Poetic Edda

“ Was this mythology transmitted by oral tradition only?
[Pg 239] Ans. This must have been the case for a long time; as the oldest of the Eddas was compiled only in the eleventh century, and the stories which it contains of the Northern gods and heroes, had been long familiar to the people in the recitations of their bards. The Scandinavian Skalds or bards were, like the Celtic, historians as well as minstrels.
Ques. Who composed the Eddas?
Ans. It is impossible to say. The oldest, or poetic Edda, was compiled by Sâmund Sigfûsson, an Icelandic priest, about the middle of the eleventh century. ”

“ Helgakviða Hiörvarðs Sonar, the Song of Helgi, the Son of Hiörvarð, which is largely in prose, celebrates the wooing by Helgi of Svava, who, like Atalanta, ends by loving the man with whom she has fought in battle. Two Songs of Helgi the Hunding's Bane, Helgakviða Hundingsbana, open the long and very important series of lays relating to the two heroic families of the Völsungs and the Niblungs. Including the poems just mentioned, there are about twenty distinct pieces in the poetic Edda which deal more or less directly with this chain of stories. ”

“ This type of poetry is marked by an extraordinary complexity of diction, with a peculiarly difficult vocabulary of its own. It was to explain some of the "kennings" which composed this special vocabulary that Snorri wrote one of the sections of the Prose Edda. As an illustration, in a single stanza of one poem in the Egilssaga, a sword is called "the halo of the helnn," "the wound-hoe," "the blood-snake" (possibly; no one is sure what the compound word means) and "the ice of the girdle," while men appear in the same stanza as "Othin's ash-trees," and battle is spoken of as "the iron game." ”

“ These are the only MSS. older than the 17th century which contain a collection of the ancient mythico-heroic lays, but fragments occur in various other works, and especially in the Edda of Snorri. It is believed to have been written between 1260 and 1280. The poetic Edda was translated into English verse by Amos Cottle in 1797; the poet Gray produced a version of the Vegtamskviða; but the first good translation of the whole was that published by Benjamin Thorpe in 1866. ”

“ The Eddic poems are “folk-poetry,”—whatever that may be,—only in the sense that some of them strongly reflect racial feelings and beliefs; they are anything but crude or primitive in workmanship, and they show that not only the poets themselves, but also many of their hearers, must have made a careful study of the art of poetry. ”

“ The religion of the Scandinavians is contained in the Eddas, which are two,—the poetic, or elder Edda, consisting of thirty-seven poems, first collected and published at the end of the eleventh century; and the younger, or prose Edda, ascribed to the celebrated Snorro Sturleson, born of a distinguished Icelandic family in the twelfth century, who, after leading a turbulent and ambitious life, and being twice chosen supreme magistrate, was killed A.D. 1241. The principal part of the prose Edda is a complete synopsis of Scandinavian mythology. ”

“ Rig: almost certainly based on the Old Irish word for “king,” “ri” or “rig.”
1. No gap is indicated, but editors have generally assumed one. Some editors, however, add line 1 of stanza 2 to stanza 1. [204]
2. Most editions make line 5 a part of the stanza, as here, but some indicate it as the sole remnant of one or more stanzas descriptive of Ai and Edda, just as Afi and Amma, Fathir and Mothir, are later described. ”

“ The greatest in volume is made up of the sagas: narratives mainly in prose, ranging all the way from authentic history of the Norwegian kings and the early Icelandic settlements to fairy-tales. Embodied in the sagas is found the material composing the second group: the skaldic poetry, a vast collection of songs of praise, triumph, love, lamentation, and so on, almost uniformly characterized by an appalling complexity of figurative language. There is no absolute line to be drawn between the poetry of the skalds and the poems of the Edda, which we may call the third group ”

“ At the beginning of the collection in the Codex Regius stands the Voluspo, the most famous and important, as it is likewise the most debated, of all the Eddic poems. Another version of it is found in a huge miscellaneous compilation of about the year 1300, the Hauksbok, and many stanzas are included in the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson. The order of the stanzas in the Hauksbok version differs materially from that in the Codex Regius, and in the published editions many experiments have been attempted in further rearrangements. ”

