The fanciful but still commonly believed meaning of the word "Edda,"
which even many of the dictionaries explain as "great-grandmother,"
does not, after all, inaptly describe by suggestion the general
character of the work to which it is given. The picture of an ancient
dame at the fireside, telling tales and legendary lore of times whose
memory has all but disappeared, is a by no means inappropriate
personification, even if it has no other foundation. In point of fact,
'Edda' as the title of a literary work has nothing whatsoever to do
with a great-grandmother, but means "the art of poetry," "poetics";
and only by an extension of its original use does it belong to all
that is now included under it.
There are in reality two 'Eddas,' which are in a certain sense
connected in subject-material, but yet in more ways than one are
wholly distinct. As originally applied, the name now used collectively
unquestionably belonged to the one, variously called, to distinguish
it from the other, the 'Younger Edda,' on account of the relative age
of its origin; the 'Prose Edda,' since in its greater part it is
written in prose; and the 'Snorra Edda,' the Edda of Snorri, from the
author of the work in its original form. In contradistinction to this,
the other is called the 'Elder Edda,' the 'Poetical Edda,' and from
the name of its once assumed author, the 'Saemundar Edda,' the Edda of
Saemund.
Legitimately and by priority of usage, the name 'Edda' belongs to the
first-named work alone. In the form in which it has ultimately come
down to us, this is the compilation of many hands at widely different
times; but in its most important and fundamental parts it was
undoubtedly either written by the Icelander Snorri himself, or under
his immediate supervision.
Snorri Sturluson, its author, both from the part he played in national
politics in his day and from his literary legacy to the present, is
altogether the most remarkable man in the history of Iceland. He was
born in 1179, his father, Sturla Thordarson, being one of the most
powerful chieftains of the island. As was the custom of the time, he
was sent from home to be fostered, remaining away until his
foster-father's death, or until he was nineteen years old; his own
father in the meantime having died as well. He entered upon active
life with but little more than his own ambition to further him; but
through his brother's influence he made the following year a brilliant
marriage, and thus laid the foundation of his power, which thereafter
steadily grew. In 1215 Snorri was elected "Speaker of the Law" for the
Commonwealth. At the expiration of his term of service in the summer
of 1218 he went to Norway, where he was received with extraordinary
hospitality both by King Hakon, who made him his liegeman, and by the
King's father-in-law, Earl Skuli. On the authority of some of the
sagas, he is said to have promised the latter at this time to use his
influence to bring Iceland under the dominion of Norway. Two years
later he returned to Iceland, taking back with him as a present from
the King a ship and many other valuable gifts. In 1222 he was again
made "Speaker of the Law," which post he now held continuously for
nine years.
Iceland, as the Commonwealth neared its end, was torn apart by the
jealous feuds of the chieftains. A long series of complications had
aroused a bitter hostility to Snorri among his own relatives. In 1229,
he found it necessary to ride to the Althing at the head of eight
hundred men. The matter did not then come to an open rupture, but in
1239 it finally resulted in a regular battle, in which Snorri's
faction was worsted. To avoid consequences he immediately after fled
to Norway. Unwisely, he here gave his adherence to Earl Skuli, now at
odds with the King, and thereby incurred the active displeasure of the
latter; who, evidently fearing the use of Snorri's power against him,
forbade him by letter to return to Iceland. The command was
disregarded, however, and he presently was back again in his native
land. In 1240 Skuli was slain, and shortly afterward King Hakon seems
to have resolved upon Snorri's death. Using Arni, a son-in-law of the
Icelander, as a willing messenger, he sent a letter to Gissur, another
son-in-law, between whom and his father-in-law an active feud was on
foot, demanding that he send the latter a prisoner to Norway, or if
that were impossible, to kill him. Gissur accordingly, with seventy
men at his back, came to Snorri's farmstead Reykjaholt on the night of
the 22d of September, 1241, when the old chieftain was mercilessly
slain in the cellar, where he had taken refuge, by an unknown member
of the band.
