The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology

by Snorri Sturluson, Jean I Young (Translator)

Prose Edda is a work without predecessor or parallel. Snorri Sturluson feared that the traditional techniques of Norse poetics, the pagan kennings, and the allusions to mythology would be forgotten with the introduction of new verse forms from Europe. Prose Edda was designed as a handbook for poets to compose in the style of the skalds of the Viking ages. It is an exposition of the rule of poetic diction with many examples, applications, and retellings of myths and legends. The present selection includes the whole of Gylfaginning (The deluding of Gylfi)--a guide to mythology that forms one of the great storybooks of the Middle Ages--and the longer heroic tales and legends of Skáldskaparmál (Poetic diction). Snorri Sturluson was a master storyteller, and this translation in modern idiom of the inimitable tales of the gods and heroes of the Scandinavian peoples brings them to life again.

Genres: Mythology, Classics, History, Poetry, Medieval, Religion, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1220

About the author

Snorri Sturluson (also spelled Snorre Sturlason) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He was the author of the Prose Edda or Younger Edda, which consists of Gylfaginning ("the fooling of Gylfi"), a narrative of Norse mythology, the Skáldskaparmál, a book of poetic language, and the Háttatal, a list of verse forms. He was also the author of the Heimskringla, a history of the Norwegian kings that begins with legendary material in Ynglinga saga and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history. For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of Egils saga.

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Reviews

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Edda is a collection of Norse myths, written in the 13th century by a dude named Snorri. It's where we got most of our knowledge of Norse mythology today, and it's wicked awesome. I learned, for instance, that your legs may hump each other and produce a child while you're asleep, which is something I'm going to be more careful about from now on. And that mead started as god spit, then turned into blood, and ended up being farted out of Odin's ass, which is, by a train of logic that actually kinda makes sense when you read it, why it's called the drink of poets. These are important things to know.

I also learned that much of what I learned from reading Thor comics when I was 13 isn't totally accurate. There's no mention at all of him being in the Avengers.

I enjoyed learning about the Norse poetic style of "kenning," where the point is to pile image upon image to make a complicated chain of meaning. For instance, "spurner of the bonfires of the sea," where "bonfires of the sea" refers to the sun's reflection off it, which is golden, and a spurner of gold would be: a generous man. That's cool because it's exactly what rappers do! Here's an example from the mighty Dres of Black Sheep:

I try to stay aware of the drama, it’s crazy
Plus, see I got to tell your mama that I’m Swayze

Here, Swayze refers to the late actor's classic movie Ghost, and ghost means he's gone; so Dres is saying that he's leaving your mama. Which must be sad for her.

I'm not saying that rappers were influenced by Vikings. That would be an awesome thing to say, but not a reasonable one. I'm just saying there's sortof a kinship there.

It's not every day that you get to learn about the spiritual connection between hip-hop and Vikings. This is a cool book, man.

[Campbell Rider]

you: earth is flat
me, an intellectual: earth is the world tree yggdrasil

[Paul Haspel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professionally speaking, the gods of the Norse pantheon have been good for the Marvel Comics publishing company. Marvel has been publishing Thor comic books, quite successfully, since the 1960’s. More recently, in this era of superhero blockbuster movies, Norse-myth characters like Thor, Odin, Loki, Heimdall, Frigg (Frigga), Hel (Hela), and Surtur have appeared in, to date, nine feature films and a television series. And if you would like to see where Stan Lee and his colleagues gathered their inspiration, this Penguin Books translation of Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda is a good place to start.

Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) was a true Renaissance man, even if he lived long before the Renaissance began. He was a success in both business and politics (he was twice the speaker of the Althing, the Icelandic parliament), and he also committed himself to preserving as much as possible of Iceland’s pre-Christian culture. It is due largely to his efforts that we have the stories of the Prose Edda to take us into the world of the Vikings.

The Prologue to the Edda, somewhat awkwardly, links the figures of the Norse pantheon with the Biblical account of creation, and even with the people of classical Troy, as when Sturluson describes how “Troan, the daughter of Priam, the chief king” gave birth to “a son who was named Tror, the one we call Thor” (p. 37).

Really? Í alvöru? It sounds to me as though, in those deeply religious medieval times, Sturluson may have been anxious to make sure that his readers would know that he wasn’t advocating what we might nowadays call neo-paganism.

Still, it is interesting to get the initial introduction to Thor, with suitable emphasis on his strength: “By the time he was twelve years old, he had acquired his full strength. Then he was able to lift from the ground ten bearskins, all in a pile”, after which he went travelling, and “overcame all manner of berserkers and giants, as well as one of the greatest dragons and many beasts” (p. 37). We also have our first meeting with Odin – “an excellent man because of his wisdom”, who “had the gift of prophecy” and “became aware that his name would become renowned in the northern part of the world and honoured more than other kings. For this reason he was eager to set off from Turkey…” (p. 39).

I found this Trojan connection with the Norse myths rather limiting, and was glad when Sturluson went on to “Gylfaginning (The Deluding of Gylfi)”, in which a Swedish king travels to Asgard, the realm of the Aesir, the royal family of Norse gods, hoping to learn the sources of their divine power. But the Aesir, knowing in advance of Gylfi’s schemes, delude him by creating three avatars of Odin, disguised as three kings who welcome Gylfi to Odin’s hall and promise to answer his questions.

What follows works along the lines of a catechism, as Gylfi asks questions and the three kings offer seemingly helpful answers. We learn that Odin “lives through all ages and governs all things”, that he “made heaven, earth, and the skies and everything in them”, and that he “created man and gave him a living spirit that will never die” (p. 44). Odin is “called All-Father, because he is the father of all the gods” (p. 64). He drank from the well of Mimir, the well of knowledge, “but he did not get this [drink] until he gave one of his eyes as a pledge” (p. 58).

The three kings tell Gylfi about the different realms that are bound together by Yggdrasil, the World Tree – places like Niflheim, the realm of darkness, and Muspelheim, the realm of fire. Muspelheim is the home of Surt: “He has a flaming sword, and when the end of the world comes, he will set off to battle and defeat all the gods, burning the whole world with fire” (p. 45). The idea that the power of the gods is finite, and that they will all die in the last battle at Ragnarok, is always at the heart of the Edda. Indeed, it was because of his foreknowledge of Ragnarok that Odin was willing to sacrifice an eye for a drink from the well of knowledge: as translator and commentator Jesse Byock of UCLA points out, “Odin knows that all will be lost at Ragnarok, and constantly seeks the knowledge to forestall the coming doom” (p. 21).

We are introduced once again to Thor – “He has strength and might, and because of this, he defeats all living creatures” (p. 52) Thor’s most prized possession is “the hammer Mjollnir. Frost giants and mountain giants recognize it when it is raised in the air, which is not surprising as it has cracked many a skull among their fathers and kinsmen” (p. 65).

And fans of the MCU Thor universe will enjoy hearing Sturluson’s description of the rainbow bridge Bifrost: “Haven’t you heard that the gods built a bridge from the earth to the sky and it is called Bifrost? You will have seen it, and possibly you call it the rainbow. It has three colours and great strength” (p. 54). Bifrost is guarded by Heimdall: “He is the watchman of the gods and sits at heaven’s end, where he keeps watch over the bridge against the mountain giants. He needs less sleep than a bird, and he can see equally well by night or by day, a distance of a hundred leagues” (p. 70)

Not included in the MCU films, but important in the Mighty Thor comic books and graphic novels (as in the original mythology), is Baldur, the shining god of light, to whom the three kings give a good deal of attention: “Odin’s second son is Baldur, and there is much good to tell about him. He is the best, and all praise him. He is so beautiful and so bright that light shines from him….He is the wisest of the gods. He is also the most beautifully spoken and the most effective” (p. 66). He is such a perfect and beloved god, in short, that he is clearly not long for this doomed Norse world.

