This week we will continue our discussion of Viking Age related literature by entering the realm of the Edda and Eddic poetry. We will start by discussing an important Icelander named Snorri Sturluson, discussing the literature that has preserved much of our mythological material.

Contents:

1. Snorri Sturluson
2. What is an “Edda”?
3. Eddic Poetry
4. The Poetic Edda

Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241)

Snorri Sturluson was a prominent member of a powerful Icelandic family, the Sturlungs. He was an impressive person, being a lawyer, diplomat, poet, and also a scholar. He married up into wealth and literacy, working his way up. His prose writings are sprinkled with court poems and eddic poems that complement and complete them. His two major works are Heimskringla (a History of the Kings of Norway) and the Prose Edda. Without his knowledge and efforts, we would know much less about norse mythology and legends surrounding many notable figures of the Viking world. Although his texts are coated with popular legend and new ideals, his works retain a valuable historical memory. Despite his and Iceland’s transition to a new, Christian world, he was able to protect his traditions from being lost to time.

This view of Snorri and his accomplishments can be related to all saga authors and their writing. The sagas are all history that is intertwined with legends and drama. That does not make them useless, but rather valuable in a different sense. Many give Snorri a bad reputation, but in the end, his only goal was to emphasize the greatness of his people’s past in the eyes of a new kingdom. This was perhaps the goal for all saga writers.

What is an “Edda”?

The term Edda is not entirely well understood, for the origin of the term is unknown. However, there are two possibilities that I will share:

• Poetics
• Great-grandmother

Although it seems quite random, I can actually see a logical reason to call a book of lore and myth “great-grandmother”. I can see how Snorri saw the word as symbolic for the material. By the time Snorri was working, Iceland had been a Christian land for two-hundred years (though, likely still had some pagan traditions floating around). Calling a book “great-grandmother” would imply that these are the lords and legends brought down to them by their forefathers (in a sense). In reality, that is exactly what we have been left with when it comes to mythological material: stories from the previous generation. In a sense, the word works to play on the oral tradition that preserved the material to begin with. Think what you will, for I shall leave this open ended, but that is my take on the matter.

Eddic Poetry

Eddic poetry is considered to be the oldest material that we have written by the culture of the “Vikings” themselves. It is thought that these poems survived the transition of time better than others, carrying old stories that had long been established orally. Due to this thinking, they are often regarded as the most “accurate” pre-Christian source of religious belief that we have for the material they have to offer.

Eddic poetry takes a ballad form to tell a story by using mythological and legendary material. Most of this type of poetry is preserved in the Poetic Edda (Codex Regius). Some belief them to have old roots, carrying that tradition forward in a nearly pure form. Others believe them to be the artful work on contemporary writers in the thirteenth century. I believe their nature lies somewhere in between. They are the remnants of an old tradition, kept alive in the memory of the contemporary time that they were written.

Here is an example of some eddic poetry (Hávamál, st. 77):

Deyr fé, deyja frændr,
deyr sjálfr et sama;
ek veit einn, at aldri deyr:
dómr um dauðan hvern.

Cattle die, kinsmen die,
you yourself die;
I know one thing which never dies:
the judgment of a dead man’s life.

The benefit of poetry and its strict metre is that material generally must retain a specific format, helping to maintain its integrity as it passes through time. However, the issue is that poems mean riddles and multiple interpretations. Still, the material is quite valuable and was the basis for Snorri’s Prose Edda.

The Poetic Edda (Elder Edda, Sæmundar Edda)

The Poetic Edda is contained in the manuscript Codex Regius(King’s Book, Konungsbók, or GKS 2365 4º), compiled ca. 1270. It is a collection of 29 poems that cover mythological material and heroic legends. There is thought to have been more in this manuscript, but 8 of the 45 vellum leaves are now missing. I have covered the material of this book in a previous lesson, you can find this information at this link (Lesson 4). 

Some believe it to be a later copy of earlier work, which is something important to mention before I discuss the possible, original compliers. There are two candidates for the person who brought this material together: Snorri Sturluson and Sæmund the Wise (though more likely to be Sæmund). We already know about Snorri, so let’s take a moment to talk about Sæmund. He lived between 1056 and 1133 (a generation or so before Snorri). Like Snorri, he was a famous Icelandic scholar. It is most likely that he is the original complier and that Snorri worked off of his efforts to create the Prose Edda thereafter, providing Snorri a base to work off of. 

Regardless of who the author was, the material was meant to serve as a handbook to be used for the study of their old tradition. After all, these were Christians that wrote down the material. However, I cannot stress enough that this does not taint the information. They valued their traditions and culture and sought to elevate its status to match that of Greco-Roman material. The Icelanders generally speak very respectfully about their ancestors.

Key Terms:

1. Snorri Sturluson – A prominent thirteenth-century Icelandic lawyer, diplomat, poet, and scholar.
2. Sturlungs – Snorri Sturluson’s family, a wealthy and powerful Icelandic family during the thirteenth century.
3. Heimskringla – Snorri’s history on Norwegian kings.
4. Prose Edda – Snorri’s prose version of the mythological material. He used the eddic poems as a basis for this work.
5. Edda – Means either “poetics” or “great-grandmother”. It is the term used for books that compile mythological material.
6. Eddic Poetry – Believed to be the oldest poetry we have from the Icelanders. 29 of these are preserved in the Poetic Edda.
7. Poetic Edda – A compilation of 29 mythological and heroic poems.
8. Codex Regius – The name of the manuscript that contains the Poetic Edda.
9. Sæmund the Wise – A prominent Icelandic scholar of the twelfth century. The possible original compiler of Eddic poetry.

Wrap-up

Snorri Sturluson and the “Eddic Age” of literature provide a valuable insight to the historical memory of the thirteenth-centuy Icelanders that were responsible for preserving so much material. Eddic poetry is likely the oldest material that we have from the Icelanders themselves about their old mythological traditions. It is thanks to these poems that we know as much as we do about the norse mythological tradition. Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask.

Next week’s lesson: Literature and the Sagas, Part III: Skalds and Skaldic Poetry. [multi-part lesson series]

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Sources

1. Jennifer Dukes-Knight, “Literature and the Sagas.” Lecture, Viking History, University of South Florida, 2015.
2. Image of Snorri Sturluson: Christian Krogh: Illustration for Heimskringla 1899-edition. (link)
3. Geir T. Zoëga, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004), 102.
4. Carolyne Larrington trans., The Poetic Edda. (Oxford World’s Classics, 1999), 77.