Ætt 3 · Pos. 1

Name

Cattle, and so movable wealth: what can be driven, paid or given away, as opposed to land.

Meaning

Wealth that moves passes from hand to hand, and the poems follow it on the way. In the Nordic poems it sets kin against kin. Behind the line is most likely the hoard Sigurðr won from the dragon Fáfnir, who killed his own father for it. The Icelandic stanza calls wealth the serpent’s path, Fáfnir’s trail to that gold. The English poem says it has to be given away to win a good name. Hávamál holds both: “Cattle die, kin die … one thing never dies: the word on each of the dead.”

The poems

English Rune Poem

Wealth is a comfort
to everyone;
yet each must
give it out freely,
if he wants to win
a good name before the lord.

Icelandic Rune Poem

Wealth is strife among kin,
and fire of the flood,
and the serpent’s path.

Norwegian Rune Poem

Wealth causes strife among kin;
the wolf is raised in the forest.

Swedish Rune Poem

Wealth is peace among kin.