And then, of course, there is the trickster god Loki. “Loki is pleasing, even beautiful to look at, but his nature is evil and he is undependable. More than others, he has the kind of wisdom known as cunning, and is treacherous in all matters” (p. 73). One of the children that Loki had with the giantess Angrboda is Hel: “She is half black and half a lighter flesh colour, and is easily recognized. Mostly she is gloomy and cruel” (p. 73). She rules, in dark Niflheim, over the dead who died of disease or old age.

More fortunate, among the dead, are those who die in battle. The Valkyrie warrior-women “are sent by Odin to every battle, where they choose which men are to die, and they determine who has the victory” (p. 79). The lucky, battle-slain warriors get to go to Valhalla, the feasting hall of the gods, where the schedule of entertainment is as follows: “Every day, after they dress, they put on their war gear. Then they go out to the courtyard and battle, the one attacking the other. Such is their sport. When it comes time to eat, they ride home to Valhalla and sit down to drink” (p. 84). Fighting all day and drinking all night – in the Viking cosmos, that was evidently as good as it gets.

Fans of the MCU Thor films may be surprised to discover that the progression of the Loki character is exactly the opposite in the Edda from what one sees in the Thor movies and the Loki television series. In those media products, Loki begins as a cold and treacherous villain, gradually evolves into a sort of conflicted anti-hero, and finally emerges as a flawed hero seeking redemption. In the myths, by contrast, Loki starts as a trickster who creates problems but then helps Thor fix them, and only later becomes a true figure of destruction and evil.

One sees a crucial moment from this transformation in “The Death of Baldur.” When Baldur begins having nightmares about dying an untimely death – an event that everyone knows will bring on Ragnarok – the gods secure (they think) assurance from all things on Earth that they will not harm Baldur. The gods then amuse themselves throwing all sorts of dangerous weapons at Baldur and watching them bounce off him. But then Loki learns that mistletoe, a tiny sprig of mistletoe, is the one thing in the nine realms that has not promised not to hurt Baldur:

Loki got hold of the mistletoe. He broke it off and went to the assembly.

Hod, because he was blind, stood at the edge of the circle of people. Loki spoke to him, asking, “Why aren’t you shooting at Baldur?”

Hod replied, “Because I can’t see where Baldur is, and also I have no weapon.”

Then Loki said, “You should be behaving like the others, honouring Baldur as they do. I will direct you to where he is standing. Shoot this twig at him.”

Hod took the mistletoe and, following Loki’s directions, shot at Baldur. The shot went right through Baldur, who fell to the ground, dead. This misfortune was the worst that had been worked against gods and men. Baldur’s death left the gods speechless and so weak that they were unable to muster the strength to lift him up in their arms. (p. 102)

Loki is subjected to a cruel punishment for his act. Hermod, son of Odin, makes a bold voyage to the underworld, like Odysseus and Aeneas before him, hoping that Hel of Niflheim will permit Baldur to return to the world of the living. But the reader gets a strong sense that nothing will prevent the onset of Ragnarok, the war of the end of the world: “Thor will kill the Midgard Serpent, and then he will take nine steps back. Because of the poison the serpent has spit upon him, he will fall to the Earth, dead. The wolf will swallow Odin, and that will be his death….Loki will battle with Heimdall, and they will be the death of each other. Next, Surt will throw fire over the Earth and burn the whole world” (pp. 109-10). Yet there is a vague promise of rebirth, amidst all that devastation.

From the Gylfaginning, the reader learns a great deal about Norse mythology. As for King Gylfi, he leaves his interview with the three avatars of Odin not a penny the richer; but he carries the tales away with him, to pass them down through future generations in Scandinavia and beyond.

The “Skaldskaparmal (Poetic Diction)” is something of a primer on poetic technique for aspiring poets of Viking times. Much of it works like a style guide, but Sturluson helpfully provides some stories as examples of poetic diction well deployed. And one learns that poets were expected to know lots of kennings (compound figurative expressions) rather than just repeating someone’s name over and over again.

Thus Thor can be referred to via such kennings as “the wielder or possessor of the hammer Mjollnir…the defender of Asgard and Midgard, the foe and killer of giants and troll women…the enemy of the Midgard Serpent…” (p. 149), and so on. Heimdall, meanwhile, “can be called the son of nine mothers, the watchman of the gods…the white one of the Aesir, Loki’s foe, or the seeker of Freya’s ring” (p. 151). And Loki is “the author of woes, the sly god, the one who slanders and betrays the gods, the one who engineered Baldur’s death, the bound one…” (p. 152). You get the idea.

Translator Byock provides helpful appendices on “The Norse Cosmos and the World Tree,” “The Language of the Skalds [poets],” and the Eddic poems that were used as sources for “Gylfaginning.” There is also a schematic of the Nine Realms, a set of genealogical tables, and a useful Glossary of Names, from which I learned, for example, that the name of the hammer Mjollnir comes from the Old Norse term Mjöllnir, and has “probably to do with milling and grinding, hence a hammer that breaks or grinds into tiny fragments” (p. 214).

For anyone who wants to explore the grim world of the Norse gods, this edition of The Prose Edda provides just the ticket one needs to travel over the Bifrost rainbow-bridge to Asgard.

[Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in the early 1200s by the Icelandic scholar, poet and civic leader Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241), and one of the major works of Icelandic and general medieval literature, The Prose Edda is one of the two key original sources for the study of the mythology of the proto-Germanic peoples of northern Europe. (The Goodreads description defines edda as "the poetic art," but the term is a rarely used word and the meaning of it is actually uncertain.) The other one is also in Icelandic, the slightly older collection by an unknown compiler called The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes. All later retellings are directly or indirectly dependent on these sources. From this reading, I was able to recognize numerous elements that are repeated in works I previously read, such as The Heroes of Asgard: Tales from Scandinavian Mythology (1870) by Annie and Eliza Keary, Sigvart Sorenson's summation of Norse mythology in Norway (1899), and even William Morris' 19th-century translation of the saga of Sigurd, contained in A Treasury of Fantasy. (This is also where Tolkien gets quite a few of the dwarve's names in The Hobbit!)

There are just seven surviving manuscripts of this work, dating from about 1300-1600, all of which exhibit some differences. This particular translation, first published by Cambridge Univ. Press in 1954 (the American edition was reprinted by Univ. of California Press in 1964), was done by Jean I. Young, an academic in the English program at the Univ. of Reading, who used primarily the printed Icelandic text established by the scholars Anne Holtsmark and Jon Helgason, published in 1950. In her brief Forward, she notes that she intended her work both for college students and general readers interested in the mythology. The text itself is also preceded by an eight and 1/2 page Introduction by Sigurdur Nordal, who was then professor of Icelandic literature at the Univ. of Reykjavik. I found this useful for explaining the structure of the original work (and what parts of it are included here, and why), as well as the author's motives for writing it in the cultural setting of his time; but less useful in his dismissive skepticism of the accuracy of Sturluson's retelling of the myths. (More on that below.)

Christian Icelanders in Sturluson's time, like the Greek and Roman Christians of late antiquity, inherited a literary tradition (mostly still oral, in the former case) that was based on a shared body of pre-Christian pagan myths and legends. Then as in the earlier Christian centuries, there were those among the clergy who wanted to extirpate all memory of paganism, even if it meant erasing the culture's existing literature and sanitizing future writings of any pagan references. Like Augustine before him, Sturluson opposed this extreme position; he argued for keeping the older stories alive for their literary value and aesthetic role as guides for future literature, while recognizing that they weren't to be regarded as true. That message shapes this work, which is a kind of manifesto for it. It proved to be a very successful one, convincing the author's own and subsequent generations, and shaping the development of Icelandic poetry down to at least the mid-20th century, when this translation was done.

