It’s even, well, “wyrd-er” that I happened upon this piece after a week that has tested my mettle in each and every one of the nine, and then some! And I have to say, truthfully, that I fell short in more than a couple of places. But I agree with many heathens that perseverance rightly belongs at the end, because few of us – if any – are exemplars of all the virtues all the time, and we all fall short, sooner or later. But the only way we can loose is to flat-out quit, and as long as we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back on Ol’ Eight-Legs, we are still in the game.

One of the particularly vexing matters this past week dealt directly with your comments on honor, and I have to agree with your response to Gabriel. There are a lot of skraelings out there with good “reputations,” and it’s easy to get a “bad” reputation by living an ethical life. But I’ll take the latter over the former, even when it means empty pockets.

(And thank the Gods I have a wife who values my honor more than my paycheck!)

Well done, and honor to you.

Rune

My answer to your question is no, we can’t say that reputation is the only thing that can be immortal in the physical world; although I can certainly see what it is you’re thinking of, and I think there are probably a number of Heathens who would have answered your question with a resounding yes. In Hávamál (stanzas 77 and 78 in this translation), we are told that the fame of one’s deeds is one thing that never dies. These lines are perhaps the most quoted lines from Heathen lore. So from this, we can say that the reputation of one who has done much never dies. And, to some extent, this is true: our reputations do outlive us, and for those who really do some extraordinary things in life, their fame can last thousands of years. Many Heathens seem to assume this means that our reputations are a) guaranteed to be immortal if we do good things, and b) that our reputations are the only things of us that can be immortal.

The problem with assumption “b” is that it assumes one thing equals only thing. We know, for example, that many of our traits survive us in our family lines; and we know that physical objects we create can endure the test of time. If you look at human interaction as a butterfly effect, then your deeds themselves can outlast their reputation. The problem with assumption “a” is that one’s deeds would have to be of a magnitude that humans would simply never forget them, or be worthy of being recorded in the most secure fashion, before the reputation earned from them would be truly immortal. Even then, as our own history shows, those deeds will be subject to the interpretation of future generations, so it’s not quite so cut and dry.

All of that is simply to answer your question, and demonstrate that the belief that our reputations are the only thing of us that can be immortal in the physical world is not accurate – it’s not meant to imply that reputation isn’t important, and that we shouldn’t seek to achieve worthy things and have our names reverberate with respect throughout the span of time and human memory.

Is it the case that, in the Heathen tradition, one’s reputation is the only thing that can be immortal in the physical world? Or am I confusing that with some of my other reading?

I agree with you, that according to the lore, reputation and honor often go hand-in-hand. And, when it comes right down to it, I believe that rank and reputation should follow one’s deeds. However, in considering what honor means to me, and trying as I said to keep my descriptions brief and still hit most of the points I wanted to hit, worth and integrity mean more to me than does reputation. I could deal with having a bad reputation if I knew that I had maintained my integrity, because then I could have faith that my reputation would eventually reflect the truth of my honor. Ultimately, I look at it as honor being the one thing that can’t be taken away from me … whereas reputation can be. This is not to say reputation is meaningless to me, it just means that, in the space allotted for me to write this article, worth and integrity meant more to me.

I hope that answer makes sense to you. Like I said in the article, when I was writing the meanings for the individual virtues, I was writing what they meant to me on a personal level. I also plan to treat each virtue in its own post in the future, since 1800 words or less is not an ideal amount of space in which to treat the meanings of all nine virtues :-)