54.  “It is well to be wise; not well To be too wise.  The wise man’s heart is not glad When he knows too much.

55.  “Two burning sticks placed together Will burn entirely away.  Man grows bright by the side of man; Alone, he remains stupid.”

Such are the proverbs of the Havamal.  This sort of proverbial wisdom may have come down from the days when the ancestors of the Scandinavians left Central Asia.  It is like the fables and maxims of the Hitopadesa.[327]

Another of these poems is called Odin’s Song of Runes.  Runes were the Scandinavian alphabet, used for lapidary inscriptions, a thousand of which have been discovered in Sweden, and three or four hundred in Denmark and Norway, mostly on tombstones.  This alphabet consists of sixteen letters, with the powers of F, U, TH, O, R, K, H, N, I, A, S, T, B, L, M, Y. The letters R, I, T, and B very nearly resemble the Roman letters of the same values.  A magical power was ascribed to these Runes, and they were carved on sticks and then scraped off, and used as charms.  These rune-charms were of different kinds, eighteen different sorts are mentioned in this song.

A song of Brynhilda speaks of different runes which she will teach Sigurd. “Runes of victory must those know, to conquer thine enemies.  They must be carved on the blade of thy sword. Drink-Runes must thou know to make maidens love thee.  Thou must carve them on thy drinking horn. Runes of freedom must thou know to deliver the captives. Storm-Runes must thou know, to make thy vessel go safely over the waves.  Carve them on the mast and the rudder. Herb-Runes thou must know to cure disease.  Carve them on the bark of the tree. Speech-Runes must thou know to defeat thine enemy in council of words, in the Thing. Mind-Runes must thou know to have good and wise thoughts.  These are the Book-Runes, and Help-Runes, and Drink-Runes, and Power-Runes, precious for whoever can use them.”

The second part of the poetic Edda contains the stories of the old heroes, especially of Sigurd, the Achilles of Northern romance.  There is also the Song of Volund, the Northern Smith, the German Vulcan, able to make swords of powerful temper.  These songs and ballads are all serious and grave, and sometimes tender, having in them something of the solemn tone of the old Greek tragedy.

The prose Edda, as we have said, was the work of Snorro Sturleson, born in Iceland in 1178[328].  He probably transcribed most of it from the manuscripts in his hands, or which were accessible to him, and from the oral traditions which had been preserved in the memory of the Skalds.  His other chief work was the Heimskringla, or collection of Saga concerning the history of the Scandinavians.  In his preface to this last book he says he “wrote it down from old stories told by intelligent people”; or from “ancient family registers containing the pedigrees of kings,” or from “old songs and ballads which our fathers had for their amusement”