The original Prose Edda has four parts: a short Prologue in which the author sets the Aesir, or Norse "gods" as we know them, in a broad context of Biblical and secular history as he understood it, "The Deluding of Gylfi," in which the Aesir, for their own amusement, contrive to hoodwink a semi-mythical ancient Swedish king by relating a farrago of cosmological and mythological tall tales, which he then spreads abroad as factual; the "Poetic Diction," which relates various legendary tales to explain the "kennings," or poetic metaphors, that are drawn from them (for instance, why poetry is referred to as "Kvasir's blood"), and finally the Hattatal, a 102-stanza poem the author wrote about an instance in the earlier Norse dynastic civil wars, accompanied by a prose commentary, for the instruction of would-be poets, on matter of diction and metre. What Young translates here are the first two parts in their entirety, and the story portions of the third part --in other words, all the material that relates or has any bearing on the mythology itself. The Hattatal was omitted as largely untranslatable into another language.

As noted above, Nordal is totally skeptical of any evidential value of this material for actual Norse mythology in the Viking Age (an idea he dismisses in two and a half deprecatory sentences, with no sources cited). He insists that both here and in Sturluson's oral and written sources, the material must be "the product of the poetic imagination... during the decline of paganism," and also asserts that "no one now" (in 1954) disagrees with him. Given that his own specialized field was literature, not history, cultural anthropology or folklore studies, and that it's very unlikely that he was well-read in any of the latter, that assertion can be met with some skepticism of our own. His basic thesis is simply speculation without evidence, cited as fact. We can freely concede that Sturluson's own theory of the Aesir as human wanderers to the Northern lands from Troy, deified by the locals, and his imagined origin of the myths in a practical joke, falls into the same category, and doesn't inspire any more confidence than Nordal's pronouncements. Likewise, we can recognize that the actual mythology existed in a variety of local variations, which Sturluson systematizes for convenience. But I personally have complete confidence that his oral and written sources substantially preserve the deposit of the much earlier centuries, and that he basically reproduces it faithfully (it would defeat his literary purpose not to do so). From my knowledge of folklore studies, such as it is, I would say that there is no objective reason to doubt this.

Not counting Nordal's Introduction, Young's Preface, and the slightly over eight-page index of proper names, the main text here has just about 100 pages. (There are no endnotes; footnotes are used mainly to translate the meaning of proper names, such as "Glad-of-war" for Herteit.) Given this shortness, the book is a relatively quick read. It's not, however, necessarily a riveting one; in places it can even be tedious. We have a lot of lists of similar Scandinavian names, genealogical material, descriptions of mythic people and places, some of which tend to run together. The tales themselves are more ...interesting (and sometimes out-and-out weird!), but they're often not very pleasant. Frequently, the Aesir --and not just Loki!-- and the human characters exhibit a good deal of greed, pettiness, jealousy, treachery, casual murderous cruelty and sexual looseness (the latter isn't directly referred to, but it's recognizable between the lines), which reflect the culture the lore evolved in. Nevertheless, I'd characterize this as essential reading for anyone seriously interested in Scandinavian or medieval studies in general, or Norse mythology in particular.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s sort of strange to give a review of a book like this – as if I can sit here and complain that Thor’s character feels underdeveloped, or that I didn’t understand Odin’s motivation for acting as he did. It is, after all, from the 13th century, written by someone we might characterize as an Icelandic warlord – and yet, as removed as I am, it’s still fascinating. The book is genuinely funny at times, and the stories of the Norse gods and goddesses have a sense of humor to them that even the Greek myths can often miss.

The first book is a kind of Norse catechism, where a traveler is shown around Asgard and Midgard and has the cosmology of the Norse universe explained to him in a question-and-answer session. After that comes a kind of poet’s encyclopedia or dictionary, where the origins of words and names for things become jumping-off points for the stories about the various gods and giants and whatnot, and its structure is very interesting. Imagine if the Iliad had a companion volume that explained all the epithets, and that's what you have here. Some of the sections start as questions, while others are just informational – but that they all come from names (and that so very many names exist for “gold” is especially revealing) is a unique way of telling this story, whether it was Mr. Sturluston’s intention to be structurally inventive or not. It is, again, a Christian Iclander’s retelling of Norse legends in the 1200s, which makes it interesting, but hard to evaluate or give a rating to on a site like this. Can’t say I had a bad time reading it, though.

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snorri Sturluson rédigea cette Edda (ces vieilles légendes norroises) au début du XIIIe siècle, alors que son pays, l’Islande, était depuis longtemps convertie au christianisme. Snorri aborde donc de biais ce panorama du polythéisme scandinave. En effet, son livre est avant tout un traité de poétique ou de rhétorique : la Skaldskaparmal, par exemple, recense une série de tournures, vocables, métaphores, périphrases (les fameuses kenningar qui ont tant fasciné Borges) en usage dans l'art des scaldes. On y apprend notamment différentes manières de designer l’or : « chevelure de Sif », « tribut de la loutre », « farine de Frodi » ou encore « semence de Kraki ».

Le propos premier du livre de Snorri, exprimé ici à travers les joutes oratoires du récit cadre, ouvrent cependant sur les vastes narrations mythiques de l’ancien paganisme norrois. On découvre d’abord dans la première partie (la Gylfaginning) quel fut l’origine du monde, avec le démembrement du géant Ymir (« de son cerveau furent créés tous les nuages cruels ») et l’apparition des premières races : Ases, Elfes, nains, trolls... Puis, les lieux ou objets légendaires : le char du soleil, Bifrost le pont entre la terre et le ciel, la terre de Midgard et la forteresse d’Asgard, Yggdrasil le frêne du monde, près duquel vivent les Nornes, etc. Viennent ensuite les dynasties des dieux qui demeurent dans la Valhalle : Odin à l’œil crevé et au cheval à huit pieds, Frigg son épouse, Thor au marteau invincible, Freyia la déesse aux chats, Idunn la gardienne des pommes de jouvence, et surtout Loki le rusé... La Gylfaginning se termine sur les aventures de Thor affrontant le géant Skrymir, le roi Utgarda-Loki, puis le serpent de Midgard, pour finir sur la description de Ragnarök, le crépuscule des dieux, le loup Fenrir dévorant les astres et l'incendie du monde.

La deuxième partie (la Skaldskaparmal) poursuit ce catalogue mythologique à travers le récit des exploits du héros Sigurd, vainqueur du géant Fafnir. Légendes norroises qui connaîtront un développement ultérieur, à travers les récits germaniques du héros Siegfried, recueillis dans La Chanson des Nibelungen. Snorri, quant à lui, se lancera, après l’Edda, dans sa monumentale Heimskringla ou Histoire des rois de Norvège.

Quoi qu’il en soit, il est très frappant de voir combien ces vieilles légendes norroises ont inspiré notre culture contemporaine depuis plusieurs décennies. Sans parler évidemment de l’influence massive de ces récits sur l’opéra de Richard Wagner, en particulier son Ring des Nibelungen (voir notamment : Gylfaginning, chapitre 42, et la quasi-totalité de la Skaldskaparmal), ou, plus encore, sur les romans de J.R.R. Tolkien, notamment The Silmarillion et The Hobbit (les noms de Gandalf et des nains sont directement copiés du quatorzième chapitre de la Gylfaginning) ; il suffit enfin de regarder les innombrables séries, BD, jeux vidéo ou romans de « fantasy » (par exemple, le récent Norse Mythology de Neil Gaiman) commercialisés ces dernières années, pour se convaincre que tous ont une dette immense envers le scalde islandais.

[Murray · Rating 2 out of 5]

are we there yet?

The first quarter of the book is a didactic Q&A approach to explaining things about the mythological goddesses and gods. The final quarter is notes about the text. In the middle are the often silly stories of Norse deities and their cruel tricks and betrayals of one another.

Every page, it seems, Thor has brutally murdered someone else whether it be man, woman, child or beast. Is this the Viking soul? I found the fables, ancient though they may be, tedious, frivolous, crude and nonsensical.

