The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda. Snorri Sturluson

(Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1851); and Fr. Bergmann’s into French (Paris, 1871). Among the chief authorities to be consulted in the study of the Younger Edda may be named, in addition to those already mentioned, Fr. Dietrich, Th. Mobius, Fr. Pfeiffer, Ludw. Ettmuller, K. Hildebrand, Ludw. Uhland, P. E. Muller, Adolf Holzmann, Sophus Bugge, P. A. Munch and Rudolph Keyser. For the material in our introduction and notes, we are chiefly indebted to Simrock, Wilkin and Keyser. While we have had no opportunity of making original researches, the published works have been carefully studied, and all we claim for our work is, that it shall contain the results of the latest and most thorough investigations by scholars who live nearer the fountains of Urd and Mimer than do we. Our translations are made from Egilsson’s, Jonsson’s and Wilkins’ editions of the original. We have not translated any of the Hattatal, and only the narrative part of Skaldskaparmal, and yet our version contains more of the Younger Edda than any English, German, French or Danish translation that has hitherto been published. The parts omitted cannot possibly be of any interest to any one who cannot read them in the original. All the paraphrases of the asas and asynjes, of the world, the earth, the sea, the sun, the wind, fire, summer, man, woman, gold, of war, arms, of a ship, emperor, king, ruler, etc., are of interest only as they help to explain passages of Old Norse poems. The same is true of the enumeration of metres, which contains a number of epithets and metaphors used by the scalds, illustrated by specimens of their poetry, and also by a poem of Snorre Sturleson, written in one hundred different metres.

      There has been a great deal of learned discussion in regard to the authorship of the Younger Edda. Readers specially interested in this knotty subject we must refer to Wilkins’ elaborate treatise, Untersuchungen zur Snorra Edda (Paderborn, 1878), and to P. E. Muller’s, Die Æchtheit der Asalehre (Copenhagen, 1811).

      Two celebrated names that without doubt are intimately connected with the work are Snorre Sturleson and Olaf Thordsson Hvitaskald. Both of these are conspicuous, not only in the literary, but also in the political history of Iceland.

      Snorre Sturleson2 was born in Iceland in the year 1178. Three years old, he came to the house of the distinguished chief, Jon Loptsson, at Odde, a grandson of Sæmund the Wise, the reputed collector of the Elder Edda, where he appears to have remained until Jon Loptsson’s death, in the year 1197. Soon afterward Snorre married into a wealthy family, and in a short time he became one of the most distinguished leaders in Iceland, He was several times elected chief magistrate, and no man in the land was his equal in riches and prominence. He and his two elder brothers, Thord and Sighvat, who were but little inferior to him in wealth and power, were at one time well-nigh supreme in Iceland, and Snorre sometimes appeared at the Althing at Thingvols accompanied by from eight hundred to nine hundred armed men.

       Snorre and his brothers did not only have bitter feuds with other families, but a deadly hatred also arose between themselves, making their lives a perpetual warfare. Snorre was shrewd as a politician and magistrate, and eminent as an orator and skald, but his passions were mean, and many of his ways were crooked. He was both ambitious and avaricious. He is said to have been the first Icelander who laid plans to subjugate his fatherland to Norway, and in this connection is supposed to have expected to become a jarl under the king of Norway. In this effort he found himself outwitted by his brother’s son, Sturle Thordsson, and thus he came into hostile relations with the latter. In this feud Snorre was defeated, but when Sturle shortly after fell in a battle against his foes, Snorre’s star of hope rose again, and he began to occupy himself with far-reaching, ambitious plans. He had been for the first time in Norway during the years 1218–1220, and had been well received by King Hakon, and especially by Jarl Skule, who was then the most influential man in the country. In the year 1237 Snorre visited Norway again, and entered, as it is believed, into treasonable conspiracies with Jarl Skule. In 1239 he left Norway against the wishes of King Hakon, whom he owed obedience, and thereby incurred the king’s greatest displeasure. When King Hakon, in 1240, had crushed Skule’s rebellion and annihilated this dangerous opponent, it became Snorre’s turn to feel the effects of the king’s wrath. At the instigation of King Hakon, several chiefs of Iceland united themselves against Snorre and murdered him at Reykholt, where ruins of his splendid mansion are still to be seen. This event took place on the 22d of September, 1241, and Snorre Sturleson was then sixty-three years old. Snorre was Iceland’s most distinguished skald and sagaman. As a writer of history he deserves to be compared with Herodotos or Thukydides. His Heimskringla, embracing an elaborate history of the kings of Norway, is famous throughout the civilized world, and Emerson calls it the Iliad and Odyssey of our race. An English translation of this work was published by Samuel Laing, in London, in 1844. Carlyle’s Early Kings of Norway (London, 1875) was inspired by the Heimskringla.

