Edda

• 1. Introduction

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  Edda is an Old Norse word, and its Old Norse plural is Eddur. Modern scholars use it as a shared label for two medieval Icelandic works. Both were recorded in Iceland in the 13th century. Yet they carry material from older traditional sources that reach back into the Viking Age. Together they are the main sources for Norse mythology and for the skaldic tradition of medieval Iceland. One of them is a collection of poems that never had a title of its own. The other is a manual by a known author. Even the origin of the word is disputed. Why does one name cover two such different books? What was the manual meant to teach? And why did the poems have to be brought back to Iceland as late as the twentieth century?

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• 2. Five Guesses

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  At least five hypotheses try to explain where the word edda came from. The first links it to a word meaning "great-grandmother" that appears in the Eddic poem Rígsþula. A second traces it to the Old Norse óðr, which meant "poetry".

  In 1895 Eiríkr Magnússon proposed a third origin in the Icelandic place name Oddi. That was the site of a church and school where students were educated, Snorri Sturluson among them.

  A fourth hypothesis reaches for the Latin edo, "I compose (poetry)". On this view Edda was the name of Snorri Sturluson's treatise on poetry. The parallel offered is kredda, "superstition", which comes from the Latin credo, "creed". This idea is now widely accepted. Yet that acceptance may come from its fit with modern usage rather than from historical accuracy.

  The fifth hypothesis starts from a fashion for giving Icelandic manuscripts bird titles. The legal code Grágás means "grey goose". Gullfjǫðr means "gold feather", possibly a quill. Hryggjar-stykki names a kind of duck. Edda would suit æðr, the eider duck, as a pet name. That would make Edda a "little eider duck", an analog of Grágás.

  For a long time the word named only the Prose Edda. Scholars have abandoned that narrow usage because it caused confusion with the older collection of poems, which is where the story goes next.

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• 3. Gods and Heroes

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  Ten songs about gods open the Poetic Edda, a collection also known as Sæmundar Edda or the Elder Edda. The poems come from the medieval Icelandic manuscript called Codex Regius, which means "Royal Book". This first part narrates how the Old Norse mythological world was created, how it is foretold to be destroyed, and how it is reborn. It also tells individual myths about the gods.

  Nineteen songs about heroes make up the second part. Its legends follow heroes and heroines such as Sigurd, Brynhildr and Gunnar.

  Alongside the Prose Edda, this collection is the most expansive source on Norse mythology. The manuscript that preserves it has an unusual travel record, and the record begins only in the 17th century.

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• 4. The Royal Book

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  In 1643 the Codex Regius comes into view, owned by Brynjólfur Sveinsson, then the Church of Iceland's Bishop of Skálholt. Nothing is known of where it had been before that year. At the time, versions of the Prose Edda were well known in Iceland. Scholars suspected that an older Edda had once existed, containing the pagan poems that Snorri quotes in his book. The discovery of the Codex Regius seemed to prove them right.

  Brynjólfur attributed the manuscript to Sæmundr the Learned, a larger-than-life Icelandic priest of the 12th century. Modern scholars reject that attribution. The name Sæmundar Edda is nevertheless still sometimes encountered.

  Bishop Brynjólfur sent the manuscript as a present to King Christian IV of Denmark, which is how it earned the name Codex Regius. For centuries it was kept in the Royal Library in Copenhagen. In 1971 it was returned to Iceland.

  The book that had sent scholars hunting for this older collection was Snorri's own, and it was written for a very practical purpose.

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• 5. Snorri's Handbook

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  Around 1220 the Icelandic scholar and historian Snorri Sturluson wrote the Prose Edda, also called the Younger Edda or Snorri's Edda. It is a manual of poetics that also contains many mythological stories. Its purpose was to help Icelandic poets and readers grasp the subtleties of alliterative verse. It also explained the mythological allusions behind the many kennings, the layered poetic phrases used in skaldic poetry.

  The work survives in four known manuscripts and three fragments. They were written down over a long stretch of time, from about 1300 to about 1600.

  The book has a Prologue and three separate parts. Gylfaginning concerns the creation of the Norse mythical world and its foretold destruction and rebirth. Skáldskaparmál is a dialogue between Ægir, a Norse god connected with the sea, and Bragi, the skaldic god of poetry.

  The last part, Háttatal, moves from stories to craft. It demonstrates verse forms, showing poets the patterns of the art itself.

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