In spite of his political life, Snorri found opportunity for abundant
literary work. The 'Icelandic Annals' say that he "compiled the 'Edda'
and many other books of historical learning, and Icelandic sagas." Of
these, however, only two have come down to us: his 'Edda' and the
sagas of the Norse kings, known since the seventeenth century as the
'Heimskringla,' the best piece of independent prose literature, and
in its bearing the most important series of sagas, of all the number
that are left to attest the phenomenal literary activity of the
Icelanders.
Snorri's 'Edda'--both as he, the foremost poet of his day, originally
conceived it, and with its subsequent additions--is a handbook for
poets, an _Ars poetica_, as its name itself signifies. That it served
its purpose as a recognized authority is discoverable from the
references to it in later Icelandic poets, where "rules of Edda,"
"laws of Edda," "Eddic art," and "Edda" are of frequent occurrence, as
indicating an ideal of poetical expression striven for by some and
deprecated by others. As Snorri wrote it, the 'Edda' was an admirably
arranged work in three parts: the 'Gylfaginning,' a compendium of the
old mythology, the knowledge of which in Snorri's day was fast dying
out; the 'Skaldskaparmal,' a dictionary of poetical expressions, many
of which, contained in ancient poems, were no longer intelligible; and
the 'Hattatal,' a poem or rather series of poems, exemplifying in its
own construction the use and kinds of metre. As it has come down to
us, it has been greatly added to and altered. A long preface filled
with the learning of the Middle Ages now introduces the whole; the
introductions and conclusions of the parts of the work have been
extended; several old poems have been included; a Skaldatal, or list
of skalds, has been added, as have also several grammatical and
rhetorical tracts,--some of which are of real historical value.
With regard to matter and manner, the parts of Snorri's 'Edda' are as
follows:--The 'Gylfaginning' (the Delusion of Gylfi) is a series of
tales told in answer to the questions of Gylfi, a legendary Swedish
king, who comes in disguise to the gods in Asgard to learn the secret
of their power. By way of illustration it quotes, among other poetical
citations, verses from several of the lays of the 'Elder Edda.' The
'Skaldskaparmal' (Poetical Diction) is also in great part in the form
of questions and answers. It contains under separate heads the
periphrases, appellatives, and synonyms used in ancient verse, which
are often explained by long tales; and like the preceding part, it
also is illustrated by numerous poetical quotations here, particularly
from the skalds. The 'Hattatal' (Metres), finally, consists of three
poems: the first an encomium on the Norwegian king Hakon, and the
others on Earl Skuli. It exemplifies in not fewer than one hundred and
two strophes the use of as many kinds of metre, many of them being
accompanied by a prose commentary of greater or less length.
That Snorri really wrote the work as here described seems to be
undoubted, although there is no trace of it as a whole until after his
death. At what period of his career it arose, can however merely be
conjectured. We only know with certainty the date of the 'Hattatal';
that may not unlikely have been the nucleus of the whole, which falls
undoubtedly between 1221 and 1223, shortly after the return from the
first visit to Norway. The oldest manuscript of the 'Snorra
Edda,'--now in the University Library at Upsala, Sweden,--which was
written before 1300, assigns the work to him by name; and the
'Icelandic Annals,' as has already been stated, under the year of his
death corroborate the statement of his authorship of "the Edda"--that
is, of course, of this particular 'Edda,' for there can be no thought
of the other.
Snorri's poetical work outside of the 'Edda' is represented only by
fugitive verses. An encomium that he wrote on the wife of Earl Hakon
has been lost. As a poet, Snorri undoubtedly stands upon a lower plane
than that which he occupies as a historian. He wrote at a time when
poetry was in its decline in Iceland; and neither in the 'Hattatal'
nor in his other verse, except in form and phraseology, of which he
had a wonderful control, does he rise to the level of a host of
earlier skalds. It is his critical knowledge of the old poetry of
Norway and Iceland that makes his 'Edda' of such unique value, and
particularly as no small part of the material accessible to him has
since been irrevocably lost. Snorri's 'Edda,' in its very conception,
is a wonderful book to have arisen at the time in which it was
written, and in no other part of the Germanic North in the thirteenth
century had such a thing been possible. It is not only, however, as a
commentary on old Norse poetry that it is remarkable. Its importance
as a compendium of the ancient Northern mythology is as great,--one
whose loss nothing could supplant. As a whole, it is of incalculable
value to the entire Germanic race for the light that it sheds upon its
early intellectual life, its ethics, and its religion.
