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The Prose Edda Paperback – January 24, 2015

by Snorri Sturluson (Author), Rasmus Anderson (Translator)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 74 ratings
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The Edda is our richest treasure trove of Norse mythology. Complete and unabridged.


The Prose Edda is our richest treasure trove of Germanic and Norse mythology--starting with a creation myth, passing through the struggle of the gods, giants, dwarves, and elves for survival and supremacy, and ending in the Ragnarok, a final all-engulfing battle wherein the world itself is destroyed. Norse mythology has captured many imaginations, and inspired epics including Wagner's The Ring and J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.


The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda and, historically, simply as Edda, was written in Old Norse in Iceland during the thirteenth century. In 1220, Snorri Sturluson, a respected poet, parliamentarian, and a visitor to the royal court of Norway, decided to compile the myths and poetic conventions of Norse mythology before they vanished under the influence of Christianity and the verse forms of Europe. The result is the Prose Edda, a unique glimpse of early Norse mythology.


Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241), poet, historian, the most powerful chieftain in Iceland and "Lawspeaker" of the Icelandic Parliament, The Althing is a significant figure in Icelandic history. His extensive writings beyond the Prose Edda provide insight into Scandinavian history and are among the earliest records of the discovery of Vinland (North America).

This unabridged edition includes introduction, notes and an extensive list of alternative names

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  1. Print length
    174 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Benediction Classics
  4. Publication date
    January 24, 2015
  5. Dimensions
    6.69 x 0.37 x 9.61 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1781394520
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1781394526
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Benediction Classics (January 24, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 174 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1781394520
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1781394526
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.69 x 0.37 x 9.61 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 74 ratings

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
74 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

James Millring
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2018
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Douglas J Freyburger
5.0 out of 5 stars Expect it to be that and you'll love it. Expect it to be a book of ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2015
This a textbook for writers of epic poetry. Expect it to be that and you'll love it. Expect it to be a book of mythology and you'll be puzzled by all of the textbook features. It contains versions of very many Germanic myths from the Norse branch so if you expect a textbook and are willing to separate out the myths from the textbook material, that approach works very well also.
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Linda Parson
5.0 out of 5 stars I love it
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2014
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Mac
4.0 out of 5 stars but just like the Poetic Edda
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2018
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Haven't had a chance to get too far into this one, but just like the Poetic Edda, there are several different translation/interpretations of The Prose Edda, and I have been told that it is one of the most used, so a second hand rating is still going to be close.
If I read it and find it not to be a good translation I will re-score it.
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Cloudbuster
4.0 out of 5 stars Accurate but non-intuitive.
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2015
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Not the perfect bed-time narrative: the translation mirrors the old-Icelandic narrative accurately, and for research and documentation, this is great. The stories are not in an intuitive order, and some "wikipedia" is helpful prior to reading. For "family time", you need some adjustment when reading this to an 8-year old boy.
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Ian M. Slater
2.0 out of 5 stars Latest News on the Gods (from 1880)
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2013
I have given this edition a two-star rating based a little on the confusing table of contents -- which suggests a lack of attention throughout -- and the lack of notice that this is NOT a new (2013) translation, but a rather old one: and also on the confusing choice of title-- on this factor, see near the end of the review for competing editions. (I prefer to review only editions I've read, but I've been familiar with the translation used here since the late 1960s, have digital copies, and feel no urgent need to acquire a print edition.)

Snorri Sturluson, the author, (1179-1241) was an Icelandic poet and politician, whose entanglement in Norway's internal politics, and the king's desire to acquire Iceland, was the main cause of his murder. He is best known, however, for two books attributed to him on period authority. One is known as "Heimskringla," and is a compilation of biographies of the Kings of Norway, going back to their ancestors in mythological and legendary times, and stopping short safely before his own time.

The other is the present book, "Edda," a series of treatises, variously amusing or tedious, on traditional Icelandic high-class poetry. A large part of it is given over to stories of the ancient gods and heroes, whose characteristics and careers were the point of departure for Iceland's high-class poets, the Skalds. (There were once skalds from mainland Scandinavia, but the complex art seems to have died out there following Christianization, while it hung on in deeply conservative Iceland, becoming its main "invisible export".)

This latter is the book with which we are now concerned.

The work is also known, variously, as "Snorri's Edda," "Snorri Sturluson's Edda," "The Younger Edda," and "The Prose Edda." These names were introduced to distinguish it from a collection of mythological and heroic poetry which early modern scholars, for no solid reason, dubbed "Saemund's Edda," after a mistaken attribution; it is now referred to as the "Poetic" or "Elder Edda."

