This book gathers the words by which the North once knew itself.

Here are the counsels of the High One, and the hard-won sayings of men; the speech of kings at the brink of death, and the praise of deeds that outlived the doer; the grief of the father, the laughter of the sharp-tongued, and the runes by which the world was read. These words were carried in memory and spoken where they were needed. They belong to a way of life—stern, clear-eyed, and unafraid of what is.

From such words a man learned how to stand among his fellows, how to bear loss, how to meet fate without complaint, and how to win a name that would not soon be forgotten. The poems speak of gods and heroes, yet never far from the measure of ordinary men. The sayings are plain, but they cut deep, and they hold fast in the mind.

Taken together, they show not only what the North believed, but how it moved: in honour and in strife, in wit and in endurance, in the keeping of bonds and the settling of scores. No single voice commands here; rather, a chorus of the old world is heard, each part answering the other.

Read after the Eddas, these pages bring the spirit of that age closer at hand. The myths tell what is; these words show how a man is to live within it.