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These lines from the ancient Norse Poetic Edda, or Elder Edda, establish the need for community in the Norse mind. In their mind, no man was worse than he who betrayed his own people; no fate worse than being an outcast.
Young was I once, | and wandered alone,
And nought of the road I knew;
Rich did I feel | when a comrade I found,
For man is man’s delight.
. . .
On the hillside drear | the fir-tree dies,
All bootless its needles and bark;
It is like a man | whom no one loves,—
Why should his life be long