The Prose Edda (2 page)
Authors: Snorri Sturluson
It has long been assumed that the learned and quarrelsome Icelandic chieftain Snorri Sturluson is the author of the
Edda
. The main evidence for Snorri's authorship is the following short passage from the
Codex Upsaliensis
, an early fourteenth-century Icelandic manuscript containing the
Edda
:
This book is called
Edda
. Snorri Sturluson compiled [literally, assembled] it in the way that it is arranged here. First it tells about the Ãsir [the gods] and Ymir [the primordial giant], then comes the poetic diction section with the poetic names of many things and lastly a poem called the
List of Meters
which Snorri composed about King Hakon and Duke Skuli.
1
This passage outlines the main contents of the
Edda
, and although Snorri is named as the compiler of the work, it is not clear from the passage whether Snorri is the author of more than the
List of Metres
. The other main manuscripts of the
Edda
are also ambiguous about Snorri's connection to the work; nevertheless, the mentions of Snorri in the manuscripts have greatly influenced Snorri's acceptance as the author of the entire work.
But who was Snorri? He was the son of Sturla, an upstart chieftain from western Iceland, whose sons and grandchildren lent the family name of Sturlung (the descendants of Sturla) to the Sturlung Age, a turbulent time in the history of Iceland in the first half of the thirteenth century. Born in 1178 or 1179, Snorri was two years old when his life took an unexpected turn. Jon Loptsson, Iceland's most powerful and cultured leader, offered to raise Snorri in order to settle a feud. It was unusual for a child to be fostered in this way by a man of a higher social status than his father, so Snorri's father saw this offer as a sign of respect. Snorri spent the next sixteen years at Oddi, Jon Loptsson's estate and an important centre of learning in medieval Iceland. When he left Oddi, Snorri married one of the wealthiest women in Iceland and soon became a prominent chieftain. In 1215, and again in 1222, Snorri was elected the Althing's law-speaker, the highest official position in the Old Icelandic Free State. As a sign of his status, Snorri built at the site of the Althing an unusually large turf building, where he and his men lived during the two-week period of the assembly, and it is instructive that this thirteenth-century Christian chieftain named this residence Valhalla, after the hall of the chief Norse god Odin.
Snorri was extremely ambitious and his life was full of disputes and enemies. To increase his prestige and power at home, he sailed to Norway two times, where he made ill-advised alliances with conflicting factions within the Norwegian royal family. In the 1230s the number and reach of Snorri's enemies in Iceland and Norway grew dangerously. He had married his daughters to rising Icelandic chieftains, but the marriages ended and the alliances failed. In the year 1241, two of Snorri's former sons-in-law, recruited by the Norwegian king, who was extending his power to Iceland, attacked and surprised Snorri at his estate at Reykjaholt in western Iceland. They found him hiding in his cellar and killed him.
Snorri is mentioned in many thirteenth-century Icelandic writings, and they allow us to know more about him than about most other individuals in medieval Europe. Still, we can only guess at some aspects of Snorri's life, including the extent of his
writings. The books that tradition attributes to him, the
History of the Kings of Norway
(
Heimskringla
) and the
Prose Edda
, indicate that he spent time gathering information for his future writings during his travels in Scandinavia. The opening section of
Heimskringla
, which covers the earliest mythic and legendary period, is called the
Saga of the Ynglings
. Like the
Edda
, this work tells ancient stories, and intersperses its prose with eddic and skaldic verses. However, the stories of the two works are often distinguished by differences of fact and detail.
Edda
The
Edda
is divided into four parts. It begins with a short
Prologue
, a self-standing unit that differs significantly from the rest of the
Edda
in sentence structure, subject matter and the kind of genealogical information it gives. In a Norse culture that was in the process of absorbing elements of classical learning, the
Prologue
attempts to elevate the status of the
Edda
by equating Norse stories with those from the Graeco-Roman tradition. It also tries to make the
Edda
's stories more palatable to medieval Christians by harmonizing Norse beliefs with Christian concepts. The
Prologue
may have been part of the original text, or some or all of it may have been added later.