      Olaf Thordsson, surnamed Hvitaskald,3 to distinguish him from his contemporary, Olaf Svartaskald,4 was a son of Snorre’s brother. Though not as prominent and influential as his uncle, he took an active part in all the troubles of his native island during the first half of the thirteenth century. He visited Norway in 1236, whence he went to Denmark, where he was a guest at the court of King Valdemar, and is said to have enjoyed great esteem. In 1240 we find him again in Norway, where he espoused the cause of King Hakon against Skule. On his return to Iceland he served four years as chief magistrate of the island. His death occurred in the year 1259, and he is numbered among the great skalds of Iceland.

      Snorre Sturleson and Olaf Hvitaskald are the two names to whom the authorship of the Younger Edda has generally been attributed, and the work is by many, even to this day, called Snorra Edda—that is, Snorre’s Edda. We do not propose to enter into any elaborate discussion of this complicated subject, but we will state briefly the reasons given by Keyser and others for believing that these men had a hand in preparing the Prose Edda. In the first place, we find that the writer of the grammatical and rhetorical part of the Younger Edda distinctly mentions Snorre as author of Hattatal (the Clavis Metrica), and not only of the poem itself, but also of the treatise in prose. In the second place, the Arne Magnæan parchment manuscript, which dates back to the close of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, has the following note prefaced to the Skaldskaparmal. “Here ends that part of the book which Olaf Thordsson put together, and now begins Skaldskaparmal and the Kenningar, according to that which has been found in the lays of the chief skalds, and which Snorre afterward suffered to be brought together.” In the third place, the Upsala manuscript of the Younger Edda, which is known with certainty to have been written in the beginning of the fourteenth century, contains this preface, written with the same hand as the body of the work: “This book hight Edda. Snorre has compiled it in the manner in which it is arranged: first, in regard to the asas and Ymer, then Skaldskaparmal and the denominations of many things, and finally that Hattatal, which Snorre composed about King Hakon and Duke Skule.” In the fourth place, there is a passage in the so-called Annales Breviores, supposed to have been written about the year 1400. The passage relates to the year 1241, and reads thus: “Snorre Sturleson died at Reykholt. He was a wise and very learned man, a great chief and shrewd. He was the first man in this land who brought property into the hands of the king (the king of Norway). He compiled Edda and many other learned historical works and Icelandic sagas. He was murdered at Reykholt by Jarl Gissur’s men.”

      It seems, then, that there is no room for any doubt that these two men have had a share in the authorship of the Younger Edda. How great a share each has had is another and more difficult problem to solve. Rudolf Keyser’s opinion is (and we know no higher authority on the subject), that Snorre is the author, though not in so strict a sense as we now use the word, of Gylfaginning, Brage’s Speech, Skaldskaparmal and Hattatal. This part of the Younger Edda may thus be said to date back to the year 1230, though the material out of which the mythological system is constructed is of course much older. We find it in the ancient Vala’s Prophecy, of the Elder Edda, a poem that breathes in every line the purest asa-faith, and is, without the least doubt, much older than the introduction of christianity in the north, or the discovery and settlement of Iceland. It is not improbable that the religious system of the Odinic religion had assumed a permanent prose form in the memories of the people long before the time of Snorre, and that he merely was the means of having it committed to writing almost without verbal change.

      Olaf Thordsson is unmistakably the author of the grammatical and rhetorical portion of the Younger Edda, and its date can therefore safely be put at about 1250.