Slow Havamal: 101

[kylec]

In verse 101, Odin comes back in the morning and snaks into the hall when everyone is asleep, but finds a watchdog tied to the bed of his love.

Odin is not so easily deterred. Though a strong company turned him back the night before, he knew that a vigil would leave them tired. He returns in the morning and slips past dozing warriors, only to find a watchful dog at the bed of Billing’s girl, ready to sound the alarm. I can respect both his determination, and that of Billing. The latter knows that desire isn’t so easily quenched, and he expected another try.

What we see is a battle of wills over something they both love. If there’s something to learn here, it’s don’t quit, and don’t assume the other guy will, either. From direct conflict, they’ve moved into an exchange of strategy, anticipating one another’s moves. Sometimes our will can’t be immediately satisfied by a straightforward action. In those cases, it has to tease out the way forward by meeting obstacles and slipping through the untended places.

I like how a poem of advice veers into a personal account, the way a storyteller, touching on some unresolved business, gives us an example from their own past to illustrate a point and perhaps to find some resolution of their own. I’m always shy about reading too much into Havamal. No—that’s exactly what I do each week, but I must remind myself that certainly this poem doesn’t exist for the reasons I can imagine, and it contains more than I could glean from my own narrow perspective. So, given that I have little more to say about the specific verse this week, I’ll take the time to note that maybe this is a story, and nothing more.

Maybe a story is a whole thing, and it can’t be parsed into morals and action or anything else. It has to be taken on its own terms. The feeling we get when we hear the tale, the way we relate or judge, the tone, the humor, the images, and yes, any advice we may sense hidden in the lines, are all essential interrelated facets which are necessary to convey what’s intended. It’s good to step back and drink it in.