ABSTRACT
Hávamál is the longest of the Eddic poems, very likely consisting of originally separate works, unified by the god Óðinn who speaks with increasing frequency in the course of the poem. Scholars now normally divide Hávamál into several parts: the Gnomic Poem (sts. 1–103), a collection of common-sense observations about social conduct, placed in the setting of a hall; the Gunnlǫðepisode (sts. 104–110), telling allusively the story of Óðinn’s quest to obtain the mead of poetry; Loddfáfnismál (sts. 111–37), further gnomic advice given to a listener called Loddfáfnir; Rúnatal (sts. 138–45), the story of how Óðinn gained the runes for the gods; and Ljόðatal (sts. 146–64), a list of spells which Óðinn knows. Certain of the constituent parts of Hávamál, especially the advice in the Gnomic Poem and the allusions to Óðinn’s self-sacrifice in the Rúnatal, are considered to be among the oldest surviving Eddic verse, although a number of scholars have maintained that they can identify post-Conversion material in the Gnomic Poem. The main meter is ljόðaháttr, which is typical of wisdom poetry, but some sections are composed in mála-háttr (sts. 81–3, 85–7, 89–90), galdralag (st. 105), or they are metrically irregular.
