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The great poetic tradition of pre-Christian Scandinavia is known to us almost exclusively though the Poetic Edda. The poems originated in Iceland, Norway, and Greenland between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, when they were compiled in a unique manuscript known as the Codex Regius. The poems are primarily lyrical rather than narrative. Terry's readable translation includes the magnificent cosmological poem Völuspá ("The Sibyl's Prophecy"), didactic poems concerned with mythology and the everyday conduct of life, and heroic poems, of which an important group is concerned with the story of Sigurd and Brynhild. Poems of the Elder Edda will appeal to students of Old Norse, Icelandic, and Medieval literature, as well as to general readers of poetry.… (more)
User reviews
But the time had come for me to read the Viking-era myths, so I gave the Poetic Edda a read. Some takeaways:
1) I knew that "trolls" had some sort of representation in the Norse era. I did not realize how often the word would be used (alongside others such as "thurs") as a synonym for "giant" (Hollander's "etins"). I also did not realize that the same rule found in Asbjørnsen and Moe, that trolls turn to stone when exposed to daylight, was present in Viking times. I thought that was a development from eight hundred years later.
2) I found that I didn't care much for the Óthin. I found him sinister, not what I would expect for a king of gods. Conversely, I found Thór completely likeable. No wonder the common people in ancient times worshipped Thór, leaving Óthin to the Viking warriors and ruling class.
3) I've read "The Volsunga Saga" before, and I didn't like it. Nor did I like the Sigurd lays in this Edda. I think that, out of all the Old Norse material, the Volsungs story has the least connection to modern Scandinavia.
4) Lee Hollander refers to many different scholars in his translation, but the two that he seems to appreciate the most (based on the quantity of his footnote references) are Sophus Bugge and N.F.S. Grundtvig. There was a coffee shop in Oslo called "Bugges" (Bugge's) that I became fond of while visiting cousins a few years ago (they told me at the time that it was named after a famous writer). And as a Lutheran, I'm very familiar with some of Grundtvig's hymnody ("Built on a rock, the church shall stand, even as temples are falling" and "Den signede dag"). I had no idea that Grundtvig the theologian was also Grundtvig the Norse mythology buff. It was fun to make these two connections.