I will not be moving on to the Poetic Edda. You may have better luck.

I prefer writers taking various aspects of the Norse myths and weaving them into epic or novelistic form. Then, to my mind, something magical and interesting occurs. Left as raw, disjointed fables they only drive me to drink. To mead. Perhaps that is their purpose.

[7jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most extensive source of Norse mythology, this book was written in Iceland in the 13th century (though copies exist from 14th c. onward). This bok has one creation epic, and recounts of survival battles, heroic things, information about the deities and the tree-centric world view, and how the world can end. It preserves oral tradition (and is meant to be read aloud) and cultural roots (of immigrants to Iceland) and offers some guidance on certain details on telling stories from the mythology.

I chose to read the prose-form Edda now. The author is pretty certain: a chieftain's son, then a leader who visited royalty in Norway, and showed interest in the Viking days. This book (and Eddas in general) have influenced fe. Wagner, Tolkien (dwarves, elves, the ring, Middle Earth), Auden, Longfellow, and Borges. One can go on from here to read closely-related books like the Saga Of Volsungs and Saga of Hrolf Kraki.

In this version there is a map of the geographical world of Edda, and at the end appendixes: Norse cosmos and World Tree (of Indo-European origin), some language details, poem sources, genealogical tables of the gods, and names glossary.
The book is in four parts, though the fouth isn't included here: prologue (which may have been added later), mythology from creation to end of the world in dialogue-form, background things for references and allusions (dialogue and storytelling; some parts are pre-Viking era), and a long poem with prose commentary (most likely Snorri's).

Some interesting things: gods having roots in the city of Troy (with Loki seen as Ulysses), how giant Ymir's body was used to create more world - incl. dwarves formed like maggots in his flesh, finding yet another book mentioning some norn names used in the Oh!My Goddess manga, amused at the list of dwarf names that have been used later in LOTR (incl. Gandalf haha), Skadi the ski goddess, Heimdall having 9 mothers giving birth to him simultaneously, Thor kicking a dwarf into a funeral pyre, Loki as a salmon, a ship made of human fingernails, choosing an Aesir husband by looking at the gods' feet, how mead was created.
Is Frodi's mill-story connected to the Kalevala's Sampo machine? How did Loki survive having his head cut off (this story bit doesn't tell)?

Some amusing details, some shocking reactions, and plenty familiar stuff too. I have read some in comics. I know I will read the other Edda at some point, but this was already interesting to read through. I think if the reader has already read the other one, this would still be worth it, and it's not too long. :)

[Ajeje Brazov · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'Edda di Snorri è conosciuta principalmente come versione in prosa della mitologia nordica, anche se originariamente Snorri l'aveva ideata come manuale di poetica norrena. Prendendo dall'Edda poetica, Snorri, con l'escamotage del protagonista esterno, nella prima parte con Gylfi: un re svedese e nella seconda Aegir: un uomo esperto di magia, ci accompagna, come narratore, in alcuni degli eventi cruciali della mitologia norrena, come il Ragnarok.
Tutto molto d'atmosfera e cosa potrei leggere di meglio sulla mitologia nordica? Però vi è troppo in uno spazio molto ristretto, ci sono un'infinità di nomi e fortunatamente c'è l'indice dei nomi a fine volume, ma comunque mi è risultato estremamente frammentato. Magari è anche la sua caratteristica, cioè quella di avere fra le mani un manoscritto di secoli fa, con pagine o frasi, parole, andate perdute, dove si narrano eventi maestosi e che affondano le radici nel lontano passato.
Forse se il volume fosse stato corredato da illustrazioni o anche mappe o forse se ci fosse stato più spazio per gli eventi...
Comunque rimane un testo imprescindibile per chi è appassionato di mitologia.
Da rileggere varie volte per averne più chiaramente un quadro più esaustivo, magari affiancandogli l'Edda poetica!

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acknowledgements
Introduction & Notes
Further Reading
Note on the Translation
Map: The Geographical World of the 'Edda'

The Prose Edda

--Prologue
--Gylfaginning (The Deluding of Gylfi)

Skaldskaparmal (Poetic Diction)
--Mythic and Legendary Tales
--Poetic References from Skaldskaparmal (Translated by Russell Poole)

Appendices:
1. The Norse Cosmos and the World Tree
2. The Language of the Skalds: Kennings and 'Heiti'
3. Eddic Poems Used as Sources in 'Gylfaginning'

Genealogical Tables
Notes
Glossary of Names

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odin gave Suttung’s mead to the Æsir and to those men who know how to make poetry. For this reason we call poetry Odin’s catch, find, drink or gift, as well as the drink of the Æsir.

More personal edification than anything. I knew next to nothing about Norse mythos and I sought a remedy. Such a cosmology reflects a brutal existence of deprivation and blind chance. The prominence of trickery is our human approach to the elemental. Plenty of infidelity and incest but lacking the serial rape of the Greek origin stories. As someone (not by choice) who’s sat through a few bad Thor films (as opposed to, you know, the artful ones) I gasped to discover that the depicted familial relationships were all wrong at the multiplex.

[Cagdas Akdemir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Viking mitolojisine meraklıysanız mutlaka okumanız gereken kitap budur.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

So after diving headlong into ancient Norse mythology and history, by way of the Heimskringla, The Poetic Edda, and Sagas of Icelanders in turn, I've become ever more interested in the subject (and medieval literature generally). There simply isn't enough extant, well-preserved material to satisfy the desire to know everything, more often we're left with as many questions as answers. The Prose Edda is no exception. Written by the Icelandic chieftain-poet-historian Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century, it holds a unique cultural position -- purely by accident.

Snorri most likely intended this work to be a sort of medieval textbook for the aspiring Icelandic skald, or poet. He cautions in the beginning to always imitate the chief skalds of the past in their methods, but never to believe the underlying mythical associations. You see, Christianity was well-established in Scandinavia by this time, the old heathen beliefs being forgotten from disuse, the reverence of old ways long gone. It turns out heathendom was an essential aspect of skaldic poetry even after the conversion; men may not have truly feared Odin any longer, yet they wanted to hear and speak his name in connection with their own times, as well as demonstrate their wit and creativity in paraphrasing or "kennings", the way their forefathers had done. Understanding and practicing the time-crafted art of the skalds was a worthy skill.

Naturally it couldn't be assumed that a young Icelander of Snorri's time would know the story behind "Otter's Ransom" nor who would be referred to as "Harmer of Sif's Hair". Snorri knew that the only way the ancient skaldic poetry would have meaning in the future, the only way it could be propagated, was by thorough explanation from one who knew the art. But how could he pass on this knowledge without actually instructing pupils in the forbidden ways of heathendom?

In this task Snorri proceeded on three fronts. First he invented a story, the Gylfaginning, in which a fictional character (Gylfi) questions Odin (in disguise) on many topics: the origins of the world, the gods, their names and characteristics, the doom of the gods and the world itself. To justify his own prose explanations, Snorri quotes a number of skaldic verse fragments. This forms the basis of the mythical worldview from which skaldic poetry drew its metaphors.

Then follows the more technical sections of the instruction. In the Skáldskaparmál, Snorri details a conversation with the god of skaldship (Bragi) in which he explains the intricate and crucial art of kennings. He methodically dissects the work of "chief poets", listing the most common types of kennings and occasionally explaining their origins in detail. Last but not least in the Háttatal, Snorri presents his own skaldic verses to explain every form of verse he knew. This would be an advanced course for the serious skald, indeed.

Snorri whether he knew it or not, was acting to preserve not only the art of skaldship in his own time, but indeed scant traces of Norse mythology and the mere evidence of the chief poets he so admired. For most of their works are now lost to us. Having little practical value to the learned men of the time, there was no great effort to preserve them in memory or in writing. We're lucky to have even Snorri's Edda, as no more than three medieval manuscript copies of it have survived the ravages of time. Neglect (and fire) could easily have claimed these precious documents as well.

