it against what we hope to gain.

Finally, a very fast horse seems like a good thing. But for reasons I’ve never fully understood, a horse that breaks its leg, unlike a human, can’t recover to the point of being useful. They’re generally put down. The added speed is a benefit, but if it loses control, we could face total disaster. This reminds me of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept of fragility. A minor benefit, which serves most of the time, opens us up for complete ruin in certain rare circumstances. How much do we gain from a little extra speed? Maybe we should rein in the horse even though it could go faster, in order to preserve it. Those breakneck speeds might be useful when riding for our lives, but otherwise, a normal equine pace will suffice. We are cautioned not to get ahead of ourselves when rushing could spell disaster, and patience will cost us little.

This has been quite the list, and has inspired me in a few ways. The first is to qualify my nouns—my things I think of as eternal an unchanging—with an adjective that reminds me this is a process, and some stages of the process are more dangerous than others. Second, I think it’s worth making our own lists of those seemingly-benign elements that at times put us at risk. To trust, but never everything, at all times.