The sources
The Norwegian Rune Poem
Ole Worm printed this poem in runic characters in his Danica Literatura Antiquissima at Amsterdam in 1636, from a law manuscript in the University Library at Copenhagen. That manuscript perished in the fire of 1728. It had been copied later in the seventeenth century by Árni Magnússon and by Jón Eggertsson. Those transcripts, which Dickins calls far more accurate than Worm’s own reading, survive at Copenhagen and at Stockholm. Kálund built his critical text on them and Dickins built his on Kálund.
The poem is Norwegian and not Icelandic, and one dropped letter proves it. In the stanza for Raidho, reið and rossom alliterate. With the Icelandic form of the same word, hrossum, they would not. That is how we know which country the poem is from.
The form is six-syllable couplets. The first line carries two alliterating words and is joined to the second by end-rhyme and by enjambement, and the second line has no alliteration of its own. Dickins describes each couplet as two semi-detached statements of a gnomic character.
That description is the whole reason this site prints a note in the Norwegian block on every rune page. A wolf under Fehu, Reginn under Raidho, Christ under Hagalaz, Loki under Berkano. The second line is where the rhyme lands, and often that is the strongest thing connecting it to the first.
The poem, complete
16 stanzas, in the order of the manuscript.
Fé vældr frænda róge;
føðesk ulfr í skóge.
Wealth sets kinsmen against each other.
The wolf feeds itself out in the forest.
Úr er af illu jarne;
opt løypr ræinn á hjarne.
Slag is what bad iron leaves behind.
Often the reindeer runs on the frozen crust.
Þurs vældr kvinna kvillu;
kátr værðr fár af illu.
The giant brings sickness to women.
Few are made glad by misfortune.
Óss er flæstra færða
fǫr; en skalpr er sværða.
The river-mouth carries most journeys.
A scabbard carries swords.
Ræið kveða rossom væsta;
Reginn sló sværðet bæzta.
They say riding is hardest on the horse.
Reginn hammered out the best of swords.
Kaun er barna bǫlvan;
bǫl gørver nán fǫlvan.
The sore is a child’s undoing.
Trouble turns a corpse pale.
Hagall er kaldastr korna;
Kristr skóp hæimenn forna.
No grain falls colder than hail.
Christ shaped the ancient world.
Nauðr gerer næppa koste;
nøktan kælr í froste.
Need leaves you little choice.
A naked man goes cold in the frost.
Ís kǫllum brú bræiða;
blindan þarf at læiða.
We call ice the wide bridge.
The blind need someone to lead them.
Ár er gumna góðe;
get ek at ǫrr var Fróðe.
A good year is a blessing to men.
And Frothi, I say, was generous.
Sól er landa ljóme;
lúti ek helgum dóme.
The sun is what lights the lands.
I bow before the holy doom.
Týr er æinendr ása;
opt værðr smiðr blása.
Tyr is the one-handed god.
The smith often has to blow.
Bjarkan er laufgrønstr líma;
Loki bar flærða tíma.
No branch leafs greener than the birch.
Loki’s lie found its hour.
Maðr er moldar auki;
mikil er græip á hauki.
Man is the earth’s increase.
The hawk’s grip is a wide one.
Lǫgr er, fællr ór fjalle
foss; en gull ero nosser.
A waterfall is water that falls from the mountain.
And ornaments are made of gold.
Ýr er vetrgrønstr viða;
vænt er, er brennr, at sviða.
No wood holds its green through winter like the yew.
Set it burning and it crackles.
Original after Dickins 1915. Translated here from the originals.