Edda: Encyclopedia - Edda

Edda

For Edda 'great-grandmother' as the ancestress of serfs see Ríg.

• Edda művek is a popular Hungarian rock group

The Edda are collections of poetically narrated folk-tales relating to Norse Mythology or Norse heroes.

These are fragmentary parts of a (presumably) much larger scaldic tradition of oral narration which has been written down by scholars prior to the tales being lost absolutely.

There are a number of theories concerning the origins of the word edda. One theory holds that it is identical to the word that seems to mean "great-grandmother". (See Ríg.) Another theory holds that edda means "poetics". A third is that it means "the book of Oddi", Oddi being the place where Snorri Sturluson was educated.

There are two Eddas:

• The Poetic Edda, also known as Sæmundar Edda or the Elder Edda.
• The Younger Edda or the Prose Edda.

Edda - Versions online

• THE ELDER EDDAS AND THE YOUNGER EDDAS, Eng. trans. by I. A. Blackwell, 1906 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)
• Prose Edda in Old Norse
• Prose Edda in English
• Poetic Edda in Old Norse
• Poetic Edda in English

Norse mythology

Categories: Epics | Medieval literature | Sources of Norse mythology

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Edda", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki