Edda

Edda, an Old Norse name of uncertain meaning given to a 13th-cent. poetic manual written by Snorri Sturluson, known as the Prose, Younger, or Snorra Edda. The same name was applied in the 17th cent. to a manuscript collection of poems, the Poetic or Elder Edda. The Prose Edda is divided into a Prologue and three parts: the ‘Gylfaginning’, or Deluding of Gylfi, a series of mythological stories in the form of a dialogue between one Gylfi and the Norse gods; the ‘Skáldskaparmál’, or Poetic Diction, in which Snorri illustrates the elaborate diction of skaldic Verse, retelling many myths and legends; and the ‘Háttatal’, or List of Metres, a long poem each strophe of which exemplifies a different Norse metre. The Poetic Edda was compiled c.1270. The poems fall into two groups: heroic lays about legendary Germanic heroes and mythological lays, such as the Voǫlsunga, a history of the Norse gods from creation to apocalypse, and the Hávamál, the words of the High One, ODinn. Auden wrote free translations of many Eddaic lays.