e is so good that no failing attends him, nor so bad as
to be good for nothing.

136. At a hoary speaker laugh thou never; often is good that which
the aged utter, oft from a shriveled hide discreet words issue; from
those whose skin is pendent and decked with scars, and who go
tottering among the vile.

137. I counsel thee, etc. Rail not at a guest, nor from thy gate
thrust him; treat well the indigent; they will speak well of thee.

138. Strong is the bar that must be raised to admit all. Do thou
give a penny, or they will call down on thee every ill in thy limbs.

139. I counsel thee, etc. Wherever thou beer drinkest, invoke to
thee the power of earth; for earth is good against drink, fire for
distempers, the oak for constipation, a corn-ear for sorcery, a hall
for domestic strife. In bitter hates invoke the moon; the biter for
bite-injuries is good; but runes against calamity; fluid let earth
absorb.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: Odin is the "High One." The poem is a collection of
rules and maxims, and stories of himself, some of them not very
consistent with our ideas of a supreme deity.]

[Footnote 15: In the Copenhagen paper Ms. F. this strophe begins with
the following three lines:--

Wit is needful
to him who travels far:
harm seldom befalls the wary:

They are printed in the Stockholm edition of the original Afzelius and
Bask, and in the Swedish translation by Afzelius.]

[Footnote 16: The sense of this line seems doubtful; I have adopted
the version of Finn Magnusen.]

[Footnote 17: The public meeting.]

[Footnote 18: That is dead on the funeral pyre.]

[Footnote 19: This line is evidently an interpolation.]

[Footnote 20: Odln.]

[Footnote 21: From this line it appears that the poem is of Norwegian
or Swedish origin, as the reindeer was unknown in Iceland before the
middle of the 18th century, when it was Introduced by royal command.]

[Footnote 22: The story of Odin and Billing's daughter is no longer
extant; but compare the story of Odin and Rinda in Saxo, p. 126, edit.
Muller & Veleschow.]

[Footnote 23: In the pagan North oaths were taken on a holy ring or
bracelet, as with us on the Gospels, a sacred ring being kept in the
temple for the purpose.]

ODIN'S RUNE-SONG.[24]

140. I know that I hung, on a wind-rocked tree, nine whole nights,
with a spear wounded, and to Odin offered, myself to myself; on that
tree, of which no one knows from what root it springs.