It is one of the most powerful scenes in all Norse poetry: Odin, the highest god, hangs nine nights self-sacrificed in a tree, wounded by his own spear – to win the secret of the runes. Afterwards he lists eighteen spell-songs. A look at the Rúnatal and Ljóðatal of the Hávamál – and at a stubborn misunderstanding.
At the end of the Hávamál, the “Sayings of the High One,” Odin tells of his own sacrifice. It is an image of self-giving hard to surpass:
“I know that I hung on the windy tree nine full nights, wounded by the spear, given to Odin, myself to myself.” Hávamál 138 (translation after Karl Simrock/Bellows, public domain)
Without bread, without horn, peering down, he took up the runes – “screaming I took them” – and fell back. This section is called the Rúnatal, the “rune-song.” It tells no rune-course but an initiation: knowledge is bought with suffering.
There follows the Ljóðatal, the “list of songs.” Odin says: “Songs I know that no king's wife knows, nor any man's child” – and lists eighteen magic chants. Each begins “a twelfth I know …,” “a thirteenth ….” They help against sorrow and sickness, quench fire, blunt swords, free from fetters, still storms at sea, make the hanged speak – a whole cosmos of Old Norse magic in verse.
And here lies the misunderstanding. Because the Rúnatal and the Ljóðatal follow directly on each other, one often reads “Odin's eighteen runes.” That is wrong. The eighteen are songs – spells, not letters. The Elder Futhark, the rune row of the time, has 24 runes; the younger 16. Eighteen runes never existed. The Hávamál mentions runes only in one place (stanza 138/139); the eighteen are chants.
The idea of an “18-rune row” is modern: the Viennese mystic Guido von List invented his “Armanen runes” around 1902, eighteen in number, to match Odin's eighteen songs. Epigraphically – on real stones and finds – they are never attested. Whoever seeks the real runes will find them in our rune overview; where signs were invented is shown by the Norse symbols.
The Rúnatal recalls a deep thought: that writing and knowledge are not cheap but cost something. A sign carved in stone carries more than a sound – it carries devotion. That is exactly what still lies in a good engraving. Which rune suits you is shown in our piece Which rune to engrave?.
The Rúnatal (Hávamál 138–145) depicts Odin's self-sacrifice on the tree (nine nights, wounded by the spear) and the seizing of the runes. There follows the Ljóðatal (from st. 146) with eighteen spell-songs. Both are part of the Hávamál in the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda. The eighteen are expressly songs/spells, not runes; the Elder Futhark has 24 signs. The tree is not expressly named Yggdrasil in the text.
“Odin's 18 runes” is a misunderstanding: the eighteen are magic songs of the Ljóðatal, not letters. An “18-rune row” does not exist historically – it is the invention of Guido von List (1902, “Armanen runes”) and was later used by völkisch circles. What is certain is the eddic text (Rúnatal + Ljóðatal); the equation “18 songs = 18 runes” is modern and false.
Runes & their meaning · Rune magic – alu, laukaʀ and the formula words · Vegvísir & Ægishjálmr · Which rune to engrave? · Norse symbols: real or invented?.