The Poetic Edda: A Collection of Old Norse Poems

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The poems cover diverse subjects, including the creation, destruction and rebirth of the world, the dealings of gods such as Óðinn, Þórr and Loki with giants and each other, and the more intimate, personal tragedies of the hero Sigurðr, his wife Guðrún and the valkyrie Brynhildr. This book is really a 4-in-1 omnibus of Norse mythology and ancient Norse writings which really helps provide context for the myths. Several versions of the Poetic Edda exist: especially notable is the medieval Icelandic manuscript Codex Regius, which contains 31 poems. While the book might not dive deep into academic analysis, it offers an approachable introduction to the rich world of Norse tales. The requirements of the verse form were so demanding that occasionally the text of the poems had to run parallel, with one thread of syntax running through the on-side of the half-lines, and another running through the off-side.

At the time, versions of the Prose Edda were known in Iceland, but scholars speculated that there once was another Edda, an Elder Edda, which contained the pagan poems that Snorri quotes in his Prose Edda. The alliteration and onomatopoeia, combined with an uplifting and heart-warming story, make this a joy to read.The few demonstrably historical characters mentioned in the poems, such as Attila, provide a terminus post quem of sorts. Eddic poetry is to indebted narratives describing heroes, which was part of a long oral tradition, as well as textual. The poems here reflect the dramatic and often violent nature of the sagas: their subject matter features Viking Age shipboard adventures and shipwrecks; prophecies; curses; declarations of love and of revenge; duels, feuds and battles; encounters with ghosts; marital and family discord; and religious insults, among many other topics. I ask the tester of monks (God) for a safe journey; the lord of the palace of the high ground (God — here we have a kenning in four parts) keep the seat of the falcon (hand) over me.

Most of the Old Norse poetry that survives was composed or committed to writing in Iceland, after refined techniques for writing (such as the use of vellum, parchment paper, pens, and ink) were introduced—seemingly contemporaneously with the introduction of Christianity: thus, the general topic area of Old Norse poetry may be referred to as Old Icelandic poetry in literature. She who wore the necklace bade me to bear my head high in battle, when the battle-ice [a gleaming sword] seeks to shatter skulls. There are bright and colourful illustrations throughout the book, which all readers will find enchanting, including a great flashback to the postie's youthful Christmases, and a picture of all the woodland friends pulling together to get the party ready, not to mention the fireworks themselves at the end. The mythological topics of Eddic poetry most importantly include Norse mythology, however other types of mythology are also involved, including various other Germanic traditions, probable Christian ideas, and a wide range of other possibilities.

We learn much about these in the Hattatal: [14] Snorri gives for certain at least three different variant-forms of hrynhenda. Atlakvið in groenlenzka, Atlamál in groenlenzko, Frá Guðrúno, Guðrúnarhvot, Hamðismál, ISBN 978-3825359973). His Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is a verse retelling or reconstruction of the Nibelung poems from the Edda (see Völsunga saga), composed in the Eddaic fornyrðislag metre.

There were a number of variant stanza forms based on ljóðaháttr, including galdralag ("incantation meter"), which adds a fifth short (three-lift) line at the end of the stanza; in this form, the fifth line usually echoes the fourth.Old Norse poetry developed from the common Germanic alliterative verse, and as such has many commonalities with Old English, Old Saxon, and Old High German poetry, including alliteration, poetic circumlocutions termed kennings, and an expansive vocabulary of poetic synonyms, termed heiti. The heroic lays are to be seen as a whole in the Edda, but they consist of three layers: the story of Helgi Hundingsbani, the story of the Nibelungs, and the story of Jörmunrekkr, king of the Goths. The large majority of works described as "Eddic" are found only in the Codex Regius, while a few of the poems found in it also survive in independent recensions in the AM 748 I 4to manuscript.