The Völsunga saga is a prose version of much of the Niflung cycle of poems. RT bthomasa: In the medieval 'Prose Edda,' Snorri Sturluson divided Norse elves into 'light elves' and 'dark elves.' However, as no earlier source makes this division, many people think it was invented by Sturluson, inspired by his Christian views of angels and demons. For centuries it was stored in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, but in 1971 it was returned to Iceland. As noted above, the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson makes much use of the works included in the Poetic Edda, though he may well have had access to other compilations that contained the poems and there is no evidence that he used the Poetic Edda or even knew of it. While this attribution is rejected by modern scholars, the name Sæmundar Edda is still sometimes encountered.īishop Brynjólfur sent Codex Regius as a present to the Danish king, hence the name. Brynjólfur attributed the manuscript to Sæmundr the Learned, a larger-than-life 12th century Icelandic priest. When Codex Regius was discovered it seemed that this speculation had been proven correct. At that time versions of Snorri's Edda were well known in Iceland, but scholars speculated that there once was another Edda, an Elder Edda, which contained the pagan poems which Snorri quotes in his book. The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorris Edda (Icelandic: Snorra Edda) or. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends.Ĭodex Regius was written in the 13th century, but nothing is known of its whereabouts until 1643, when it came into the possession of Brynjólfur Sveinsson, then Bishop of Skálholt. Read Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson available from Rakuten Kobo. The Poetic Edda, also known as the Sæmundar Edda, or the Elder Edda, is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. It is preserved in three primary manuscripts: Codex Regius, early fourteenth century Codex Wormianus, fourteenth century, named from Ole Worm, from whose hands it passed, in 1706, into the hands of Arni Magnússon and Codex Upsaliensis, about 1300, perhaps a direct copy of Snorri’s own text.

Snorri prose edda