Edda

Translated and edited by Anthony Faulkes. It too comes from the thirteenth century. The author was an Icelandic law-speaker, a chief, and a deeply involved scholar interested in the retention of the old forms of pre-Christian poetry. Why should you look at this if you have done the Elder Edda? A good question, especially since in many ways Snorri’s version is longer. And that is the reason. If you noticed that the Tree churches (stave churches) have snakes on the roof, that is something Snorri notes about the Tree Yggdrasil, that the snakes in the branches will forever gnaw away… show more.

This is a distinct book from the Poetic Edda, and this "Edda" is usually called the Prose Edda for clarity (unfortunately the terminology around these books is somewhat confusing and conflicting, and varies from scholar to scholar). Written by Snorri Sturluson, an Icelandic scholar and chieftain in the 1220s, in some senses the Prose Edda is really a secondary source since Snorri sought to explain the myths encoded in the already old poems of the Poetic Edda (which he knew) to a younger generation that was forgetting them. In the process, he also tells stories that did not make it… show more.