by Ashley Lister
It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since I mentioned the Hávamál on this blog. The Hávamál is a Viking poem, but it is often called a book of wisdom. Written somewhere around AD 700-900, the Hávamál is one of the more well-known Eddaic poems and, amongst other things, it contains nuggets of universal wisdom that still apply today, more than a millennia after these words were first written.
Here is an example from the Hávamál:
A man needs warmth,
the warmth of fire
and of the shining sun.
A healthy man
is a happy man
who’s neither ill nor injured.
A typical Hávamál stanza usually contains six lines or two units of three lines each. The first two lines in each unit are tied together by alliteration, and the third is also decorated with alliteration. For those who’ve forgotten: alliteration is the repetition of similar sounds, usually the sounds of initial consonants, as illustrated below:
Better a humble
house than none.
A man is master at home.
A pair of goats
and a patched roof
are better than begging.
It’s also possible to look at the stresses used in the Hávamál but, for the purposes of this exercise, I’d prefer to see writers focusing on words of wisdom and the use of alliteration.
And that’s this month’s exercise from me: produce a six line poem in the style of the Hávamál, sharing words of erotic wisdom in the comments box below. Remember to keep a tie of alliteration between lines one and two (and four and five), and to ensure that there is some alliteration across lines three and six. This is my attempt:
Naked flesh
flavoured with sweat
can easily excite.
And it aint just
an appetite for
savoury tastes that it satisfies.
Have fun with this and I look forward to reading your words of wisdom.