(Some scholars also have attributed to Snorri a third work, "The Saga of Egil Skallagrimson," a brilliant piece of work. I am one of those who remain unconvinced, but would like it to be true.)

Rasmus B. Anderson (1846-1936), the translator, was a pioneer in introducing Scandinavian culture to English-speaking Americans -- as distinguished from their British counterparts. He was a moving force behind the Norraena Society, with its Norraena Library (1905-1907), the full fifteen-volume set of which is said to have been the largest collection of medieval Scandinavian literature (and some studies) published outside Scandinavia up to that time. It was made up primarily of nineteenth-centuries translations. Many large libraries contain more or less complete sets; at one time or another I have read at least eight of the volumes, and substantially more in their older editions. (There is a handy summary in Wikipedia's article on the Norraena Society, to which I direct the curious; it includes information on what is sometimes considered the sixteenth volume, which I have never seen.)

The Norraena Library did not include Anderson's own 1880 translation of "The Younger Edda" (this choice of title), a reprint of which we are offered in this book (again, despite the present edition's date of 2013). It is not the worst of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century out-of-copyright translations which have been re-issued, in print or digital format, over the last several years. Like most of them, it offers only the original Preface, the "Fooling of Gylfe" (the source of many of the best-known stories of Norse mythology), and selections from the "Poetic Diction" (Skaldskaparmal), omitting the many, many lists of synonyms and figures of speech which every young poet should know. An additional section (Hattatal), in which Snorri offers a hundred-verse praise-poem, illustrating the meters and devices of the poetry, with commentary, was, as usual, NOT included.

For those who really want to read it, there is a free Kindle version, taken from a Project Gutenberg edition. However, there are other options, which some will probably find more rewarding.

The most nearly complete of the older translations, that by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, includes the first two parts, with manuscript variations noted, plus the whole Skaldskaparmal. It is currently being offered, in an exact reprint of its 1916 American-Scandinavian Foundation edition, in both digital and print forms, by Dover Books. If you want a print or Kindle copy, of one of the older translations, this would be my suggestion. If you don't mind reading pdfs, the Library of Congress hosts the Internet Archive (archive.org), which includes digital versions of (I think) the translations of Rasmus Anderson, J.A. Blackwell, and George W. Dasent (in an English which some find annoying, but others, like me, enjoy.)

More recent translations are: a somewhat aging volume by Jean. I. Young, "The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology," currently in print from the University of California Press (which has kept it alive for decades), which also excludes most of Skaldskaparmal; a similarly-restricted Penguin Classics translation by Jesse Byock (my personal favorite in terms of style; available in both print and Kindle editions), ALSO titled "The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology"; and the only really complete English version, by Anthony Faulkes, currently in print under the Everyman imprint, as just "Edda." [May 2016: this is now out of print, at least as far as Amazon's listings go.]

Faulkes also edited all four parts of the Old Icelandic text (Preface, "Deluding of Gylfi," Skaldskaparmal, and Hattatal). These are presently available, along with some interesting articles, as pdf files, on the Web Publications page of the Viking Society for Northern Research (a UK organization). These are free, for private study; the editions are, obviously, primarily for those seriously interested in studying Old Icelandic, although I find some of the long lists in Skaldskaparmal to be quite fascinating in their original forms.

[Addendum, March 2015: There is a good article by Jonas Wellendorf, which briefly examines the various versions of the Prose Edda in the main manuscripts, including their internal arrangement, and their differing additional materials, as "Zoroaster, Saturn, and Othinn: The Loss of Language and the Rise of Idolatry." A pdf can be obtained by searching Academia.edu for Wellendorf's page there, and downloading the file from the list of his publications. Wellendorf offers an "ideological" approach to passages often omitted as interpolations in modern editions of the Prose Edda. The article was originally published in "The Performance of Christian and Pagan Storyworlds: Non-Canonical Chapters of the History of Nordic Medieval Legend," edited by Lars Boje Mortensen and Tuomas M.S. Lehtonen, with Alexandra Bergholm, Volume 3 of "Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces," Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, Belgium, 2013.]
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robert albertson
5.0 out of 5 stars prose edda
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2023
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Jessi Hall
1.0 out of 5 stars Steer clear if you are Lokean
Reviewed in Canada on February 25, 2022
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The way Loki was handled in this specific interpretation was blunt and hurtful to the point of rude. I've read different versions of this book, and this way by far the most uncomfortable.
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