Slow Havamal: 136

[kylec]

In verse 136, Odin says that it must be a strong door that opens for everyone. You must give your guest something, or he will call down every curse there is upon your limbs.

The opening lines about the strong door pose another translation challenge, says Crawford. It doesn’t seem to make sense with the second half of the verse. He has chosen to phrase it as such in the sense that a door that opens for guests must be strong enough to close on the face of an enemy, though this verse seems to suggest that it’s better to give the wicked person something than to be cursed, so I’m not sure if that holds water.

Let’s have faith in our translator, though. The advice becomes to build your house so that it can shut out anything you don’t want, but in nearly all cases, even when you feel begrudging, it’s better to open that strong door and be a good host. This is preferable to erecting an immovable wall that shuts out the outside world, or having a flimsy mat of reeds that’s easy to breach. Whether or not that’s in the Old Norse, it’s sound counsel. While we don’t get strangers at the door begging very often these days, it can as easily be applied to those who we spend our attention on. We should be polite and friendly, helpful when possible, but able to set a firm boundary when required.

We’re told to give to our guest not out of goodness, but from fear that he will curse us. That may seem like a poor reason to be nice, but consider that if a man pointed a gun at you and demanded your wallet, you would likely hand it over not out of a generous spirit, but self-preservation. There are times when we would like to set a boundary, but we find ourselves petitioned by someone who wields a greater power than we can directly resist. We should become as strong as possible, so those people who can hurt us number few, and become wise enough to know when we are beaten, and need to cede ground. Those we turn away are the handful who are both unruly AND too weak to harm us.

There may be another sense of our spurned guests cursing us. Maybe the guest will do nothing himself, but by being selfish we become the kind of person who turns way the needy, in the sense of accruing a hurtful karma that will come back to haunt us when we’re in need, and those who might help remember our reputation.