I read the 1916 English translation by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, as it was freely available. It contains Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál, but not Háttatal which due to reliance on alliteration, meter, and Old Norse vocabulary, would have greatly diminished value in English (I'd still like to tackle it some day for completeness' sake). Brodeur's translation incorporates centuries of Eddic scholarship, though in a very cut-and-dry fashion.

Snorri's prose is in fact the most entertaining part of this translation, being fairly straightforward to present in English (with the exception of certain names whose etymologies were unclear). If you're reading the Prose Edda in English, this is what you're most interested in, probably because you have a fascination of all things Norse and heathen, rather than being a scholar of Old Norse poetry. The verse, unfortunately, is miserably butchered in the translation to the point of being almost unreadable. The meter is destroyed, the alliteration is absent, the grammar is awkward to say the least, one must force themselves to endure many of the verses - though there is the rare example which shines across the language barrier.

As a comparison, read the following verse from section III of Skáldskaparmál:
"I pray the high-souled Warder
Of earth to hear the Ocean
Of the Cliff of Dwarves, my verses:
Hear, Earl, the Gore of Kvasir."

Now the original:
"Hugstóran bið ek heyra,
heyr, jarl, Kvasis dreyra,
foldar vörð á fyrða
fjarðleggjar brim dreggjar."

The former is a labyrinthine jumble of words, the latter is poetry. Another example: the author of said verse is repeatedly referred to as "Einarr Tinkling-Scale", a truly comical rendering of the original Einar Skalaglam. With no explanation of what "tinkling-scale" means, we're left to wonder (it's a scale for counting money), and in fact there are numerous other examples. I can't blame Brodeur for making such literal translations, but they have limited value to the English lay-audience and often detract from what are otherwise fascinating insights. By comparison the Complete Sagas of Icelanders is invariably more readable, though a project of considerably greater breadth and depth, simply because they gave thoughtful consideration to these aesthetic issues.

Snorri didn't help by inserting random verses out of context simply because they had a kenning he wanted to reference, but naturally that was his purpose in composing the Edda. It's important to remember Snorri was not preserving skaldic poetry for us -- he assumed we'd always remember the poems -- rather the skaldic art that created them.

In spite of this, the Prose Edda presents great value to the committed reader. Where Snorri breaks way from the pedantic, he reveals himself as a master story teller, capable of quickly summarizing sagas and poems in dramatic fashion leaving us craving for more. There is lore recorded in the Eddic manuscripts not preserved anywhere else, lore which has inspired generations of authors, musicians, and artists, even spawned new religions and breathed life into ancient ones. In short, it's part of an essential corpus for those interested in studying the origins, culture, religion, poetry, and/or literature of the ancient Norse people and their neighbors.

[Mihai Zodian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one marks the end of an almost yearlong project about reading Medieval Icelandic or Old Norse literature. It blended with hopes of going to Wardruna and playing Assassin`s Creed Valhalla and with reading Tolkien which borrowed a lot, but mostly it`s indebted to Borges and his passion for kennings and metaphor and the meaning of poetry. The well-known “mother of dragons” from Game of Thrones, as a friend told me one, for example.

Since many kennings were based on myths, and Old Norse religion was replaced, a memoir was needed to understand them, as explained by Jesse Byock in the introduction. And of course, Snorri himself was a very interesting character, who deserves his own movie. Then, it was forgotten and recovered.

I read it the first time when I was a child and it was a resume made for youngsters. I still remember that I wanted to be Thor. Then, a few years ago, in the commercial version, but also being interested in myth, in parallel with the Poetic Edda. It was also the period when I discovered Wardruna.

This time was interesting to approach it not for stories and their cyclical and deterministic point of view, but as a poetical handbook, the way some people recommend it should be seen. It changes the perspective. One can almost imagine a drunken party of nobles, jumping around fires, and in a corner, a skald trying to remember the verse he just conceived. It becomes less about myths and more about producing verses, embellishment and fun.

One can see also the influence of sagas in certain stories. For example, there are standard formulas of introduction (“there was a man called”) or routine plots (vendettas between clans, settlements, adjudications). Bottom line, this reading was less mythical and more secular or prosaic.

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to the Prose Edda the Norse god's were descendents of Priam of Troy whose son Paris ran away with Helen who was married to Menelaus the King of Sparta. This act sparked a 10 year war between Troy and Sparta.

These places are so far away from the Viking homelands of Denmark, Sweden, Norway that
the stories must have been related by a traveller.
I find it fascinating that something so disparate could be so interconnected.
It also implies that the Norse god's weren't deities as the Greek gods were thought to be, rather they were flesh and blood humans.

I also noted in a couple of updates that J.R.R. Tolkien of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings stories borrowed some names for the Dwarves and other characters directly from these writings.
Read through them and I'm sure you will find your favourite.
Nyi, Nidi, Nordri, Sudri, Austri, Vestri, Althjolf, Dvalin, Nar, Nain, Niping, Dain, Bifur, Bafur, Bombor, Nori, Ori, Onar, Oin, Modvitnir, Vig and Gandalf, Vindalf, Thorin, Fili, Kili, Fundin, Vali, Thror, Throin, Thekk, Lit, Vitr, Nyr, Nyrad, Rekk, Radsvinn.
There is also the setting for his stories which he named Middle earth which is a direct translation of Midgardr the place where humans dwelt.

'Midgardr situated halfway between Niflheim on the north, the land of ice, and Muspelheim to the south, the region of fire.'  

I find these ancient stories of god's and giants, monsters and humans far more compelling than many modern day novel. They evoke greater emotions and feel more 'authentic' to me.
Therefore both the original author from the 13th century Snorri Sturluson (died 1214) and the translator of my penguin edition Jesse L. Byock have in my humble opinion done a spectacular job of bringing these stories to magical, wonderous life.

My favourite character by far is Loki who is very naughty and funny. He sometimes assists the gods and sometimes behaves maliciously towards them. For instance; After a wrong doing he makes amends as in this story the end of which I'll put here.

 'Another condition of her settlement was that the Æsir must do something she thought they could not do: make her laugh. Then Loki tied one end of a cord to the beard of a goat and tied the other end around his own testicles. The goat and Loki started pulling back and forth, each squealing loudly until finally Loki fell into Skadi’s lap, and then she laughed.'

I've taken some my favourite parts of The Sibyl's prophecy on Ragnarok (which was probably from the 10th century) the final battle that ends the nine worlds, to give just a taste of this epic tale.

1; Even Yggdrasil in worried.

The ash of Yggdrasil trembles as it stands, the old tree groans and the giant breaks free.

2; The battle has begun in earnest.

Jormungand thrashes in giant wrath.
The serpent lashes the waves;
the eagle screeches,
Nidfol, rips apart corpses.
Naglfar breaks loose.

3; The Hel in this verse is a person.

Stone cliffs tumble and troll witches stumble. Men tread the Road to Hel as the sky splits apart.

4; And finally.
The sun grows black, the earth sinks into the sea. The bright stars vanish from the heavens. Steam surges up and the fire rages.
Heat reaches high against heaven itself.

If you are at all intrigued by my thoughts on this book I hope you take the time to explore it for yourself, you won't be sorry.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Sigur Rós playlist, fittingly, is on, and we are back in business!

+++

The army-musterer gave mountain-haunting ravens their fill. The raven got full on she-wolf’s prey, and spears rang.

