Drink moderately

Stepping backwards towards what can be loosely referred to as the early middle ages (or Dark Ages if you want to make a historian twitch), I present to you some advice from Odin himself on the importance of moderation when drinking. This 'poem' comes from the Hávamál ("The words of the High One"), a 9/10th century text which survives in a thirteenth century copy. I say 9/10th, but it is generally accepted by modern scholars that much of the text is actually earlier, but the Vikings were not a bookish people so we're left make our own guesses from later generations' recordings.

This advice is particularly apt today as I'm meeting up with friends this weekend and plan to completely disregard this sound advice.

“A man should not hold on to the ale-cup

But drink moderately from it.

Spare of speech he should be, or silent.

No man will accuse you of ill manners

For going too early to bed.

The glutton, unless he keeps himself in check,

Will eat himself to death.

Often a fool’s belly brings him to scorn

When he comes among men of sense.

Cattle know when to return to the fold

And then they leave their pasture.

But a stupid man can never guage

The full extent of his belly.”

Notes

Hávamál, Poetic Edda, ed. D. Evans (London: Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series 7, 1986) vv 19-21

Page, R., Chronicles of the Vikings : records, memorials and myths (London: British Museum Press, 1995)p. 142