The history of the 'Elder Edda' does not go back of the middle of the
seventeenth century. In 1643 the Icelandic bishop Brynjolf Sveinsson
sent as a present to Frederick III. of Denmark several old Icelandic
vellums, among which was the manuscript, dating, according to the most
general assignment, from not earlier than 1350; since called the
'Codex Regius' of the 'Edda.' Not a word is known about its previous
history. As to when it came into the hands of the bishop, or where it
was discovered, he has given us no clew whatsoever. He had
nevertheless not only a name ready for it, but a distinct theory of
its authorship, for he wrote on the back of a copy that he had made,
"Edda Saemundi Multiscii" (the Edda of Saemund the Wise).
Both Bishop Brynjolf's title for the work and his assumption as to the
name of its author--for both are apparently his--are open to
criticism. The name 'Edda' belongs, as we have seen, to Snorri's
book; to which it was given, if not by himself, certainly by one of
his immediate followers. It is not difficult, however, to explain its
new application. Snorri's 'Edda' cites, as has been mentioned, a
number of single strophes of ancient poems, many of which were now
found to be contained in Brynjolf's collection in a more or less
complete form. This latter was, accordingly, not unnaturally looked
upon as the source of the material of Snorri's work; and since its
subject-matter too was the old poetry, it was consequently an earlier
'Edda.' Subsequently the title was extended to include a number of
poems in the same manner found elsewhere; and 'Edda' has since been
irretrievably the title both of the old Norse lays and of the old
Norse _Ars poetica_, to which it more appropriately belongs.
The attribution of the work to Saemund was even less justifiable.
Saemund Sigfusson was an Icelandic priest, who lived from 1056 to 1133.
As a young man he studied in Germany, France, and Italy, but came back
to Iceland about 1076. Afterward he settled down as priest and
chieftain, as was his father before him, on the paternal estate Oddi
in the south of Iceland, where he lived until his death. Among his
contemporaries and subsequently he was celebrated for his great
learning, the memory of which has even come down to the present day in
popular legend, where like learned men elsewhere he is made an adept
in the black art, and many widely spread tales of supernatural power
have clustered locally about his name. Saemund is the first writer
among the Icelanders of whom we have any information; and besides
poems, he is reputed to have written some of the best of the sagas and
other historical works. It is not unlikely that he did write parts of
the history of Iceland and Norway in Latin, but nothing has come down
to us that is with certainty to be attributed to him. There is however
no ancient reference whatsoever to Saemund as a poet, and it is but a
legend that connects him in any way with the Eddie lays. Internal
criticism readily yields the fact that they are not only of widely
different date of origin, but are so unlike in manner and in matter
that it is idle to suppose a single authorship at all. Nor is it
possible that Saemund, as Bishop Brynjolf may have supposed was the
case, even collected the lays contained in this 'Edda.' It is on the
contrary to be assumed that the collection, of which Brynjolf's
manuscript is but a copy, arose during the latter half of the twelfth
century, in the golden age of Icelandic literature; a time when
attention was most actively directed to the past, when many of the
sagas current hitherto only as oral tradition were given a permanent
form, and historical works of all sorts were written and compiled.
The fact of the matter is, that here is a collection of old Norse
poems, the memory of whose real time and place of origin has
disappeared, and whose authorship is unknown. Earlier commentators
supposed them to be of extreme age, and carried them back to the very
childhood of the race. Modern criticism has dispelled the illusions of
any such antiquity. It has been proved, furthermore, that the oldest
of the poems does not go back of the year 850, and that the youngest
may have been written as late as 1200. As to their place of origin,
although all have come to us from Iceland, by far the greater number
of them apparently originated in Norway; several arose in the Norse
colonies in Greenland; and although the whole collection was made in
Iceland, where alone many of them had been remembered, but two are
undoubtedly of distinct Icelandic parentage. With regard to their
authorship, results are less direct. Folk-songs they are not in the
proper sense of the word, in that in their present shape they are the
work of individual poets, who made over in versified form material
already existing in oral tradition. Only a small part of the ancient
poetry that arose in this way has been preserved. From prose
interpolations which supply breaks in the continuity of the lays in
the 'Elder Edda' itself, as well as from isolated strophes of old
poems, else unknown, quoted in Snorri's 'Edda,' and from the citation
and use of such poetical material in sagas and histories,--we know for
a certainty that many other lays in the ancient manner once existed
that have now been for all time lost.