“ The poet has added characters, apparently of his own creation, for the sake of episodes which would appeal to both the men and the women of the Greenland settlement. Sea voyages take the place of journeys by land; Atli is reproached, not for cowardice in battle, but for weakness at the Thing or great council. The additions made by the poet are responsible for the Atlamol’s being the longest of all the heroic poems in the Eddic collection, and they give it a kind of emotional vividness, but it has little of the compressed intensity of the older poems. ”

“ Heithrun: the she-goat who lives on the twigs of the tree Lærath (presumably the ash Yggdrasil) , and daily gives mead which, like the boar’s flesh, suffices for all the heroes in Valhall. In Snorri’s Edda Gangleri foolishly asks whether the heroes drink water, whereto Har replies, “Do you imagine that Othin invites kings and earls and other noble men, and then gives them water to drink?”
26. Eikthyrnir (“The Oak-Thorned,” i.e., with antlers, “thorns,” like an oak) : this animal presumably represents the clouds. The first line, like that of stanza 25, is too long in the original. Lærath: cf. ”

“ Bragi: the god of poetry. He is one of the later figures among the gods, and is mentioned only three times in the poems of the Edda. In Snorri’s Edda, however, he is of great importance. His wife is Ithun, goddess of youth. Perhaps the Norwegian skald Bragi Boddason, the oldest recorded skaldic poet, had been traditionally apotheosized as early as the tenth century. Hobrok: nothing further is known of him. Garm: cf. Voluspo, 44.
45. With this stanza the narrative current of the poem is resumed. Ægir: the sea-god; cf. Lokasenna, introductory prose. ”

“ There is also some resemblance between the Thrymskvitha and the Lokasenna (note, in this connection, Bugge’s suggestion that the Skirnismol and the Lokasenna may have been by the same man) , and it is not impossible that all four poems have a single authorship.
The Thrymskvitha has been preserved in excellent condition, without any serious gaps or interpolations. In striking contrast to many of the poems, it contains no prose narrative links, the story being told in narrative verse—a rare phenomenon in the poems of the Edda.
[Contents]
1. ”

“ The story of Sigurth is the basis for most of the heroic poems of the Edda, of the famous Volsungasaga, and, in Germany, of the Nibelungenlied. On his battle with the dragon Fafnir cf. Fafnismol.
26. Volsung: Sigurth’s grandfather and Othin’s great-grandson. Hjordis: daughter of King Eylimi, wife of Sigmund and mother of Sigurth. Othlings: cf. stanza 11.
27. Gunnar, Hogni, and Guthrun: the three children of the Burgundian king Gjuki and his wife Grimhild (Kriemhild) ”

“ Grimnismol, 29–35 and notes, wherein Yggdrasil is described at length.
3. Ymir: the giant out of whose body the gods made the world; cf. Vafthruthnismol, 21. In this stanza as quoted in Snorri’s Edda the first line runs: “Of old was the age | ere aught there was.” Yawning gap: this phrase, “Ginnunga-gap,” is sometimes used as a proper name.
4. Bur’s sons: Othin, Vili, and Ve. Of Bur we know only that his wife was Bestla, daughter of Bolthorn; cf. Hovamol, 141. Vili and Ve are mentioned by name in the Eddic poems only in Lokasenna, 26. Mithgarth (“Middle Dwelling”) : the world of men. ”

“ Othin’s eight-footed horse, Sleipnir, is not mentioned in this list.
31. The first of these roots is the one referred to in stanza 26; the second in stanza 29 (cf. notes) . Of the third root there is nothing noteworthy recorded. After this stanza it is more than possible that one has been lost, paraphrased in the prose of Snorri’s Edda thus: “An eagle sits in the branches of the ash-tree, and he is very wise ”

“ There is a loftiness of stature, and a firmness of muscle about it which no poets of the same race have ever since reached. The only production since, that can be compared with the Elder Edda in profoundness of thought, is that of Shakespeare, the Hercules or Thor in English literature, that heroic mind of divine lineage which passed through the hell-gates of the Roman school-system unscathed. The obscurity which still hangs over some parts of the Elder Edda, like the deep shadows crouching amid the ruins of the past, is the result of neglect, and will in due time be removed ”

