Prose Edda

(Snorra Edda, Younger Edda)

   by Snorri Sturluson

(ca. 1225)

   The Prose Edda, or the Edda of SNORRI STURLUSON (Snorra Edda), is a 13th-century handbook of mythology and of poetics, written in part to instruct and support young poets in the practice of SKALDIC POETRY, the extremely complex Old Norse court poetry of the late Middle Ages. Snorri’s Edda is made up of four parts: a prologue, an outline of mythology called the Gylfaginning, a rhetorical handbook called Skáldskaparmál, and an exemplary poem and metrical commentary called the Háttatal. The text survives in four manuscripts and several fragments, and is the only medieval source containing the whole of Norse mythology. Often mistakenly referred to as the “Younger” Edda, Snorri’s text was apparently actually written before the POETIC EDDA or “Elder” Edda, the compilation of which was probably inspired by the interest in older Norse verse sparked by Snorri’s text. The sections of the Edda were probably composed in reverse order from where they occur in the text. Probably the first written, in the early 1220s, the Háttatal is a poem of 102 strophes or stanzas, and is a rather conventional poem of praise addressed to King Hakon Hakonarson of Norway and his kinsman Jarl Skúli, whom Snorri had met on his visit to Norway in 1218–20. But the poem is remarkable in that each strophe is written in a different skaldic meter, or variation of some meter or use of language. The poem is accompanied by Snorri’s prose commentary explaining the various aspects of versification illustrated in the poem.

   Snorri probably next wrote the longest section of the Edda, the Skáldskaparmál (Poetic diction). This section is devoted mainly to the devices of KENNING (the conventional truncated metaphor of Germanic poetry, so highly complex and allusive in skaldic verse), and the heiti (names) or poetic synonyms that were so much a part of this poetry. Snorri enumerates kennings for Norse gods and goddesses, poetry, gold, men, battles, weapons, ships, Christ, and kings. He also lists heiti for gods and aspects of the universe, animals, the sea, kings, men, and women. Because the kennings in particular are so highly allusive, Snorri includes a number of mythological stories in the Skáldskaparmál to explain the point of those kennings. Thus, for example, Snorri explains why gold is referred to as “Kraki’s seed” by recounting the legend of the Danish king Hrolf Kraki, who, being pursued by the Swedish king Adils and his warriors, eluded them by sowing the ground with gold in order to entice the Swedes into stopping to pick it. Having completed his discussion of rhetorical figures in the Skáldskaparmál, Snorri apparently decided that a full review of Norse mythology was necessary for a skaldic poet to be effective, and therefore composed the Gylfaginning (The deluding of Gylfi). In this section, the Swedish king Gylfi confronts three wizards, wagering his head in a contest of the knowledge of mythic lore. As they ask one another questions, a comprehensive narrative summary of Norse mythology emerges, from the origins of the universe and the identity of the gods and goddesses, to a description of Odin’s great hall Valhalla, to adventures of the gods Thor and Freyr, to the death of the god Baldr and ragnarok, the downfall and death of the gods.

   The part of the Edda that Snorri probably wrote last is the prologue. Possibly in anticipation of disapproval from the Icelandic church, Snorri downplays Norse mythology in his prologue, asserting the truth of the Christian account of Creation, but explaining that, having lost sight of the true religion, the northern European pagans derived their view of the gods from ancient legendary kings and heroes (named Odin, Thor, and the like) who emigrated into Europe from Asia, and hence were called Aesir (the Old Norse word for “gods”). There is no historical basis for Snorri’s account, but it served his purpose of disavowing any serious belief in the myths he related.

   Much of what we know about skaldic poetry and about the complex metrics and metaphors involved in its practice come from Snorri’s Edda. In addition, poems, or fragments of poems, by some of the very early Norse poets, including the first known skald, Bragi the Old, survive—sometimes exclusively—in Snorri’s text. The Prose Edda is one of the most valuable literary texts of Old Norse literature—perhaps of all medieval European literature.

   Bibliography

   ■ Ciklamini, Marlene. Snorri Sturluson. Boston: Twayne, 1978.

   ■ Ross, Margaret Clunies. Skáldskaparmál: Snorri Sturluson’s Ars Poetica and Medieval Theories of Language. Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1987.

   ■ Sturluson, Snorri. Edda. Edited and translated by Anthony Faulkes. London: Dent, 1987.