Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse mythological and heroic poems, chiefly preserved in the medieval Icelandic manuscript Codex Regius.
Codex Regius: A medieval Icelandic manuscript that preserves the principal collection of poems now called the Poetic Edda. This manuscript is the collection’s chief surviving witness.
Hávamál: An Old Norse poem of maxims, advice, and mythic material presented largely as the words of Odin. Its sayings and Odin episodes exemplify the collection’s mythological voice.
Icelandic manuscript culture: The medieval practices through which Icelanders copied, preserved, and circulated handwritten books and texts. The poems reached later centuries through Icelandic scribal preservation.
Norse mythology: The myths and religious traditions of pre-Christian Scandinavia, centered on gods, giants, and cosmic cycles. The mythological poems are among the fullest surviving sources for these traditions.
Norse revival: The renewed European interest in Norse history, literature, and mythology from the eighteenth century onward. The poems became a major source for modern reinterpretations of Norse myth.
Old Norse: A North Germanic language spoken in Scandinavia and its settlements during the Viking Age and Middle Ages. The poems’ language carries their distinctive vocabulary, meter, and inherited formulas.
Grímnismál: An Old Norse poem in which Odin, disguised as Grímnir, reveals knowledge of the gods and cosmos. Its catalogues of divine places and names make mythic knowledge into verse.
Snorri Sturluson: An Icelandic chieftain, historian, and poet of the thirteenth century who wrote the Prose Edda. His separate handbook preserves and discusses eddic verse, though he did not compile this collection.
Germanic heroic legend: Traditional narratives about legendary heroes and dynastic conflicts shared across Germanic-speaking peoples. The heroic poems adapt stories that circulated well beyond medieval Iceland.
Richard Wagner: A nineteenth-century German composer known for music dramas drawing on Germanic and Norse legend. His works helped shape modern reception of heroic material also preserved in eddic poetry.