I’ve been meaning to read both this and the Poetic Edda for a while now, and starting the Icelandic Sagas was just the kick in the pants I needed to do it. I felt like I could use some cultural context, and Snorri here provides it in spades. Norse mythology is fascinating in that it represents a belief-system that was actually practiced not so long ago, relatively speaking. Rome officially converted in the early 300s and I think that most of Europe outside the empire was at least nominally Christian by the 7th century or so. So, the fact that Scandinavia remained pagan until after the 1st millennium, and probably much longer than that in more remote areas, makes it rather unique. There is a fun contrast between the grand designs and personalities of Norse mythology. Namely, the Norse understanding of the cosmos is beautiful and elegant; and its gods and other characters are rather not. Their construct of the universe centers around the tree Yggdrasil, the branches and roots of which support the nine worlds of men, gods, giants, elves, and the dead. A giant serpent gnaws on the root of the tree, threatening to destroy it, but the tree is kept alive by three Norns, who are analogous to the Fates. The Norse version of the apocalypse, Ragnarok, was my favorite of the stories. Ragnarok begins when Yggdrasil shudders, the Fenris-wolf is loosed in the world, and the giant serpent surrounding the earth joins his side. It culminates in the death of nearly all the gods and the destruction of the world in flames and floods. It gave me chills. I would love to know how much of the story is colored by Christian interpretations of older material and how much is just eerily similar to the apocalypse story in Revelations. That being said, there are probably only so many ways to have an Armageddon, so maybe the similarities are just natural. The gods and goddesses and creatures that figure in these myths are definitely interesting, but they largely lack the polish of the creation and apocalypse myths. These are gods that were dreamed up by people who lived pretty darn close to the Arctic Circle before electricity; so logically, they are tough and brutal and just a little scary. It kills me that people refer to Loki as a “trickster” god. It seems a little inappropriate to equate Loki’s bloody mayhem and maliciousness with schoolboy shenanigans. However, I fully accept that the Vikings and I may have somewhat different senses of humor. Although, considering that the gods did end up tying him to a rock with his son’s intestines so a snake could drip excruciating venom into his face for eternity, perhaps they didn’t find him all that funny either. Next in line is Thor, who is kind of a jerk. He seems to be unduly popular considering that he’s constantly bashing people’s heads in with his hammer every time he gets a bit cross. Not very gentlemanly, but I suppose I do see the appeal that his temper and easily offended honor might have had to a society centered around warrior culture. His one redeeming moment came after Loki cut off all of Thor’s wife Sif’s pretty hair, and he threatened to break every bone in Loki’s body unless he swore to fix it. I actually found that quite sweet. Odin is scary, but good. I think it’s the ravens that freak me out, or maybe the pet wolves. I’m also a little creeped out by his valkyries who swoop down and snatch men who have died in battle. On a side note, what an interesting conception of heaven Valhalla is: getting up in the morning, chopping your friends to bits with war-axes, and then sitting down to some serious mead-drinking by breakfast-time, all miraculously healed so you can do it all again tomorrow. The goddesses were a little difficult to get a handle on, personality-wise. They seem to be less manipulative and horrible than their Greco-Roman counterparts, but that’s about all I could get. Frigg is the queen of the gods, and she sees everyone’s fate but tells no one. Freyja is the Aphrodite of the group, Hel guards the realm of the dead, and Idun possesses the magic that keeps the Æsir eternally young. There are others of course, but the women are just very remote in the stories. At the very end, and completely unexpected, was the extremely melodramatic story of Sigurd, Gunnar, and Brynhild. I knew that old Wagner got it from somewhere, I just didn’t know it was from here. Ick. It’s not his fault, but Sigurd will only ever make me think of Nazis and bad, loud opera featuring hefty women in horned helmets. Lots of fun, and definitely more my style than nymphs and satyrs frolicking in meadows.
