Harbarthsljoth

The Poem of Harbarth

Introductory Note

The Harbarthsljoth is found complete in the Codex Regius, where it follows the Skirnismol, and from the fourth line of stana 19 to the end of the poem in the Arnamagnæan Codex, of which it occupies the first page and a half.

The poem differs sharply from those which precede it in the Codex Regius, both in metrical form and in spirit. It is, indeed, the most nearly formless of all the Eddic poems. The normal metre is the Malahattr (cf. Introduction, where an example is given). The name of this verse-form means “in the manner of conversation,” and the Harbarthsljoth’s verse fully justifies the term. The Atli poems exemplify the conventional use of Malahattr, but in the Harbarthsljoth the form is used with extraordinary freedom, and other metrical forms are frequently employed. A few of the speeches of which the poem is composed cannot be twisted into any known Old Norse metre, and appear to be simply prose.

How far this confusion is due to interpolations and faulty transmission of the original poem is uncertain. Finnur Jonsson has attempted a wholesale purification of the poem, but his arbitrary condemnation of words, lines, and entire stanzas as spurious is quite unjustified by any positive evidence. I have accepted Mogk’s theory that the author was “a first-rate psychologist, but a poor poet,” and have translated the poem as it stands in the manuscripts. I have preserved the metrical confusion of the original by keeping throughout so far as possible to the metres found in the poem; if the rhythm of the translation is often hard to catch, the difficulty is no less with the original Norse.

The poem is simply a contest of abuse, such as the early Norwegian and Icelander delighted in, the opposing figures being Thor and Othin, the latter appearing in the disguise of the ferryman Harbarth. Such billingsgate lent itself readily to changes, interpolations and omissions, and it is little wonder that the poem is chaotic. It consists mainly of boasting and of references, often luckily obscure, to disreputable events in the life of one or the other of the disputants. Some editors have sought to read a complex symbolism into it, particularly by representing it as a contest between the noble or warrior class (Othin) and the peasant (Thor). But it seems a pity to take such a vigorous piece of broad farce too seriously.

Verse-form, substance, and certain linguistic peculiarities, notably the suffixed articles, point to a relatively late date (eleventh century) for the poem in its present form. Probably it had its origin in the early days, but its colloquial nature and its vulgarity made it readily susceptible to changes.

Owing to the chaotic state of the text, and the fact that none of the editors or commentators have succeeded in improving it much, I have not in this case attempted to give all the important emendations and suggestions. The stanza-divisions are largely arbitrary.

Thor was on his way back from a journey in the East, and came to a sound; on the other side of the sound was a ferryman with a boat. Thor called out:^[1]

“Who is the fellow yonder, on the farther shore of the sound?”

The ferryman spake:
“What kind of a peasant is yon, that calls o’er the bay?”^[2]

Thor spake:
“Ferry me over the sound; I will feed thee therefor in the morning;
A basket I have on my back, and food therein, none better;
At leisure I ate, ere the house I left,
Of herrings and porridge, so plenty I had.”

The ferryman spake:
“Of thy morning feats art thou proud, but the future thou knowest not wholly;
Doleful thine home-coming is: thy mother, me thinks, is dead.”^[3]

Thor spake:
“Now hast thou said what to each must seem
The mightiest grief, that my mother is dead.”^[4]

The ferryman spake:
“Three good dwellings, methinks, thou hast not;
Barefoot thou standest, and wearest a beggar’s dress;
Not even hose dost thou have.”^[5]

Thor spake:
“Steer thou hither the boat; the landing here shall I show thee;
But whose the craft that thou keepest on the shore?”

The ferryman spake:
“Hildolf is he who bade me have it,
A hero wise; his home is at Rathsey’s sound.
He bade me no robbers to steer, nor stealers of steeds,
But worthy men, and those whom well do I know.
Say now thy name, if over the sound thou wilt fare.”^[6]

Thor spake:
“My name indeed shall I tell, though in danger I am,
And all my race; I am Othin’s son,
Meili’s brother, and Magni’s father,
The strong one of the gods; with Thor now speech canst thou get.
And now would I know what name thou hast.”^[7]

The ferryman spake:
“Harbarth am I, and seldom I hide my name.”

Thor spake:
“Why shouldst thou hide thy name, if quarrel thou hast not?”

Harbarth spake:
“And though I had a quarrel, from such as thou art
Yet none the less my life would I guard,
Unless I be doomed to die.”^[8]

Thor spake:
“Great trouble, methinks, would it be to come to thee,
To wade the waters across, and wet my middle;
Weakling, well shall I pay thy mocking words,
if across the sound I come.”^[9]

Harbarth spake:
“Here shall I stand and await thee here;
Thou hast found since Hrungnir died no fiercer man.”^[10]

Thor spake:
“Fain art thou to tell how with Hrungnir I fought,
The haughty giant, whose head of stone was made;
And yet I felled him, and stretched him before me.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”

Harbarth spake:
“Five full winters with Fjolvar was I,
And dwelt in the isle that is Algrön called;
There could we fight, and fell the slain,
Much could we seek, and maids could master.”^[11]

Thor spake:
“How won ye success with your women?”^[12]

Harbarth spake:
“Lively women we had, if they wise for us were;
Wise were the women we had, if they kind for us were;
For ropes of sand they would seek to wind,
And the bottom to dig from the deepest dale.
Wiser than all in counsel I was,
And there I slept by the sisters seven,
And joy full great did I get from each.
What, Thor, didst thou the while?”