Expectations versus reality. You hear the term bandied about all the time; and while my experience of it (at least in the literature-sphere) might not have been as extreme as some, I feel I’m coming closer to understanding that concept having finished the Edda. I wasn’t expecting to give this such an average rating (medieval Iceland and Norse myth? Sounds like a perfect blend, like those Christmas peppermint hot chocolates they used to do at Starbucks), but things started to go downhill after the story-based Skaldskaparmal devolved into what appeared to be just another ordinary textbook. What saved this one from a lower rating was the first 100 pages or so, and some of those morbidly beautiful poetic descriptions that made me wonder if I could get away with sneaking them into my own writing, since they’re just so perfect for the situation at hand.

Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t actively dislike any part of the Edda - but I did find certain sections far more engaging than others. While the exploits of the Norse gods were the unquestionable favourite, the conversational structure of the Gylfaginning - the tale of a Swedish king named Gylfi, who, disguised as a peasant, is told the mythological history of the world when visiting the residence of three oddly-named kings – and the similar premise of the first part of the Skaldskaparmal were also enjoyable. They worked as effective framing devices for what were in essence just massive info-dumps, and IMO this is what set them above the rest of the book. Underneath, they were ‘textbooks’ like all the rest, but crucially it didn’t feel like I was reading one. Compare this to the Hattatal, which makes no attempt to hide this and is pretty much a list breaking down the key elements of around 100 forms of poetry.

Sticking with the positives for the moment, I felt like Snorri’s Edda gave me a detailed insight into the culture of medieval Scandinavia – heck, I think I even learned a thing or two about the Old Icelandic/Old Norse language while I was at it! The priorities of the age are expressed in the poetry quoted, and it’s probably much like you’d expect – princes and jarls fight to defend their territories, give out rafts of precious things to their retainers, and warriors make a lot of journeys in ships. All of this is expressed via the use of varied kennings – compound metaphorical descriptions that can be confusing at first, but luckily there are plenty of [side notes] in this edition to help you understand just what on Earth a ‘spear-clash-flame-mail-tree’ or the like even is.

Many of these poems are meant to describe dramatic conflicts and praise great rules, but I couldn’t help laughing at some of those kennings. They may be an integral part of the form, but some look so strange to the modern reader that they can end up being unintentionally amusing (see my activity for a couple of examples!)

Now… on to the not so good.

Firstly –let’s face it, I’m not going to remember much of the Hattatal. It might be useful if you want to learn more about Norse literature or have an interest in poetry; however, I’ve always preferred prose narratives, and I just wanted to get it finished by the time I was about ¾ of the way through (I may have speed-read the last 10 pages…). Some of the forms have awesome-sounding names, like ‘ghost-form’ and ‘fox-turns’, but I couldn’t tell you the difference between them. The format quickly becomes repetitive and dull, and all the terminology about syllables and rhyme begins blurring into one. Maybe this wasn’t intended to be read in extended sittings; whatever the reason, it stopped appealing to me shortly after I started it.

Secondly – and lastly – I have a real bone to pick with that Prologue. I think I felt my brain melting at one point because it ended up being so utterly convoluted and confusing. Sure, it started out easy enough, with a discourse on God and Creation, as you might expect from a medieval Christian writer – and then proceeded to blow the space-time continuum to smithereens as Classical, Christian and Norse myth were smashed together in a cosmic melting-pot and the resulting stew slung out onto the page. Warning: geeky rant incoming.

I sat there in disbelief for most of this. I was just so bloody confused. God made the world – fine, I get it. People begin to worship the Earth and forget about God – I got you. There was a city in Turkey called Troy – brownie points for getting this bit of Classical legend right!

…Wait. Now you’re telling me that King Priam had a grandson named Tror, who we call Thor? He married the freaking Sibyl, and Odin is descended from them? They came to Scandinavia from Turkey, and their line ended up being worshipped as deities? The Æsir came from Asia, hence their name?! I… can’t.



I understand that paganism had fallen out of favour with the establishment by this time, but was attempting to connect three different forms of mythology really necessary? I feel I’m being unduly harsh here as I have limited knowledge on the subject, but this really messed with my head.

Overall…
I’m chalking my apathy towards sections of the Edda up to personal taste. I loved the crash course in Norse mythology; it’s just a shame things went out of the window further down the line. Still recommended for any Norse or history buff!

Final rating: 3/5 stars. May reread some of it in future.

Bonus: TOLKIEN! I’m pretty sure this is where Tolkien got the names of his dwarves from – Thorin? Dvalin? Gloin? - and it really made me smile to spot the apparent references.

[Katerina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I vecchi miti mi piacciono parecchio. È il motivo per cui, tra le altre cose, sto provando a leggere la Bibbia (sono a Mosé e la consiglio a tutti: è incredibilmente più divertente di quello che ti fanno credere a catechismo... in particolare la storia della torre di Babele, quando Dio creò la facoltà di lingue for the lolz). Però sono interessanti anche le altre mitologie, quella nordica mi ha sempre affasciata parecchio... e dopo Beowulf e i Nibelunghi mi sono sentita pronta per il manuale di istruzioni degli dei.
L'unico, piccolo problema è che non sono una grandissima amante della poesia: in linea generale prima vedo se esiste una versione in prosa e a quanto pare nel 1220 tale Snorri Sturluson ha trascritto un bel po' di robina in prosa, appunto.

Perchè "a quanto pare"? Perchè, a dire il vero, quello che mi sono trovata tra le mani è più che altro una specie di saggio sulla mitologia scritto nel 1220, che è figo da morire ma dà un tantino per scontato che la maggior parte dei miti tu li conosca già. E parla anche un po' di metrica. E in quella parte volevo un po' spararmi, perchè anche se capisco l'interesse didattico per uno che parla di poesia otto secoli fa, io non ce l'ho e mi volevo leggere il materiale d'origine.
Che adesso possiedo, perchè il canzoniere eddico è arrivata l'altro giorno

La cosa più bella del libro è che comunque ti introduce nel mondo della mitologia nordica: il "protagonista" è Gangleri, fiero possessore di un nome pronunciabile che, trovandosi di fronte a tre figure mitologiche (che credo fosse Odino che trollava ma non ne sono sicura), si mette a fargli un terzo grado notevole per farsi spiegare vita morte e miracoli di tutto il pantheon, con approfondimenti su Asgard, il Valhalla e Ragnarok.
Per quello che mi riguarda la mitologia norrena è completamente folle e per questo bellissima, e credo che uno scoiattolo cosmico dovrebbe essere in tutte le religioni. Sì, c'è uno scoiattolo che vive su Yggdrasill e si chiama Ratatoskr. Il suo compito è divertentissimo: in cima all'albero ci sta un'aquila e tra i suoi occhi vive un falco, Veðrfölnir. Sotto l'albero ci sta un serpente, Níðhöggr, e si scambiano costantemente insulti tramite lo scoiattolo.

Ad Asgard tutto ha un nome proprio: sai quando ti dicono che non devi dare un nome sennò ti affezioni? Ecco, credo che sia simbolo della cazzutaggine vichinga il fatto che prima diano nomi alle cose e poi vadano allegramente a farle a pezzi, o a mangiarle, o tutte e due le cose.
Persino la caldaia del Valhalla può presentarsi: piacere, Eldhrìmnir. E hanno una capra, Léradhr, da cui mungono birra. Ho anche capito perchè gli dei più conosciuti sono Odino, Thor e Loki: altro che le storie che li vedono protagonisti, come fai a rendere Vafthrùdhnir commercialmente appetibile?

