The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson

About the book

This volume brings Benjamin Thorpe's translation of the Elder Edda together with I. A. Blackwell's translation of the Younger Edda. The first part includes mythological and heroic lays, whose voices can be prophetic, argumentative, practical, or tragic. The prose material offers another way of organizing stories about the gods and the language used to tell them. Reading the two parts together reveals recurring figures without making their different forms interchangeable. The historical title associates the Elder Edda with Saemund, but that attribution should not be mistaken for certain individual authorship of the collected poems. Introductory matter reflects the scholarship of the edition. The texts themselves reward patient attention to names, repetitions, and the tension between extraordinary power and foreseen limits.

• Fate and knowledge
• Gods and heroes
• Poetry and tradition

Why read it

For a substantial encounter with Norse legendary material in both poetic and prose forms, with their differences kept visible.

English translations by Benjamin Thorpe and I. A. Blackwell