The second and main section is known as
Gylfaginning
and is the core of the
Edda
. No one can learn about Scandinavian mythology without it, since it is our best source for the story of the creation, the struggles of the gods, and the events leading to the destruction of the universe. The text of
Gylfaginning
is remarkably similar in all the important manuscripts of the
Edda
.
Gylfaginning
means the âdeluding [
ginning
] of Gylfi', a reference not to the stories that King Gylfi of Sweden learns from the Ãsir, but to Gylfi's realization that he was the victim of an elaborate optical illusion.
Gylfaginning
is written entirely as a dialogue between Gylfi and three formidable god-like figures who are at the centre of the deception. Gylfi disguises himself as a traveller named Gangleri, a name meaning âstrider', âwalker', or âwanderer', and journeys to visit the Ãsir. This mysterious people is said
to be newly arrived in the North, and Gangleri seeks to discover the source of their power. In the Ãsir's majestic but illusory hall, Gangleri/Gylfi meets three manifestations of Odin: High, Just-as-High and Third. These strange, lordly individuals sit on thrones one above the other. Gangleri questions them and, story by story, they reveal what they know.
Gangleri's dialogue with Odin's three manifestations resembles contests of wisdom found in eddic poems such as
The Lay of Vafthrudnir
(
Vafprúðnismál
), where Odin pits his mastery of mythic knowledge against the giant Vafthrudnir. Norse wisdom contests were adversarial, and Gangleri is told at the start that he will not escape unharmed unless he grows wiser. Gangleri's method is to probe the Ãsir with questions such as âWho is the highest or the oldest of all the gods?' âHow were the earth and the sky made?' The richly detailed answers often touch on troubling topics, many anticipating the destruction of the world.
The third section is called
Skaldskaparmal
(
Skáldskaparmál
), and, unlike
Gylfaginning
, it varies considerably from manuscript to manuscript. The name
Skaldskaparmal
is telling.
Skáld
, as mentioned earlier, is the Old Norse word for âpoet'.
Skapr
means âcreation' or âcraft', while
mál
is âlanguage' or âdiction', hence
Skáldskaparmál
means the âlanguage of poetry' or âpoetic diction'. The stories in
Skaldskaparmal
give background for references and allusions found in Old Norse verse, and these explanations are a priceless repository of Scandinavian lore. (See
Appendix 2
for a discussion of the poetic devices, kennings and
heiti
.)
There is little doubt that
Gylfaginning
and
Skaldskaparmal
were written at different times and in somewhat different styles. Whereas
Gylfaginning
is entirely in dialogue,
Skaldskaparmal
is written in a combination of dialogue and third-person storytelling. It would seem that these two sections of the
Edda
were gathered into one book only after they were written separately. Still, the two fit remarkably well together, containing almost no repetition. Both
Skaldskaparmal
and
Gylfaginning
tell myths, but
Skaldskaparmal
also recounts tales of legendary heroes. Some of these heroic legends can be dated to a time
before the Viking Age known as the Migration Period, from the fifth to the seventh centuries, when warrior bands and tribes invaded the collapsing Roman Empire. Stories that originated during this era became the basis for epic cycles that were popular during the Viking Age, and continued to be told in the thirteenth century when the
Edda
was written. Among the stories gathered into
Skaldskaparmal
are those of kings and warriors whose fame springs from a mixture of history and myth. One of these is the legendary King Jormunrek, also known as Ermanaric in late Roman and Old English sources. This tragic figure ruled over a vast East Gothic kingdom of horsemen on the Ukrainian steppes until suddenly attacked by the Huns in the year 376.
Skaldskaparmal
also tells the story of the ancient Danish warrior King Hrolf Kraki, who, much like King Arthur in the Celtic lore or Charlemagne in the Frankish legends, surrounded himself with twelve champions. Hrolf's warriors and berserkers are treated more fully in
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki
, an episodic collection of Old Scandinavian tales that has similarities to the Old English epic
Beowulf
.
