As a means of enlightenment, Hávamál, or the Sayings of the High One, was created to describe a microcosm of Viking culture and offer advice about what was needed to fulfill necessary ideals throughout life, especially when it came to life at sea, battle, and family. These values were highlighted frequently when referring to ethical conduct, but one interesting matter that was not addressed as much in the epilogue concerned the idealization and declaration of gender roles when interaction between the two sexes came into play. Odin’s highly praised words allege that women are weak minded and never speak the truth and that even the wisest of women, who only see fraud in men, are easily charmed by by them. Although there is some truth to this claim, the sagas and eddas provide instances that deem his advice questionable when it comes to how each sex should view the other. Odin states that “a man mustn't trust/ the virgin’s voice,/or the woman’s words” (492). This advice plays fairly well with the impression that a majority of the women made on society at the time. This concept, referred to as “goading”, has been repeatedly depicted throughout the sagas by women of higher standing. In the saga of the Greenlanders, Freydis, the daughter of Eirik the Red, “displays a deviousness and cruelty to equal the major male players in the sagas” (133), by lying about recently being abused by Finnbogia and his brothers and rousing her husband to get revenge, all because she wanted their bigger ship. She portrays the very essence of what Odin is implying about women and why a man should not trust them. Odin completes this stanza by asserting that “on a whirling wheel/ their feelings are formed/ their breasts founded on fickleness” (492), supporting the idea that women had no control of their emotions, acted impulsively and were of a volatile nature. We see this to be true in several stories throughout the sagas with the situation usually ending in the death of a loved one. In the heroic Poem, The Goading of Gudrun, “Gudrun urged her sons/ to the slaughter” (137) after hearing about her daughter’s death by King Ermaneric. Her son Hamdir convinced by his mother words replied “you have goaded us to settlement by the sword” (139), however all three were killed in avenging their sister’s death be