The 9 Noble Virtues

The Nine Charges

1. To maintain candour and fidelity in love and devotion to the tried friend: though he strike me I will do him no scathe.



2. Never to make wrongsome oath: for great and grim is the reward for the breaking of plighted troth.



3. To deal not hardly with the humble and the lowly.



4. To remember the respect that is due to great age.



5. To suffer no evil to go unremedied and to fight against the enemies of Faith, Folk and Family: my foes I will fight in the field, nor will I stay to be burnt in my house.



6. To succour the friendless but to put no faith in the pledged word of a stranger people.



7. If I hear the fool's word of a drunken man I will strive not: for many a grief and the very death groweth from out such things.



8. To give kind heed to dead men: straw dead, sea dead or sword dead.



9. To abide by the enactments of lawful authority and to bear with courage the decrees of the Norns.

It may seem at first reading that these precepts are out-dated, and have little relevance to life in the present day. We live in an acquisitive, materialistic society, where the individual often looks to no motivation but his own personal gratification. In addition, many of the responsibilities which are implied by these Noble Virtues and Charges have been taken over by the "Welfare State".

Nevertheless, any person who has approached Odinism as a religion and way of life will have, to a greater or lesser degree, rejected the standards of present day society and will be seeking another basis on which to conduct his life.

Thoughtful study of these precepts will reveal that they are fully capable of implementation in our modern lives. However, to live by this code implies a rejection of the consumer society and its way of life which enshrines waste and conspicuous consumption.