Brynjolf's manuscript contains, whole or in part, as they are now
considered to exist, thirty-two poems. From other sources six poems
have since been added, presumably as ancient as the lays of the 'Codex
Regius,' so that the 'Elder Edda' is made up of thirty-eight poems,
not all of which, however, are even reasonably complete. In form they
are in alliterative verse, but three different metres being
represented, all the simplest and least artificial of the many kinds
used by the Norsemen. In content the lays fall under three heads: they
are mythic, in that they contain the myths of the old heathen religion
of the Norsemen; ethic, in that they embody their views of life and
rules of living; or they are heroic, in that they recount the deeds of
legendary heroes of the race.
The mythic poems of the 'Edda,' taken together, give us a tolerably
complete picture of the Northern mythology in the Viking Age; although
some of them were not written until after the introduction of
Christianity, and are therefore open to the imputation of having been
to a greater or less extent affected by its teachings. The oldest
poems of the collection are mythical in character. In some of them a
particular god is the principal figure. Several of them, like the
'Vafthrudnismal,' the 'Grimnismal,' 'Baldrs Draumar,' and the
'Harbardsljod,' in this way are particularly devoted to Odin, whose
supremacy they show over all other beings, and whose part they
describe in the government of the universe; in others, like the
'Hymiskvida,' the 'Thrymskvida,' and the 'Alvismal,' Thor occupies the
prominent part in his strife with the giants; single ones have other
gods as their principal actors, like Skirnir, the messenger of Frey,
in the 'Skirnismal,' Loki, the god of destruction, in the 'Lokasenna,'
or Heimdall, the guardian of the rainbow bridge which stretched from
heaven to earth, in the 'Rigsthula.' A few of them are both mythic and
heroic at the same time, like the 'Lay of Voelund,' which tells of the
fearful revenge of the mythical smith upon the Swedish king; or the
'Song of Grotti,' the magical mill, which ground what was wished,
first peace and gold for its owner, King Frodi of Denmark, but later
so much salt on the ship of Mysing, who had conquered the king and
taken it away, that all together sunk into the sea, which henceforth
was salt. By far the greater of the mythic lays is the long but
fragmentary poem 'Voeluspa,' the 'Prophecy of the Sibyl,' which is
entitled to stand not only at the head of the Eddic songs but of all
old Germanic poetry, for the beauty and dignity of its style, its
admirable choice of language, and the whole inherent worth of its
material. Its purpose is to give a complete picture, although only in
its most essential features, of the whole heathen religion. It
contains in this way the entire history of the universe: the creation
of the world out of chaos; the origin of the giants, the dwarfs, of
gods, and of men; and ends with their destruction and ultimate
renewal. The Sibyl is represented at the beginning in an assemblage of
the whole human race, whom she bids be silent in order that she may be
heard. Many of the strophes, even in translation, retain much of their
inherent dignity and poetic picturesqueness:--
"There was in times of old
where Ymir dwelt,
nor land nor sea,
nor gelid waves;
earth existed not,
nor heaven above;
there was a chaotic chasm,
and verdure nowhere.
"Before Bur's sons
raised up heaven's vault,
they who the noble
mid-earth shaped,
the sun shone from the south
on the structure's rocks;
then was the earth begrown
with green herbage.
"The sun from the south,
the moon's companion,
her right hand cast
round the heavenly horses:
the sun knew not
where she had a dwelling:
the moon knew not
what power he possessed;
the stars knew not
where they had station."
