The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda
There are three important parchment manuscripts of the Younger Edda,
viz:
1. _Codex Regius_, the so-called King’s Book. This was presented to the
Royal Library in Copenhagen, by Bishop Brynjulf Sveinsson, in the year
1640, where it is still kept.
2. _Codex Wormianus_. This is found in the University Library in
Copenhagen, in the Arne Magnæan collection. It takes its name from
Professor Ole Worm [died 1654], to whom it was presented by the learned
Arngrim Jonsson. Christian Worm, the grandson of Ole Worm, and Bishop of
Seeland [died 1737], afterward presented it to Arne Magnusson.
3. _Codex Upsaliensis_. This is preserved in the Upsala University
Library. Like the other two, it was found in Iceland, where it was given
to Jon Rugmann. Later it fell into the hands of Count Magnus Gabriel de
la Gardie, who in the year 1669 presented it to the Upsala University.
Besides these three chief documents, there exist four fragmentary
parchments, and a large number of paper manuscripts.
The first printed edition of the Younger Edda, in the original, is the
celebrated “Edda Islandorum,” published by Peter Johannes Resen, in
Copenhagen, in the year 1665. It contains a translation into Latin, made
partly by Resen himself, and partly also by Magnus Olafsson, Stephan
Olafsson and Thormod Torfason.
Not until eighty years later, that is in 1746, did the second edition of
the Younger Edda appear in Upsala under the auspices of Johannes
Goransson. This was printed from the Codex Upsaliensis.
In the present century we find a third edition by Rasmus Rask, published
in Stockholm in 1818. This is very complete and critical. The fourth
edition was issued by Sveinbjorn Egilsson, in Reykjavik, 1849; the fifth
by the Arne-Magnæan Commission in Copenhagen, 1852.[1] All these five
editions have long been out of print, and in place of them we have a
sixth edition by Thorleif Jonsson (Copenhagen, 1875), and a seventh by
Ernst Wilkin (Paderborn, 1877). Both of these, and especially the
latter, are thoroughly critical and reliable.
[Footnote 1: The third volume of this work has not yet appeared.]
Of translations, we must mention in addition to those into English by
Dasent and Blackwell, R. Nyerup’s translation into Danish (Copenhagen,
1808); Karl Simrock’s into German (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1851); and
Fr. Bergmann’s into French (Paris, 1871). Among the chief authorities to
be consulted in the study of the Younger Edda may be named, in addition
to those already mentioned, Fr. Dietrich, Th. Mobius, Fr. Pfeiffer,
Ludw. Ettmuller, K. Hildebrand, Ludw. Uhland, P. E. Muller, Adolf
Holzmann, Sophus Bugge, P. A. Munch and Rudolph Keyser. For the material
in our introduction and notes, we are chiefly indebted to Simrock,
Wilkin and Keyser. While we have had no opportunity of making original
researches, the published works have been carefully studied, and all we
claim for our work is, that it shall contain the results of the latest
and most thorough investigations by scholars who live nearer the
fountains of Urd and Mimer than do we. Our translations are made from
Egilsson’s, Jonsson’s and Wilkins’ editions of the original. We have not
translated any of the Hattatal, and only the narrative part of
Skaldskaparmal, and yet our version contains more of the Younger Edda
than any English, German, French or Danish translation that has hitherto
been published. The parts omitted cannot possibly be of any interest to
any one who cannot read them in the original. All the paraphrases of the
asas and asynjes, of the world, the earth, the sea, the sun, the wind,
fire, summer, man, woman, gold, of war, arms, of a ship, emperor, king,
ruler, etc., are of interest only as they help to explain passages of
Old Norse poems. The same is true of the enumeration of metres, which
contains a number of epithets and metaphors used by the scalds,
illustrated by specimens of their poetry, and also by a poem of Snorre
Sturleson, written in one hundred different metres.
There has been a great deal of learned discussion in regard to the
authorship of the Younger Edda. Readers specially interested in this
knotty subject we must refer to Wilkins’ elaborate treatise,
Untersuchungen zur Snorra Edda (Paderborn, 1878), and to P. E. Muller’s,
Die Æchtheit der Asalehre (Copenhagen, 1811).
Two celebrated names that without doubt are intimately connected with
the work are Snorre Sturleson and Olaf Thordsson Hvitaskald. Both of
these are conspicuous, not only in the literary, but also in the
political history of Iceland.
[Footnote 2: Keyser.]
Snorre Sturleson[2] was born in Iceland in the year 1178. Three years
old, he came to the house of the distinguished chief, Jon Loptsson, at
Odde, a grandson of Sæmund the Wise, the reputed collector of the Elder
Edda, where he appears to have remained until Jon Loptsson’s death, in
the year 1197. Soon afterward Snorre married into a wealthy family, and
in a short time he became one of the most distinguished leaders in
Iceland, He was several times elected chief magistrate, and no man in
the land was his equal in riches and prominence. He and his two elder
brothers, Thord and Sighvat, who were but little inferior to him in
wealth and power, were at one time well-nigh supreme in Iceland, and
Snorre sometimes appeared at the Althing at Thingvols accompanied by
from eight hundred to nine hundred armed men.
