“I know that I hung
on a wind-battered tree
nine long nights,
pierced by a spear
and given to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree
whose roots grow in a place
no one has ever seen.
No one gave me food,
No one gave me drink.
At the end I peered down,
I took the runes—
screaming, I took them—
and then I fell.”
(Havamal verses 138 – 139, “The Poetic Edda” translated by Jackson
Crawford)