Thor spake:
“Thjazi I felled, the giant fierce,
And I hurled the eyes of Alvaldi’s son
To the heavens hot above;
Of my deeds the mightiest marks are these,
That all men since can see.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”^[13]

Harbarth spoke:
“Much love-craft I wrought with them who ride by night,
When I stole them by stealth from their husbands;
A giant hard was Hlebarth, methinks:
His wand he gave me as gift,
And I stole his wits away.”^[14]

Thor spake:
“Thou didst repay good gifts with evil mind.”

Harbarth spake:
“The oak must have what it shaves from another;
In such things each for himself.
What, Thor, didst thou the while?”^[15]

Thor spake:
“Eastward I fared, of the giants I felled
Their ill-working women who went to the mountain;
And large were the giants’ throng if all were alive;
No men would there be in Mithgarth more.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”^[16]

Harbarth spake:
“In Valland I was, and wars I raised,
Princes I angered, and peace brought never;
The noble who fall in the fight hath Othin,
And Thor hath the race of the thralls.”^[17]

Thor spake:
“Unequal gifts of men wouldst thou give to the gods,
If might too much thou shouldst have.”

Harbarth spake:
“Thor has might enough, but never a heart;
For cowardly fear in a glove wast thou fain to crawl,
And there forgot thou wast Thor;
Afraid there thou wast, thy fear was such,
To fart or sneeze lest Fjalar should hear.”^[18]

Thor spake:
“Thou womanish Harbarth, to hell would I smite thee straight,
Could mine arm reach over the sound.”

Harbarth spake:
“Wherefore reach over the sound, since strife we have none?
What, Thor, didst thou do then?”

Thor spake:
“Eastward I was, and the river I guarded well,
Where the sons of Svarang sought me there;
Stones did they hurl; small joy did they have of winning;
Before me there to ask for peace did they fare.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”^[19]

Harbarth spake:
“Eastward I was, and spake with a certain one,
I played with the linen-white maid, and met her by stealth;
I gladdened the gold-decked one, and she granted me joy.”^[20]

Thor spake:
“Full fair was thy woman-finding.”

Harbarth spake:
“Thy help did I need then, Thor, to hold the white maid fast.”

Thor spake:
“Gladly, had I been there, my help to thee had been given.”

Harbarth spake:
“I might have trusted thee then, didst thou not betray thy troth.”

Thor spake:
“No heel-biter am I, in truth, like an old leather shoe in spring.”^[21]

Harbarth spoke:
“What, Thor, didst thou the while?”

Thor spake:
“In Hlesey the brides of the Berserkers slew I;
Most evil they were, and all they betrayed.”^[22]

Harbarth spake:
“Shame didst thou win, that women thou slewest, Thor.”

Thor spake:
“She-wolves they were like, and women but little;
My ship, which well I had trimmed, did they shake;
With clubs of iron they threatened, and Thjalfi they drove off.
What, Harbarth, didst thou the while?”^[23]

Harbarth spake:
“In the host I was that hither fared,
The banners to raise, and the spear to redden.”^[24]

Thor spake:
“Wilt thou now say that hatred thou soughtest to bring us?”^[25]

Harbarth spake:
“A ring for thy hand shall make all right for thee,
As the judge decides who sets us two at peace.”^[26]

Thor spake:
“Where foundest thou so foul and scornful a speech?
More foul a speech I never before have heard.”

Harbarth spake:
“I learned it from men, the men so old,
Who dwell in the hills of home.”^[27]

Thor spake:
“A name full good to heaps of stones thou givest
When thou callest them hills of home.”

Harbarth spake:
“Of such things speak I so.”

Thor spake:
“Ill for thee comes thy keenness of tongue,
If the water I choose to wade;
Louder, I ween, than a wolf thou cryest,
If a blow of my hammer thou hast.”

Harbarth spake:
“Sif has a lover at home, and him shouldst thou meet;
More fitting it were on him to put forth thy strength.”^[28]

Thor spake:
“Thy tongue still makes thee say what seems most ill to me,
Thou witless man! Thou liest, I ween.”

Harbarth spake:
“Truth do I speak, but slow on thy way thou art;
Far hadst thou gone if now in the boat thou hadst fared.”

Thor spake:
“Thou womanish Harbarth! here hast thou held me too long.”

Harbarth spake:
“I thought not ever that Asathor would be hindered
By a ferryman thus from faring.”^[29]

Thor spake:
“One counsel I bring thee now: row hither thy boat;
No more of scoffing; set Magni’s father across.”^[30]

Harbarth spake:
“From the sound go hence; the passage thou hast not.”

Thor spake:
“The way now show me, since thou takest me not o’er the water.”

Harbarth spake:
“To refuse it is little, to fare it is long;
A while to the stock, and a while to the stone;
Then the road to thy left, till Verland thou reachest;
And there shall Fjorgyn her son Thor find,
And the road of her children she shows him to Othin’s realm.”^[31]

Thor spake:
“May I come so far in a day?”

Harbarth spake:
“With toil and trouble perchance,
While the sun still shines, or so I think.”^[32]

Thor spake:
“Short now shall be our speech, for thou speakest in mockery only;
The passage thou gavest me not I shall pay thee if ever we meet.”

Harbarth spake:
“Get hence where every evil thing shall have thee!”^[33]