Snorre and his brothers did not only have bitter feuds with other
families, but a deadly hatred also arose between themselves, making
their lives a perpetual warfare. Snorre was shrewd as a politician and
magistrate, and eminent as an orator and skald, but his passions were
mean, and many of his ways were crooked. He was both ambitious and
avaricious. He is said to have been the first Icelander who laid plans
to subjugate his fatherland to Norway, and in this connection is
supposed to have expected to become a jarl under the king of Norway.
In this effort he found himself outwitted by his brother’s son, Sturle
Thordsson, and thus he came into hostile relations with the latter. In
this feud Snorre was defeated, but when Sturle shortly after fell in a
battle against his foes, Snorre’s star of hope rose again, and he began
to occupy himself with far-reaching, ambitious plans. He had been for
the first time in Norway during the years 1218-1220, and had been well
received by King Hakon, and especially by Jarl Skule, who was then the
most influential man in the country. In the year 1237 Snorre visited
Norway again, and entered, as it is believed, into treasonable
conspiracies with Jarl Skule. In 1239 he left Norway against the wishes
of King Hakon, whom he owed obedience, and thereby incurred the king’s
greatest displeasure. When King Hakon, in 1240, had crushed Skule’s
rebellion and annihilated this dangerous opponent, it became Snorre’s
turn to feel the effects of the king’s wrath. At the instigation of King
Hakon, several chiefs of Iceland united themselves against Snorre and
murdered him at Reykholt, where ruins of his splendid mansion are still
to be seen. This event took place on the 22d of September, 1241, and
Snorre Sturleson was then sixty-three years old. Snorre was Iceland’s
most distinguished skald and sagaman. As a writer of history he deserves
to be compared with Herodotos or Thukydides. His Heimskringla, embracing
an elaborate history of the kings of Norway, is famous throughout the
civilized world, and Emerson calls it the Iliad and Odyssey of our race.
An English translation of this work was published by Samuel Laing, in
London, in 1844. Carlyle’s Early Kings of Norway (London, 1875) was
inspired by the Heimskringla.
Olaf Thordsson, surnamed Hvitaskald,[3] to distinguish him from his
contemporary, Olaf Svartaskald,[4] was a son of Snorre’s brother. Though
not as prominent and influential as his uncle, he took an active part in
all the troubles of his native island during the first half of the
thirteenth century. He visited Norway in 1236, whence he went to
Denmark, where he was a guest at the court of King Valdemar, and is said
to have enjoyed great esteem. In 1240 we find him again in Norway, where
he espoused the cause of King Hakon against Skule. On his return to
Iceland he served four years as chief magistrate of the island. His
death occurred in the year 1259, and he is numbered among the great
skalds of Iceland.
[Footnote 3: White Skald.]
[Footnote 4: Black Skald.]
Snorre Sturleson and Olaf Hvitaskald are the two names to whom the
authorship of the Younger Edda has generally been attributed, and the
work is by many, even to this day, called Snorra Edda--that is, Snorre’s
Edda. We do not propose to enter into any elaborate discussion of this
complicated subject, but we will state briefly the reasons given by
Keyser and others for believing that these men had a hand in preparing
the Prose Edda. In the first place, we find that the writer of the
grammatical and rhetorical part of the Younger Edda distinctly mentions
Snorre as author of Hattatal (the Clavis Metrica), and not only of the
poem itself, but also of the treatise in prose. In the second place, the
Arne Magnæan parchment manuscript, which dates back to the close of the
thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, has the following
note prefaced to the Skaldskaparmal. “Here ends that part of the book
which Olaf Thordsson put together, and now begins Skaldskaparmal and the
Kenningar, according to that which has been found in the lays of the
chief skalds, and which Snorre afterward suffered to be brought
together.” In the third place, the Upsala manuscript of the Younger
Edda, which is known with certainty to have been written in the
beginning of the fourteenth century, contains this preface, written with
the same hand as the body of the work: “This book hight Edda. Snorre has
compiled it in the manner in which it is arranged: first, in regard to
the asas and Ymer, then Skaldskaparmal and the denominations of many
things, and finally that Hattatal, which Snorre composed about King
Hakon and Duke Skule.” In the fourth place, there is a passage in the
so-called Annales Breviores, supposed to have been written about the
year 1400. The passage relates to the year 1241, and reads thus: “Snorre
Sturleson died at Reykholt. He was a wise and very learned man, a great
chief and shrewd. He was the first man in this land who brought property
into the hands of the king (the king of Norway). He compiled Edda and
many other learned historical works and Icelandic sagas. He was murdered
at Reykholt by Jarl Gissur’s men.”
It seems, then, that there is no room for any doubt that these two men
have had a share in the authorship of the Younger Edda. How great a
share each has had is another and more difficult problem to solve.
Rudolf Keyser’s opinion is (and we know no higher authority on the
subject), that Snorre is the author, though not in so strict a sense as
we now use the word, of Gylfaginning, Brage’s Speech, Skaldskaparmal and
Hattatal. This part of the Younger Edda may thus be said to date back to
the year 1230, though the material out of which the mythological system
is constructed is of course much older. We find it in the ancient Vala’s
Prophecy, of the Elder Edda, a poem that breathes in every line the
purest asa-faith, and is, without the least doubt, much older than the
introduction of christianity in the north, or the discovery and
settlement of Iceland. It is not improbable that the religious system of
the Odinic religion had assumed a permanent prose form in the memories
of the people long before the time of Snorre, and that he merely was the
means of having it committed to writing almost without verbal change.
Olaf Thordsson is unmistakably the author of the grammatical and