The Vikings left us more than swords and ships. They also left a body of blunt, practical advice that still reads well a thousand years on. Most of it comes from a single poem, the Havamal, whose title means the sayings of the High One. The speaker is the god Odin, and his subjects are surprisingly down to earth: how to behave as a guest, how much to drink, whom to trust and how to be remembered.
The sayings below are our own plain English versions of the Old Norse, kept as close to the sense as we can manage.
On caution and common sense
- Before you walk through a doorway, look at every corner of the room, because you never know where an enemy may be sitting.
- No one can carry a better load on the road than a good store of common sense.
- The fool lies awake all night worrying about everything. When morning comes he is worn out, and his troubles are just as they were.
- A man should never step more than a pace away from his weapons, for he cannot know when he will need them.
On friendship and hospitality
- Be a friend to your friend, and repay a gift with a gift.
- Visit a good friend often, because brushwood and tall grass grow on the path that nobody walks.
- A guest should leave in good time and not stay too long. Even a friend becomes a nuisance if he sits too long in another man's hall.
- Fire is needed by the one who has come in from the cold, and food and dry clothes by the one who has crossed the mountains.
On drink
- Ale is not as good for people as they say. The more a man drinks, the less he knows his own mind.
- Praise the day when evening has come, the ice when you have crossed it and the ale when it has been drunk.
- There is no better provision for a journey than good sense, and no worse than too much drink.
On effort and reward
- Rise early if you mean to take another man's wealth or his life. A wolf that lies in its den rarely gets the meat, and a sleeping man rarely wins the battle.
- It is better to be alive than dead, for it is the living man who gets the cow.
- A lame man can ride a horse, a man without hands can herd cattle and a deaf man can fight well. Nobody is helped by being a corpse.
On reputation
- Cattle die and kinsmen die, and you yourself will die. One thing never dies, and that is the good name of someone who has earned it.
- A man should be moderately wise and never too wise. The one who knows his fate in advance has the least carefree heart.
The first of these is the most quoted verse in all Old Norse poetry, and it sums up the Viking outlook neatly. Life is short and luck runs out, so what matters is what people say about you afterwards.
Sayings from the sagas
The Icelandic sagas are full of proverbs, usually spoken at a moment of crisis. In the saga of Burnt Njal, a character observes that bare is the back of a man with no brother, meaning that everyone needs someone to guard them from behind. The same saga gives us the saying that the land shall be built up with law and laid waste by lawlessness. The sagas also return again and again to an idea much loved by fans of the period, that there is no use in fear because the day of each person's death is fixed in advance.
Famous Viking sayings that are not Viking
A few of the best known lines owe more to Hollywood than to history.
- The Viking prayer. The prayer in which a warrior sees his father, mother and ancestors calling him to Valhalla was written for the 1999 film The 13th Warrior. It is loosely based on an account by the Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan, who watched a funeral among the Rus in the tenth century.
- Drinking from skulls. The toast skal has nothing to do with skulls. The word means a bowl, and the skull story grew from a seventeenth century mistranslation of a poem that mentioned drinking horns.
- Motivational quotes about storms and wolves. If a line sounds as though it was written for a gym wall, it probably was. Real Old Norse advice tends to be about minding your manners and not drinking too much.
How the sayings survived
The Havamal is preserved in a single Icelandic manuscript known as the Codex Regius, written around 1270, more than two centuries after Iceland became Christian. The verses themselves are much older and were passed on by word of mouth. It is thanks to a handful of Icelandic scribes that we have them at all.
For more on the god behind the advice, see our guide to Norse gods and the days of the week, and for the letters these verses might once have been carved in, see Viking rune meanings.
Common questions
Where do Viking sayings come from?
Most come from the Havamal, a poem of advice attributed to the god Odin and preserved in a thirteenth century Icelandic manuscript. Others come from the sagas, which often have characters speak in proverbs.
What is the most famous Viking saying?
The best known is the verse from the Havamal which says that cattle die and kinsmen die, and you yourself will die, but the good name of one who has earned it never dies.
What does skal mean?
Skal, written skål in the modern Scandinavian languages, is the word for cheers. It comes from the Old Norse word for a bowl. The story that it refers to drinking from the skulls of enemies is a myth based on a mistranslation.
Is the Viking prayer from The 13th Warrior real?
Not as a Viking text. The well known prayer about seeing your father, mother and ancestors waiting in the halls of Valhalla was written for the 1999 film. It is loosely inspired by an Arab traveller's tenth century account of a funeral among the Rus.
Last reviewed 12 November 2026