Scherzi a parte, l'Edda fa ben intuire che tipo di società fosse quella che l'ha creata: il mondo è nato letteralmente nel sangue, plasmato dal corpo di un gigante ucciso. La punizione inflitta a Loki è così terribile che finisce per sembrare sproporzionata: ho sempre creduto che stare legato sotto ad un serpente che ti sgocciola acido in faccia fosse abbastanza da incubo, ma sapere che le catene sono le interiora di suo figlio, ammazzato dal fratello trasformato in lupo da Odino proprio perchè sbranasse l'altro... ok, Loki sarà anche stato una merda fino a quel momento, ma inizio a pensare che avesse i suoi motivi per stare dalla parte dei cattivi quando si scatena Ragnarok.
Un po' come Hel, Fenrir e Iormungandr: visto che c'è una profezia che sostiene che faranno danno, diamogli un movente nel tentativo di fermarli. Insomma, ottima idea. Magari sarebbero stati malvagi comunque, ma così gli avete reso le cose un tantino facili, cari i miei Æsir. E Odino è il peggior zio del mondo, considerando che usa come destriero da battaglia uno dei suoi nipoti (c'è la storia in cui Loki si trasforma in giumenta e resta incinto/a di uno stallone, anche se credo che nessuno pensasse che sarebbe stato raggiunto davvero... ha senso quando lo leggi).

Però ci sono anche parti molto potenti, come la cronaca dettagliata di Ragnarok, chi morirà come, ed è sempre triste leggere della fine di un mondo, e pensare che questo popolo non concepiva come eterni neanche i loro dei. Non c'è nessuna speranza, perchè non viene descritto un conflitto finale o uin atto di chiusura come può essere la nostra Apocalisse (che è bella inquietante anche quella, eh): qui muoiono tutti. E io non ho potuto fare a meno di pensare... ma quanto era dura la vita di questa gente se anche la religione, che dovrebbe stare lì per dare speranza, forza e spiegare i misteri del mondo, va a finire male?

Lo consiglio? Nì. Per quello che mi riguarda non è la lettura adatta a chi vuole iniziarsi ai miti nordici. Magari ha più senso dopo il canzoniere eddico (vi farò sapere come va, con quello).
Ma in definitiva sono molto contenta di averlo letto.
E un giorno avrò un pesce rosso di nome Ratatoskr.

[Briynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been meaning to read both this and the Poetic Edda for a while now, and starting the Icelandic Sagas was just the kick in the pants I needed to do it. I felt like I could use some cultural context, and Snorri here provides it in spades. Norse mythology is fascinating in that it represents a belief-system that was actually practiced not so long ago, relatively speaking. Rome officially converted in the early 300s and I think that most of Europe outside the empire was at least nominally Christian by the 7th century or so. So, the fact that Scandinavia remained pagan until after the 1st millennium, and probably much longer than that in more remote areas, makes it rather unique.

There is a fun contrast between the grand designs and personalities of Norse mythology. Namely, the Norse understanding of the cosmos is beautiful and elegant; and its gods and other characters are rather not. Their construct of the universe centers around the tree Yggdrasil, the branches and roots of which support the nine worlds of men, gods, giants, elves, and the dead. A giant serpent gnaws on the root of the tree, threatening to destroy it, but the tree is kept alive by three Norns, who are analogous to the Fates. The Norse version of the apocalypse, Ragnarok, was my favorite of the stories. Ragnarok begins when Yggdrasil shudders, the Fenris-wolf is loosed in the world, and the giant serpent surrounding the earth joins his side. It culminates in the death of nearly all the gods and the destruction of the world in flames and floods. It gave me chills. I would love to know how much of the story is colored by Christian interpretations of older material and how much is just eerily similar to the apocalypse story in Revelations. That being said, there are probably only so many ways to have an Armageddon, so maybe the similarities are just natural.

The gods and goddesses and creatures that figure in these myths are definitely interesting, but they largely lack the polish of the creation and apocalypse myths. These are gods that were dreamed up by people who lived pretty darn close to the Arctic Circle before electricity; so logically, they are tough and brutal and just a little scary.

It kills me that people refer to Loki as a “trickster” god. It seems a little inappropriate to equate Loki’s bloody mayhem and maliciousness with schoolboy shenanigans. However, I fully accept that the Vikings and I may have somewhat different senses of humor. Although, considering that the gods did end up tying him to a rock with his son’s intestines so a snake could drip excruciating venom into his face for eternity, perhaps they didn’t find him all that funny either.

Next in line is Thor, who is kind of a jerk. He seems to be unduly popular considering that he’s constantly bashing people’s heads in with his hammer every time he gets a bit cross. Not very gentlemanly, but I suppose I do see the appeal that his temper and easily offended honor might have had to a society centered around warrior culture. His one redeeming moment came after Loki cut off all of Thor’s wife Sif’s pretty hair, and he threatened to break every bone in Loki’s body unless he swore to fix it. I actually found that quite sweet.

Odin is scary, but good. I think it’s the ravens that freak me out, or maybe the pet wolves. I’m also a little creeped out by his valkyries who swoop down and snatch men who have died in battle. On a side note, what an interesting conception of heaven Valhalla is: getting up in the morning, chopping your friends to bits with war-axes, and then sitting down to some serious mead-drinking by breakfast-time, all miraculously healed so you can do it all again tomorrow.

The goddesses were a little difficult to get a handle on, personality-wise. They seem to be less manipulative and horrible than their Greco-Roman counterparts, but that’s about all I could get. Frigg is the queen of the gods, and she sees everyone’s fate but tells no one. Freyja is the Aphrodite of the group, Hel guards the realm of the dead, and Idun possesses the magic that keeps the Æsir eternally young. There are others of course, but the women are just very remote in the stories.

At the very end, and completely unexpected, was the extremely melodramatic story of Sigurd, Gunnar, and Brynhild. I knew that old Wagner got it from somewhere, I just didn’t know it was from here. Ick. It’s not his fault, but Sigurd will only ever make me think of Nazis and bad, loud opera featuring hefty women in horned helmets.

Lots of fun, and definitely more my style than nymphs and satyrs frolicking in meadows.

[Sean Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I respect the Prose Edda as our main source of Norse mythology. That said, it is not particularly well written, its intention mostly being a lesson in poetry. As a fan of ancient myth and epics, I am the target audience and it did not land. That said, one interesting aspect is the references to Christianity that are shoe-horned into the text. In our time it might seem odd, but people do the same today. Austrian School economists try to explain the fall of Rome as caused by regulation and taxation while feminists and Marxists apply their ideas to eras where the terms feminism and Marxism did not exist. In Snorri's day it just happened to be Christianity.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Amazing piece of literature. Every time I finish reading one of these for the first time, I feel not as if I have accomplished a task, but been invited across a deep river to a faraway land. In this case, this river is black and icy and the land beyond it filled with Giants and their rocks and the gods in their mead-hall.

[Faerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnifique somme réunie par L'Aube des Peuples... Une plongée dans l'univers étrange et familier des vieilles légendes norroises, qui semblent encore à ce jour d'une étonnante actualité.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another splendid look at Icelandic and Old Norse Literature by UCLA professor Jesse L. Byock, who has become probably the most respected scholar in the area worldwide -- outside of perhaps Iceland.

Here are told all the tales of the Aesir, the Gods Odin, Thor, Loki, Freya -- and the eventual doom that overtakes their world at Ragnarok, when the Fenriswolf and the Midgard Serpent are loosed upon the world tree Yggdrasil.

There is an incredible pathos to Norse mythology. Odin sees and calmly discusses the end of him, the gods, and the world they inhabit.

[Ezgi Şenel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snorri Sturluson ve Joseph Campbell'i benzer zamanlarda okumak yaptığım deliliklerden biriydi. İkisi de akademik eserler yazmış ve arka planına hakim olmadığınız konulara denk gelince devasa boşluklarla karşılaşmanıza sebep oluyor. Yine de Viking Mitolojisine dair daha fazla araştırma ve okuma yapmış olduğum için görece daha rahat bir okumaydı. Özellikle şiirsel anlatımları okumak istediğim için bu dönemde önceliklendirdiğim bir kitaptı. İki kitabın çakışmasının sebebi yeni kurgum için yapılan ekstra okumalar arasına girmiş olmalarıydı diyebiliriz. Epey verimli bir okuma oldu. Varlığını korumak istedikleri kültüre şahitlik ederken bir yandan da dinin etkilerini takip edebildiğimiz bir eserdi.

