The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology

Written by Iceland's most versatile literary genius, Snorri Sturluson's "Prose Edda" is a work without predecessor or parallel. Snorri was born in western Iceland in 1179, the son of a great chieftain, and early in his career won a reputation at home and in Norway for his poetic talents. Later he traveled to Norway and wrote the lives of the kings: the "Heimskringla Saga", "Egil's Saga", and "St. Olaf's Saga", a work unsurpassed in Icelandic prose. The "Prose Edda" — "edda" means "the poetic art” — was designed as a handbook for poets to compose in the style of the skalds of the Viking ages. Snorri feared that the traditional techniques, the pagan kennings, and the allusions to mythology would be forgotten with the introduction of new verse forms from Europe. Arranged in three parts, "The Prose Edda" is an exposition of the rules of poetic diction with many examples, applications, and retellings of myths and legends. The first part is the "Gylfaginning", "The Deluding of Gylfi", a guide to mythology that forms one of the great story books of the Middle Ages. The second part, the "Skaldskaparmal", "Poetic Diction", gives examples of technical expressions such as kennings. The third part, the "Hattatal", a long poem written in honor of King Hakon and Duke Skuli, is omitted in this translation. The present selection includes the whole of "The Deluding of Gylfi" and the longer heroic tales and legends interspersed in the illustrations of "Poetic Diction". Snorri Sturluson was a master storyteller and this translation in modern idiom of his inimitable tales of the gods and heroes of the Scandinavian peoples brings them to life again for their own sakes.