The gods thereupon gave the heavenly bodies names, and ordained the
times and seasons. This was the golden age of the young world, before
guilt and sin had come into it; a time of joy and beneficent activity.
A deed of violence proclaimed its approaching end, and out of the
slain giants' blood and bones the dwarfs were created. The gods then
made the first man and woman, for whom the Norns established laws and
allotted life and destiny. The use of gold was introduced, and with it
its attendant evils; the Valkyries come, and the first warfare occurs
in the world; the gods' stronghold is broken, and Odin hurls his spear
among the people. In rapid succession follow the pictures of the awful
ills that happen to gods and men, which finally end in Ragnaroek, the
twilight of the gods, and the conflagration of the universe. This
however is not the end. The Sibyl describes the reappearance of the
green earth from the ocean. The gods again come back, and a new golden
age begins of peace and happiness which shall endure forever.
Scarcely inferior to the 'Voeluspa' for the importance of its material
is the ethical poem or rather collection of poems called the
'Havamal,' the 'Speech of the High One,'--that is, of Odin the supreme
god. The poem consists of sententious precepts and epigrammatic
sayings, which ultimately have been set together to form a connected,
though scarcely systematic, philosophy of life. The whole is naturally
attributed to Odin, the source of all wisdom, the father and giver of
all things. A part of the poem is the oldest of all the Eddic lays,
and the whole of it was at hand early in the tenth century. Although
many of its maxims show a primitive state of society, as a whole they
are the experience of a people more advanced in culture than we are
apt to fancy the Norsemen of the Viking Age, who could nevertheless
philosophize at home as sturdily as they fought abroad. The morality
of the 'Havamal' is not always our morality, but many of its maxims
are eternally true. Its keynote, again and again repeated, is the
perishability of all earthly possessions, and the endurance alone of
fairly won fame:--
"Cattle die,
kindred die,
we ourselves also die;
but the fair fame
never dies
of him who has earned it."
The heroic poems of the 'Elder Edda' recount as if belonging to
a single legendary cycle what originally belonged to two; the one
of Northern origin, the other the common property of the whole
Germanic race. They are the Helgi poems on the one hand, and the
Voelsung poems on the other. Together they tell the "Story of the
North," and come nearest to forming its greatest epic; it is the
same story which Wagner has set to music as immortal in his 'Ring
of the Nibelung,'--although the principal source of his material is
the prose 'Voelsunga Saga' and not the 'Edda,'--and which in a form
much later than the Icelandic versions is also told in the German
'Nibelungenlied.'
The Helgi poems are only loosely connected with the story of Sigurd
the Voelsung, and originally, but without doubt long before they were
committed to writing, had no connection with it at all. As they now
stand at the head of the heroic lays they are made to tell the deeds
of early members of the Voelsung race; namely, of Helgi Hjoervard's son,
and Helgi Hundingsbane, who is said to have been named after him. The
latter the 'Edda' makes the son of Sigmund the Voelsung, and
consequently an elder brother of Sigurd, the hero of the subsequent
cycle of poems. To these last they are joined by a prose piece ending
with a description of Sigurd's parentage and birth, and his own
personality, which the poems themselves do not give at length.
The remaining poems, fifteen in all, tell the old Germanic story of
Sigurd, the Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied, in the most ancient form
in which it has come down to us. As contained in the 'Edda' it is a
picture of great deeds, painted in powerful strokes which gain in
force by the absence of carefully elaborated detail. In various ways
it is unfortunate that the lays composing the cycle are not more
closely consecutive; a difficulty that was felt by the earliest
editors of the manuscript, who endeavored to bring the poems and
fragments of poems then extant into some sort of connection, by the
interpolation of prose passages of various lengths wherever it was
considered necessary to the intelligibility of the story. As it is
however there is even yet, and cannot help but be, on account of the
differences in age, authorship, and place of origin of the lays, an
inherent lack of correlation. Many of the poems overlap, and parts of
the action are told several times and in varying form.
