Edda
Edda
Body of ancient Icelandic literature. Contained in two 13th-century books, it is the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Germanic mythology. The Prose Edda (Younger Edda, or Snorra-Edda; c. 1222), a handbook on poetics by Snorri Sturluson, explains diction and metre in skaldic and Eddic poetry and recounts tales from Norse mythology. The Poetic Edda (Elder Edda, or Sæmundar Edda; c. 1250–1300) is a collection of mythological and heroic poems of unknown authorship composed c. 800–1100. These austere lays are the oldest surviving antecedents of the Nibelungenlied legends.
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