Naturally my review has turned out to be too long, so I'll post what I can and then post the rest as comments. And if anyone in a position of power at goodreads sees this, please give us more room to write!An excellent translation of Snorri's Edda, or the Prose Edda. I hear Jesse Byock has a translation out as well which I'll have to check out, but I see no reason for the beginner to try anything other than Faulkes'-- at the very least, I believe his academic work has had him more involved in research on Edda than Byock's, but I could be wrong. Of course, I know Byock's been doing some work on oral history that could be considered relevant to Edda, but as far as that whole topic goes I recommend Gisli Sigurdsson instead. I believe Faulkes takes the majority or all of his translation from the Codex Regius manuscript, which is the primary one. As another review has said, Faulkes is one of the few translators to include Skaldskaparmal, which contains many of the most important stories. Well, some older translations include the interesting bits but leave out the rest. But with Faulkes you get the whole thing, and it serves as a reminder that Edda was not written as a handbook on mythology, but as a Poetics-- in fact, I believe Faulkes subscribes (as I do) to the idea that "Edda" (the book is named this in the Uppsala codex-- the name for Poetic or Elder Edda was applied to that MSS in the 1600s) is derived from the Latin verb for "compose", "edo" (based on a comparison to the Old Norse adaptation of the word "credo" to "kredda"). I think it was Magnus Olsen who first suggested that the book was originally written in reverse order. As we have it, it begins with a prologue (which may or may not have been written by Snorri) in which we are given a euhemeristic explanation for the gods, claiming that they are magicians who left Troy after the Trojan war and came to Sweden because their leader Odin prophecied that they would thrive there-- after arrival they convince the inhabitants they are gods (though I could be confusing a bit of this account with that in Ynglinga saga, or even Gylfaginning), which leads us to the next section, Gylfaginning (=The Deluding of Gylfi), which frames a summary of the mythology (especially the creation, Ragnarok, the main gods and some representative stories, basically along the lines of Voluspa/Seeress' Prophecy, which he constantly quotes) with a dialogue between the Swedish King Gylfi and the immigrant, magical Aesir from Asia Minor. After that we have Skaldskaparmal (=Poetic Diction), which begins with but doesn't sustain a frame narrative in which Aegir (in some places a "sea king", in some a giant or sea god) is at a feast with the Aesir (this could be the feast that the Aesir force the giant Aegir to host in Hymir's poem and Loki's quarrel in Poetic Edda) and questions Bragi, the god of poetry (apparently derived from the supposed court poet Bragi from around 850 who composed the first known skaldic poems, or drottkvaett stanzas-- the sort of poetry Snorri is teaching here) on the art of poetry, mainly kennings in this case, which are ornate circumlocutions used in drottkvaett (and to a lesser degree of ornateness in all Germanic alliterative verse). Most of these kennings are based on mythological stories, so Bragi explains many of these kennings by telling these stories. Eventually Skaldskaparmal turns into a bunch of lists of "heiti", which aren't kennings proper but just other ways of referring to things.
What do You think about The Prose Edda (2006)?
I skipped the last 100 or so pages as it got into a lot of stuff about poetry that I had little interest in. Probably really interesting from a historical stand point but just not much of a page turner.I'm reading this for a class called Northern European Mythology. The professor had us start here because the prose is a little easier to penetrate than poetry, and she is spending a lot of time explaining what the hell all the gods are up to. The names and such can get really confusing.But let me tell you, this has NOTHING on the poetic Edda. The poetic Edda is like, WOW, and this is, well ok. It would have been nearly impossible to jump straight into the poetic Edda though, so this is a really great starting point if you are interested in learning more about Norse mythology. Just don't ignore the poetic Edda.
—Kaila
From a literary point of view, most of the tales are told in an interview-like fashion. We have curios characters, King Gylfe disguised as Ganglere asking questions to the asas, and in part two we have Æger asking questions to Brage. Therefore, the myths are presented in a matter-of-factly kind of fashion. You should not expect lavish, Tolkienesque descriptions, it wasn't the literary style of the time.The The Prose Edda is much more than a simple collection of myths, it offers insight into the art of the skalds(norse bards/poets), explaining their styles, metrics and so forth. All of these lessons will help you better understand other Germanic-themed epics like The Nibelungenlied.Finally, we have Snorri Sturluson notes on the chapters. Which offer a bit of historical context to the tales. I was surprised to find that these myths had influences from The Aeneid and other mythologies.All in all, I am glad that I finally got to read about the Norse myths from a source as close as I can hope for to the original myths. P.S.For the record. I read the book titled "Edda (Illustrated)" kindle edition, ASIN B00NCCEJ6O. Translated by R.B. Anderson.
—Loránd Szakács
Most people know at least a little bit about Norse mythology, but very few know where our information about the lore comes from. Works such as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad tell us much about Greek mythology, but The Prose Edda is one of the most important primary sources of Norse mythology that exists today. Compiled in the 13th century by an Icelandic politician named Snorri Sturluson, the Edda describes the nine realms of the mythology, and recounts tales of Norse gods and goddesses such as Odin, Thor, Loki, Feyja, the Valkyries, and more. With its straightforward language, the Edda is an easy but fascinating and entertaining read. One line from the text I see as remarkably interesting can be found as part of a description of the god Baldr’s funeral. In the midst of illustrating Thor’s blessings of the funeral pyre, Sturluson states, “A dwarf named Lit ran in front of his feet. Thor kicked the dwarf with his foot; it landed in the fire and burned to death.” These few sentences stand out to me because they feel random—Lit’s only mention in the text is here—as well as out of place and almost comically direct, though I know most traditional Nordic and Germanic audiences of the Edda would have found this narrative hilarious (schadenfreude). In total, the Edda remains a wonderful resource for learning about Norse mythology, as well as a highly enjoyable read.
—Courtney