Sadece Kahramanın Sonsuz Yolculuğu ile denk gelmesi veyahut dilin bir tık yabancı olması sebebiyle yer yer zorlanarak okudum. Kapağına vurulduğum bu kitaba dair beni üzen asıl unsursa yazım yanlışlarıyla dolu olması oldu. Umarım ilerleyen baskılarda bu duruma el atmışlardır.

[Mauro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastische introductie tot de Noordse mythologie!!

Het eerste deel (gylfaginning) biedt een veelomvattend overzicht van de Noordse mythologie en belicht zowat alle aspecten die ik (als nieuwkomer tot dit onderwerp) nodig had om de grote lijnen te snappen. Het hele eerste deel is een dialoog tussen de Zweedse koning Gylfi en de god Odin die de gedaante aanneemt van drie getroonde mannen die Gylfi zijn vragen beantwoorden. Omwille van de dialoog die gebruikt wordt, voelt de vertelling soms heel stroef en voorspelbaar, ook zorgt het dialogisch karakter ervoor dat de gebruikte stijl heel repetitief en soms zelfs saai is. Ondanks dit kon de inhoud van de verhalen me dan weer wel geamuseerd houden, dus hoedje af!!

Het tweede deel (skaldskaparmal) vertelt over de interacties tussen Goden en stervelingen. Dit leidt vaak tot interessant te noemen verhalen die me soms echt naar een muur hebben laten staren uit puur ongeloof over wat ik net gelezen had (ja, ik heb het over jou, Loki, met al je vreemde, vreemde fratsen).
Wel werden sommige van deze interacties tussen god en sterveling voor mij wat kort en ondiep uiteengezet waardoor we Snorri Sturluson wat minpunten moeten aanrekenen. Deze punten verdient hij dan wel direct terug omwille van zijn naam die klinkt als geen ander.

Ook al ben ik een student Zweeds (en zal ik dus alles wat Scandinavisch is, de hemel in prijzen) kan ik dit werk objectief, en met warme groet van Audhumla zelf, zeker en vast aanraden!!

[Iluvatar . · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 13th century Icelandic guy sitting in a cottage on a rainy day writing about Odin and all the crazy stuff he was told about through his life. Incredible

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the stories easier to follow than The Poetic Edda. Written in a prose style most of it is set out like a dialogue exchange between two people, one is enquiring about a whole assortment of things from how the world was made to who are the gods to why summers are hot compared to winters. My version, downloaded from Gutenberg, has two stories both in the same style, a question and answer format. Where they differ is the questioner, in The Fooling of Gylfe is King Gylfe he ruled lands now known as Sweden. Having heard about wise strangers coming to his land he visits them to discover more about his world. The second story Brage’s Talk is about Brage who speaks to Aeger wanting to know what happened to the asas, two of these are Odin & Loke.

I was impressed how this free book comes with: an introduction, a foreword, an afterword to The Fooling of Gylfe, an afterword to Brage’s Talk, extracts from the Poetical Diction, Notes, Vocabulary, and Index. And I was further impressed how it is formatted well to work on my kindle, where I could jump back and forth easily with working links.

It would be elsewhere I would discover Snorri (also spelt Snorre) Sturluson was an Icelandic poet in the 13thC. Concerned that skald, a poetry form, would become forgotten, Snorri set himself the task to compile and write book. As a book it seems like a religious text but the purpose behind it was to record this poetical form for generations to come. I did struggle to see this connection but accepted that I will grasp this as I continue to read books about and around this subject. For now, I was delighted to note this book describes a connection between the Norse gods, Troy and Aeneas; Robert Graves in The Greek Myths: Vol. 1 and The Greek Myths: Vol. 2 would be the first to confirm to me these old stories are connected.

I was dreading reading this book as I found The Poetic Edda tough, in comparison this was a lot easier. Also, the footnotes in this book references the verses in The Poetic Edda the prose here is describing, enabling me to feel more confident to read The Poetic Edda again.

[Mert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puanım 4/5 (%77/100)

Vikingler ve İskandinav mitolojisine dair bilinen birçok şey 12.yüzyılda yaşamış olan tarihçi, politikacı, şair ve yazar olan Snorri Sturluson'dan geliyor. Birçok kişi Nesir Edda'nın Sturluson tarafından yazıldığını düşünse de bunun için kesin bir kanıt yoktur. Yine de kendisi Nesir Edda üzerine birçok çalışma yapmış ve emek harcamıştır. Kitabı içindekiler kısmından yararlanarak anlatmaya çalışacağım.

Nesir Edda: Tarihsel Değeri ve Özellikleri kısmında adından da anlaşılacağı gibi Nesir Edda nedir, nasıl yazılmıştır, içinde ne tür şeyler vardır gibi birçok temel sorunun cevabını alıyoruz. Tartışmalara ve bilinmezliklere rağmen kesin olan tek şey Nesir Edda'nın üç parçadan oluştuğudur; Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál ve Háttatal. Bu kısa giriş bölümünde gerçekten tarihi yararlı bilgiler bulunuyor.

Snorri Sturluson ve Nesir Edda'nın Yazarlığı bölümünde Snorri Sturluson'un hayatı ve onun Nesir Edda üzerine olan çalışmalarını öğreniyoruz. Bu kısım da tarihi olarak büyük önem taşıyan bölümlerden.

Önsözden sonra gelen ve Nesir Edda'nın ilk bölümü olan Gylfaginning (Gylfi'nin Aldanışı) Kral Gylfi'nin hayatından başlayıp birçok şeyden bahsediyor. Zamanın en başlangıcından, tanrıların ve 9 diyarın doğuşundan, insanların ve diğer canlıların yaratılışı ve son olarak da her şeyin yok oluşu gibi İskandinav mitolojisine dair bilmeniz gereken birçok bilgi var. Şahsen benim kitapta en çok ilgimi çeken bu bölümdü.

Skáldskaparmál (Şiirsel Söyleyiş) ise İskandinav deniz denizi tanrısı Ægir ile şiir tanrısı olan Bragi ve şiirin doğası üzerine söyleminin bulunduğu bölümdür. Adından da anlaşıldığı gibi bu bölümde birçok karakterin birbirleri arasında diyalog şeklinde şiirsel konuşmaları var. Şiir ve edebi şeyleri seven kişilerin çok seveceği bir bölüm burası.

Nesir Edda'nın son bölümü olan Háttatal (Metreler Kataloğu) bu kitapta bulunmuyor. Kitabın son 20-30 sayfasında ise Kadim Norse Dili Hakkında Kısa Bilgi ve bunun dışında tanrı, tanrıça, yaratık ve yer isimleri hakkında ufak bilgiler bulunuyor. İskandinav mitolojisi ve Vikinglere ilgisi bulunan kişilerin okuması gereken bir kitap. Fakat bu konulara yeni giriş yapıyorsanız Neil Gaiman'ın İskandinav Mitolojisi'ni öneririm.

[Marco Tamborrino · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Lunga è una notte
lunga è la seconda,
come posso aspettare per tre?
Spesso un mese
mi sembrò più breve
che questa mezza notte d'attesa."

Non c'è molto da dire sull'Edda di Snorri. È una meravigliosa raccolta di miti norreni. Per gli amanti di Tolkien dovrebbe essere un must. Snorri racconta in modo poetico la mitologia islandese, la nascita degli dèi, le malefatte di Loki, le imprese di Thor. Un bellissimo e imperdibile gioiello di epica.

[Cwn_annwn_13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have an interest in mythology, Scandinavian culture, pre-Christian Indo-European worldview or an Odinist then this is a must read book. The translation itself is entertaining and easy to read. Overall you can't go wrong here.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tis a divinity shopping list. I'm in the lesser gods section.
They're on two for one.

*gets trolley rage at checkout*