Sigurd the dragon slayer, whose lineage is traced to Odin, is the best-known hero in
Skaldskaparmal
. He and his Volsung family serve as the basis of a series of epic stories, including those about Attila the Hun and the Burgundian tribesmen who covet Sigurd's treasure, the Rhine Gold. Sigurd becomes entangled in a tragic love triangle with a Burgundian princess, who later marries Attila, and a Valkyrie, who disobeys Odin. Extensive versions of the Sigurd story also survive in
The Saga of the Volsungs
, the
Poetic Edda
, Thidrek's Saga and the South German epic poem
The Nibelungenlied
, where Sigurd is known as Siegfried. Richard Wagner made Siegfried the hero of his
Ring
cycle, but most closely followed the storyline of what happened to Sigurd and his Volsung ancestors found in the
Eddas
and
The Saga of the Volsungs
.
The fourth and final section of the
Edda
is the poem
List of Metres
, called
Hattatal
(
Háttatal
) in Old Icelandic. There is no doubt about
Hattatal
's authorship: it was composed by Snorri Sturluson, probably early in his career, as an attempt to curry favour with the Norwegian King Hakon Hakonarson and his
father-in-law Skuli, a jarl (earl), who was given the title of duke.
Hattatal
is an ambitious, somewhat pedantic work, whose 102 stanzas demonstrate often small differences in poetic metres and obscure usages of poetic devices. Prose commentary offering technical explanations is interspersed among the verses of this long poem. The poem is a treasure for those with a knowledge of Old Icelandic and interested in the intricacies of Norse poetry. Because of the technical and obscure nature of
Hattatal
, it is not included in this nor in most translations. (
Appendix 2
contains a sample stanza from
Hattatal
, followed by an example of the prose commentary.)
Edda
In the period before the conversion to Christianity, Viking Age Scandinavians had no single, organized religion; instead they shared a common view of the universe and a belief in the same pantheon of Norse gods and other supernatural creatures. Two groups of gods, the Ãsir and the Vanir, war with each other, eventually making a lasting truce. Thereafter they live together in harmony, fusing so effectively into a single group that all gods become known as Ãsir, even though the Vanir retain their identity as a small, separate family. The home of the gods is at Asgard, a compound name whose first part
As
-refers to the Ãsir and whose second part
gard
(related to the English word âyard') means an âenclosure'. Hence Asgard is the âenclosed region where the Ãsir live'.
The gods have special attributes, but many pay for their powers with a related loss. Odin, the god who sees all, loses an eye; Tyr, a god of war and council, breaks his pledge and loses his right hand (crucial for making oaths and wielding weapons); Freyja, the goddess of household prosperity, leaves her hearth to search for a husband who has wandered off. Unlike the gods of Greek and Roman mythology, the Ãsir rarely quarrel among themselves over control of human or semi-divine heroes, nor do they enjoy the complacency of immortality. Their universe is constantly in danger, and their actions frequently have unanticipated consequences, as in the creation story, when Odin
and his brothers slay the giant Ymir and use his body to fill Ginnungagap, the primeval void. While this act gives rise to the world of the
Edda
, the slaying also unleashes the power of the giants, the gods' enemies.
Throughout the mythology of the
Edda
, three figures serve as catalysts for much of the action. Two are gods, Odin and Thor, while the third, Loki, is a trickster-like figure. Odin is an old god who figures in the mythologies of other northern peoples, where he was known as Woden, Wodan, Wotan and Wuotan, but we know him best in the context of Scandinavian mythology, where he serves as patron of aristocrats, warriors and poets. The
Edda
is an especially important source about Odin and refers to him by many names, including All-Father, the High One and Val-Father, which means âFather of the Slain'. Odin has both priestly and martial roles: as the god of death, who decides the fates of warriors, Odin travels between the worlds of the living and the dead on his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir; and as the god of sovereignty, he leads the Ãsir with his skills in magic, prophecy and governance. Odin knows that all will be lost at Ragnarok and constantly seeks the knowledge to forestall the coming doom. Two ravens, whose names Hugin and Munin refer to the mind's divided ability for thought and memory, sit on his shoulders. Every morning they fly over the world, gathering information that they pass on to Odin, who remembers everything. In a sense, Odin is the repository of the world's knowledge. He is also a dangerous and fickle god, who is known to withdraw his favour from formerly victorious warriors.