Search

The Online Encyclopedia and Dictionary

 
     
 

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Quotes

 

Edda

For Edda 'great-grandmother' as the ancestress of serfs see Ríg.


The Edda are collections of poetically narrated folk-tales relating to Norse Mythology or Norse heroes.

These are fragmentary parts of a (presumably) much larger scaldic tradition of oral narration which has been written down by scholars prior to the tales being lost absolutely.

There are a number of theories concerning the origins of the word edda. One theory holds that it is identical to the word that seems to mean "great-grandmother". (See Ríg.) Another theory holds that edda means "poetics". A third is that it means "the book of Oddi", Oddi being the place where Snorri Sturluson was educated.

There are two Eddas:

Versions online

The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. How to see transparent copy