Eddic Poetry

Rather than being a genre in its own right, “Eddic poetry” is essentially a body of poetry dealing with Old Nordic mythology and Old Nordic/Germanic heroes that was preserved for the main part in two Icelandic manuscripts from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries: the Codex Regius (GKS 2365 4to: c. 1270) and the AM 748 IA 4to (c. 1300) (see Manuscripts of the Eddic Poems). The term is also used for certain other mythological poems from the same period that have been composed in the main two meters used in these manuscripts (see Meters of the Eddic Poems), most particularly Hyndluljóð, contained in the Flateyjarbók manuscript (GKS 1005 fol.; late 14th century); and Rígsþula, contained in the Ormsbók manuscript (Codex Wormianus: AM 242 fol.; mid-14th century). Originally believed to have been preserved intact in the oral tradition from pagan times (the official Christianization of Iceland and Norway occurring c. 1000), the poems are now seen as having originated at different times (see Dating of the Eddic Poems), some viewed as having a potentially pre-Christian background while others appear to be more recent (in part or as a whole). Whatever the case, it seems evident that the Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturluson (b. 1119–d. 1241), who composed the so-called Prose Edda (also referred to as Snorra Edda) in c. 1220, using several Eddic poems as sources on pre-Christian Nordic mythology, viewed these works as having been ancient. In spite of various discussions about their exact place of origin, it is evident that many of the Eddic poems (which were referred to under this name by later scholars in order to differentiate them from Snorri’s Prose Edda) have their roots outside Iceland in the Nordic and Germanic countries, the narratives of the heroic Eddic poems containing memories that appear to go back several hundred years. The main source of the Eddic poems, the Codex Regius, evidently written and edited by Christian Icelanders, is divided into two parts, the first dealing with mythology, including the creation and ending of the world in Vǫluspá (the Prophecy of the Seeress), followed by various poems in different meters dealing with the gods Óðinn (Odin/Wotan), Freyr (Frey), Þórr (Thor), and Loki, while the second contains material dealing with the lives of the heroes, Helgi Hjǫrvarðsson, Helgi Hundingsbani, and then Sigurðr Fáfnisbani (the killer of the serpent Fáfnir) and his family. For logical reasons, in the following bibliography, emphasis is placed on more recent scholarship, although several earlier works that are still relevant are also mentioned.