Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/672

650 or Younger Edda, the title of the Elder Edda being given to a of ancient , discovered by the ic  of , , in , and erroneously named by him the Edda of Sæmund.

1.The Prose Edda, properly known as Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, was arranged and modified by Snorri, but actually composed, as has been conjectured, between and. It is divided into five parts, the Preface or Formáli, Gylfaginníng, Bragaræður, Skáldskaparmál, and Háttatal. The preface bears a very modern character, and simply gives a from  and, in accordance with the. Gylfaginning, or the Delusion of, on the other hand, is the most precious compendium which we possess of the of the ancient inhabitants of. Commencing with the adventures of a   and the ess, and the  formation of the  of , it tells us that the , led by , invaded Svithjod or , the  of , and settled there. It is from the Ynglingasaga and from the Gylfaginning that we gain all the information we possess about the conquering or es who set their  upon the  of. Advancing from the northwards through, and westward through , the  seem to have overrun the south lands of , not as a  but as an. The Eddaic version, however, of the of  is not so circumstantial as that in the Ynglingasaga; it is, on the other hand, distinguished by an exquisite simplicity and archaic force of style, which give an entirely classical character to its  s of  and of. The Gylfaginning is written in, with brief insertions. The Bragaræður, or sayings of, are further s of , attributed to , the of , or to a  of the same. The Skáldskaparmál, or of, commonly called Skálda, contains the instructions given by  to , and consists of the rules and theories of ancient , exemplified in copious extracts from Eyvindr Skáldaspillir and other eminent. The word Skáldskapr refers to the form rather than the substance of, and this is almost solely technical in character. It is by far the largest of the sections of the Edda of Snorri, and comprises not only extracts but some long, notably the Thorsdrapa of Eilifr Guðrúnarson and the Haustlaung of Thjóðólfr. The fifth section of the Edda, the Háttatal, or Number of, is a running technical commentary on the text of Snorri's three poems in honour of ,  of. Affixed to some MS. of the Younger Edda are a list of, and a number of s and  studies. These belong, however, to a later period than the life of.

1em

2.The Elder Edda, Poetic Edda, or Sæmundar Edda hins froða was entirely unknown until about, when it came into the hands of, who, puzzled to classify it, gave it the title of Edda Sæmundi multiscii. , who was thus credited with the of these, was a scion of the of , and lived from about  to  in. The themselves date in all probability from the  or, and are many of them only fragments of longer  now otherwise entirely lost. They treat of and  s of an early n civilization, and are composed in the simplest and most archaic forms of. The author of no one of them is mentioned. It is evident that they were collected from oral tradition; and the fact that the same story is occasionally repeated, in varied form, and that some of the themselves bear internal evidence of being more ancient than others, proves that the present collection is only a gathering made early in the, long after the composition of the pieces, and in no  spirit. Sophus Bugge, indeed, one of the greatest living authorities, absolutely rejects the of, and is of opinion that the poetic Edda, as we at present hold it, dates from about. There is no doubt that it was in, and by an. The most remarkable and the most ancient of the in this priceless  is that with which it commences, the Völuspá, or Prophecy of the Völva or. In this chant we listen to an inspired ess, “seated on her, and addressing , while the listen to her words.” She  of the  before the  were made, of the coming and the meeting of the , of the origin of the s, s, and , of the happy beginning of all things, and the sad ending that shall be in the chaos of. The latter part of the is understood to be a kind of ,—according to Vigfusson, “the  of a dead völva;” but the   of the whole, its abrupt transitions and terse condensations, and above all the extinct and mysterious, an acquaintance with which it presupposes, make the exact interpretation of the Völuspá extremely difficult. The charm and solemn beauty of the style, however, are irresistible, and we are constrained to listen and revere as if we were the auditors of some  devised in honour of a primal and long-. The melodies of this earliest, elaborate in their extreme and severe simplicity, are wholly ical and , and return upon themselves like a solemn incantation. Hávamál, the Sayings of the High One, or, follows next; this contains and wise saws, and a series of stories, some of them , told by  against himself. The Vafthrúðnismál, or sayings of, is written in the same vein as Völuspá; in it the  who gives his name to the  is visited by  in , and is questioned by him about the  and  of the. Grimnismál, or the Sayings of, which is partly in , is a story of 's and  by. För Skirnis, or the Journey of, Harbarðslióð, or the of , Hymiskviða, or the  of , and Œgisdrekka, or the  of , are , frequently composed as , containing s of the , some of which are so ludicrous that it has been suggested that they were intentionally. Thrymskviða, or the of, possesses far more  interest; it recounts in  of singular force and directness how  lost his , stolen by  the , how the latter refused to give it up unless the   was given him in , and how , dressed in women's , personated , and, slaying , recovered his. Alvíssmál, or the Sayings of, is actually a exercise under the semblance of a  between  and  the. In Vegtamskviða, or the of,  questions a völva with regard to the meaning of the sinister s of , Rígsmál, or more properly Rígsthula, records how the  , d as a  called , wandered by the -, where he met the original  pair,  and Edda, to 