The Sigurd poems belong to a time prior to the introduction of
Christianity, as is incontestably proved by the genuine heathen spirit
that throughout pervades them. Their action is in the early days, when
the gods walked upon earth and mixed themselves in human affairs. The
real theme of the epic which the lays form is the mythical golden
hoard, and with it the fated ring of the Nibelung, owned originally by
the dwarf Andvari, from whom it is wrung by the gods in their
extremity. Andvari curses it to its possessors, and it is cursed again
by the gods who are forced to deliver it up to Hreidmar as blood-money
for his son, whom Loki had slain. Fafnir and Regin, the brothers of
the slain Ottur, demand of their father their share of the blood-fine,
and when this is refused, Hreidmar is killed while asleep, and Regin
is driven away by Fafnir, who then in the guise of a dragon lies upon
the golden hoard to guard it. Egged on by Regin, Sigurd slays Fafnir,
and Regin also when he learns that he intends treachery.
Sigurd gives the ring of Andvari, taken from the hoard, to the
Valkyrie Brynhild, as a pledge of betrothal; and when in the likeness
of Gunnar the Nibelung,--having by wiles forgotten his former
vows,--he rides to her through the fire, the ring is given back to him
by Brynhild, who does not recognize him. The fatal ring is now given
by Sigurd to his wife, Gudrun the Nibelung, who in a moment of anger
shows it to Brynhild and taunts her with a recital of his history.
Brynhild cannot bear to see the happiness of Gudrun, and does not rest
until Sigurd is slain; and in slaying him, Guthorm, the youngest of
the Nibelungs, is killed, struck down by the sword of the dying
Sigurd. Brynhild, who will not outlive Sigurd, perishes on her own
sword. Gudrun is subsequently, against her will, wedded to Atli the
Hun. Gunnar and Hoegni, her brothers, the two remaining Nibelungs, are
invited to visit Atli, when they are straightway fallen upon, their
followers are killed, and they are bound. They are asked to give up
the golden hoard, whose hiding-place was known to them alone; but
Gunnar first demands the death of his brother Hoegni, and then
triumphantly tells Atli that the treasure is forever hidden in the
Rhine,--where, he only knows. He is cast into a serpent pit, and dies.
Atli's sons and Gudrun's are slain by their mother, changed by the
madness of grief at the slaughter of her brothers into an avenging
Fury, and Atli himself and his men are burned in the hall. Carried
then by the sea, into which she has hurled herself, Gudrun comes to
the land of King Jonakr, who makes her his wife. Swanhild, the
daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun, had been married to King Joermunrek, but
coming under unjust suspicion, is trodden to death by horses; and
Gudrun dies of a broken heart, with a prayer to Sigurd upon her lips.
Last of all, the sons of Gudrun and Jonakr, who, incited by their
mother, had been sent out to avenge their sister, are stoned to death;
and the curse only ceases to work when there is nothing more left for
it to wreak itself upon.
It is a story of great deeds, whose motives are the bitter passions of
that early time before the culture of Christianity had softened the
hearts of men. The psychological truthfulness of its characters,
however, in spite of their distance from to-day, is none the less
unmistakable; and we watch the action with bated breath, as they are
hurried on by a fate as relentless and inevitable as any that ever
pursued an Oedipus. They are not the indistinct and shadowy forms
which in many early literatures seem to grope out toward us from the
mists of the past, whose clinging heaviness the present is unable
wholly to dispel, but are human men and women who live and act; and
the principal characters, particularly, in this way become the
realities of history, instead of what they actually are, the creations
of legend and myth.
Many of the poems of the 'Edda' have been several times translated
into English. Notable renderings are those by Dean Herbert, and by
William Morris in the translation of the 'Voelsunga Saga,' by Magnusson
and Morris. The only metrical version of all the lays is that of
Benjamin Thorpe (London, 1866). A literal translation of the entire
extant old poetry of the North is contained in Vigfusson's monumental
work, the 'Corpus Poeticum Boreale.' The 'Snorra Edda' has been
translated by G.W. Dasent (Stockholm, 1842); by I.A. Blackwell in
'Northern Antiquities' (London, 1847); and by R. B. Anderson (Chicago,
1880).
[Illustration: Signature of Wm. H. Carpenter]