he who knows little does not know this,
When he had better be silent.

29. "Do not mock at the stranger
Who comes trusting in your kindness;
For when he has warmed himself at your fire,
He may easily prove a wise man.

34. "It is better to depart betimes,
And not to go too often to the same house.
Love tires and turns to sadness
When one sits too often at another man's table.

35. "One's own house, though small, is better,
For there thou art the master.
It makes a man's heart bleed to ask
For a midday meal at the house of another.

36. "One's own house, though small, is better;
At home thou art the master.
Two goats and a thatched roof
Are better than begging.

38. "It is hard to find a man so rich
As to refuse a gift.
It is hard to find a man so generous
As to be always glad to lend.

42. "Is there a man whom you distrust,
And who yet can help you?
Be smooth in words and false in thought,
And pay back his deceit with cunning.

48. "I hung my garments on two scarecrows,
And, when dressed, they seemed
Ready for the battle.
Unclothed they were jeered at by all.

52. "Small as a grain of sand
Is the small sense of a fool;
Very unequal is human wisdom.
The world is made of two unequal halves.

53. "It is well to be wise; it is not well
To be too wise.
He has the happiest life
Who knows well what he knows.

54. "It is well to be wise; not well
To be too wise.
The wise man's heart is not glad
When he knows too much.

55. "Two burning sticks placed together
Will burn entirely away.
Man grows bright by the side of man;
Alone, he remains stupid."

Such are the proverbs of the Havamal. This sort of proverbial wisdom may
have come down from the days when the ancestors of the Scandinavians left
Central Asia. It is like the fables and maxims of the Hitopadesa.[327]

Another of these poems is called Odin's Song of Runes. Runes were the
Scandinavian alphabet, used for lapidary inscriptions, a thousand of which
have been discovered in Sweden, and three or four hundred in Denmark and
Norway, mostly on tombstones. This alphabet consists of sixteen letters,
with the powers of F, U, TH, O, R, K, H, N, I, A, S, T, B, L, M, Y. The
letters R, I, T, and B very nearly resemble the Roman letters of the same
values. A magical power was as