Scandinavian humility was a mainstay thread throughout Garrison Keilor’s forty-year run of A Prairie Home Companion. The radio variety show ran weekly on Minnesota Public Radio to a large and devoted audience. Later the show was held at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul and more than once I was unable to get tickets to a sold-out show when an out-of-town guest suggested we attend.
His material centered on the slow pace in a rural community, the Lutheran way of life and a matter of fact sensibility. He ended every show with: “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon where all the women are strong, all the men good looking and all the children above average.”
This same type of virtue of modesty appears here is a Viking poem:
On little shores and little seas
live people of little sense;
everyone has equal wisdom
where the world is half as wide.
Moderately wise a man should be-
don't wish for too much wisdom;
the men who live the fairest lives
know just a number of things.
Moderately wise a man should be-
don't wish for too much wisdom;
a man's heart is seldom happy
if he is truly wise.
Moderately wise a man should be-
don't wish for too much wisdom;
if you can't see far into the future,
you can live free from care.
Flames from one log leap to another, fire kindles fire;
a man learns from the minds of others,
a fool prefers his own.
Get up early if you are after another man's life or money;
a sleeping wolf will seldom make a kill
nor a warrior win lying down.
Get up early if you have few men, and attend to your tasks yourself;
much slips by while you lie in bed-
work is half of wealth.
Taken from the Viking Poem: Sayings of the High One
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