“ The long neglect of these precious records of our heathen ancestors is not the fault of the material in which all that survives of their religious belifes is enshrined, for it may safely be asserted that the Edda is as rich in the essentials of national romance and race-imagination, rugged though it be, as the more graceful and idyllic mythology of the South. ”

“ The Edda-songs are as a rule noble and simple in style, but even here, especially in the youngest of them, those artificial tendencies begin to show themselves, which are so conspicuous and common in the compositions of the skalds, that they, considered as a whole, constitute one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of literature. The fundamental principle of this abnormity is found in all poetry. The poets of all lands and ages have striven to ornament and elevate their style by the use of figurative expressions ”

“ Only a small part of the ancient poetry that arose in this way has been preserved. From prose interpolations which supply breaks in the continuity of the lays in the 'Elder Edda' itself, as well as from isolated strophes of old poems, else unknown, quoted in Snorri's 'Edda,' and from the citation and use of such poetical material in sagas and histories,—we know for a certainty that many other lays in the ancient manner once existed that have now been for all time lost. ”

“ The true Edda, or Younger Edda, is a prose collection, giving a history of the world and the gods. The Elder Edda is a collection of poems, dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. Many of them are only fragments. They treat of mythical and religious legends of an early Scandinavian civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic form of Icelandic verse. ”

“ He is the warder of the gods, and is therefore placed on the borders of heaven to prevent the giants from forcing their way over the bridge. He requires less sleep than a bird and sees by night as well as by day a hundred miles around him. So acute is his ear that no sound escapes him, for he can even hear the grass growing on the earth and the wool on a sheep’s back. He has a horn called Gjallar-horn, which is heard throughout the universe. Thus the Elder Edda, in the lay of Grimner:
’Tis Himminbjorg called
Where Heimdal they say
Hath dwelling and rule. ”

“ From other sources we may add other poems which are Eddic, not Skaldic, in style, in which other heroic cycles are represented. The great majority of the poems deal with the favourite story of the Volsungs, which threatens to swamp all the rest; for one hero after another, Burgundian, Hun, Goth, was absorbed into it. The poems in this part of the MS. differ far more widely in date and style than do the mythological ones; many of the Volsung-lays are comparatively late, and lack the fine simplicity which characterises the older popular poetry. ”

“ Much of the Norse wisdom consists in a shrewd wariness. Contempt for the chattering fool runs through the Edda. [22] Let a man be chary of speech and in action unflinching. Eddic poetry is full of action; even its didactic pieces are dramatic. The Edda is as hard as steel. In the mythological pieces the action has the ruthlessness of the elements, while the stories of conduct show elemental passions working in elemental strength. ”

“ There is with them more art and more self-consciousness, and they give a satisfactory and final poetical shape to these things, extracting pure comedy from them.
The perfection of this ironical method is to be found in the Edda, a handbook of the Art of Poetry, written in the thirteenth century by a man of liberal genius, for whom the Æsir were friends of the imagination, without any prejudice to the claims of the Church [Pg 43] or of his religion. In the view of Snorri Sturluson, the old gods are exempt from any touch of controversy. Belief has nothing to do with them; they are free. ”

“ About the year 1077, Sæmund compiled the first or Metrical Edda, containing, among other valuable documents, the "Voluspa," a poem whose language indicates a very remote origin [307:A] , and where we find a minute and accurate description of the Duergar or Fairies, who are divided into two classes, of which the individuals are even carefully named and enumerated, a catalogue which is augmented in the Prose Edda composed by Snorro in 1215 [307:B] , and still further increased in the "Scalda," written, it is supposed, about a year or two afterwards. ”

“ When we, therefore, consider that within the group of Edda-poems itself it is easy to point out, relatively speaking, older and younger lays, poems, on the one hand, which by their very spirit and accent betray the fact that they belong to the restless, bloody age of the vikings, and poems, on the other hand, which bear testimony of an earlier and more refined culture ”