Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

deliberate and judge -- namely, the Thing in Asgard and the Thing near Urd's fountain --
and inasmuch as it is, in fact, only in the latter that the gods act as judges, we are driven
by all the evidences to the conclusion that Sigurdrífumál has described to us that very
thingstead at which Hvedrung's kinswoman summoned King Halfdan to appear after
death.
Sigurdrífumál, using the expression á því, sharply distinguished this thingstead or
court from all others. The poem declares that it means that Thing where hosts of people
go into full judgments. "Full" are those judgments against which no formal or real
protests can be made -- decisions which are irrevocably valid. The only kind of
judgments of which the mythology speaks in this manner, that is, characterizes as
judgments that "never die," are those "over each one dead."
This brings us to the well-known and frequently-quoted strophes in Hávamál 76-77:
Deyr fé,
deyja frændur,
deyr sjálfur ið sama;
en orðstírr
deyr aldregi,
hveim er sér góðan getur.
Deyr fé,
deyja frændur,
deyr sjálfur ið sama.
Eg veit einn,
að aldrei deyr,
dómur um dauðan hvern.
(76) "Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall die; but an
orðs- reputation of him who has earned a good one (orðs-reputation) never dies." 1
(77) "Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall die; one
thing I know which never dies: the judgment on each one dead."
Previously these passages have been interpreted as if Odin or Hávamál's skald
meant to say - What you have of earthly possessions is perishable; your kindred and
yourself shall die. But I know one thing that never dies: the reputation you acquired
among men, the posthumous fame pronounced on your character and on your deeds: that
reputation is immortal, that fame is imperishable.
But can this have been the meaning intended to be conveyed by the skald? And
could these strophes, which, as it seems, were widely known in the heathendom of the
North, have been thus understood by their hearers and readers? Did not Hávamál's
author, and the many who listened to and treasured in their memories these words of his,
know as well as all other persons who have some age and experience, that in the great
1 This is the actual meaning of Rydberg's rendition of the lines: en orðstírr deyr aldregi, hveim er sér góðan
getur and closely follows the wording of the strophe. Anderson, probably following an English translation
of Hávamál, misquotes Rydberg here as "but the fair fame of him who has earned it never dies," thus
confusing the argument which follows. Most translations of Hávamál 76 follow suit, ignoring the presense
of góðan in the last line. The poet specifically refers to a "good" orðstírr. If orðstírr meant a "good
reputation" as it is commonly contended then there would be no need for the poet to speak of it as being
"good."