Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/133

 The Song of Atle, (30) The Speech of Atle, (31) The Challenge of Gudrun, (32) The Song of Hamder, (33) The Song of Grotte, (34) Extracts from the Younger Edda, (35) Extracts from the Volsunga Saga, (36) Song of Svipdag I, (37) Song of Svipdag II, (38) The Lay of the Sun, (39) Odin's Raven-Cry.

The antiquity of these poems cannot be fixed, but they certainly carry us back to the remotest period of the settlement of Norway by the Goths.

It may be added here that many of the poems of the Elder Edda, as well as much of the Old Norse poetry generally, are very difficult to understand, on account of the bold metaphorical language in which they are written. The poet did not call an object by its usual name, but borrowed a figure by which to present it, either from the mythology or from some other source. Thus he would call the sky the skull of the giant Ymer; the rainbow he called the bridge of the gods; gold was the tears of Freyja; poetry, the present or drink of Odin. The earth was called indifferently the wife of Odin, ''the flesh of Ymer, the daughter of night, the vessel that floats on the ages, or the foundation of the air''; herbs and plants were called the hair or ''the fleece of the earth''. A battle was called a bath of blood, the hail of Odin, the shock of bucklers; the sea was termed ''the field of pirates, the girdle of the earth; ice, the greatest of all bridges; a ship, the horse of the waves''; the tongue, the sword of words, etc.

II. The Younger Edda,

written by Snorre Sturleson, the author of the famous Heimskringla (born 1178, died 1241) is mostly prose, and may be regarded as a sort of commentary upon the Elder Edda. The prose Edda consists of two parts: