(1) _Poetic Edda_.--The classic edition, and on the whole the best,
is Professor Bugge's (Christiania, 1867); the smaller editions of
Hildebrand (_Die Lieder der Aelteren Edda_, Paderborn, 1876), and
Finnur Jónsson (_Eddalieder_, Halle, 1888-90) are also good; the
latter is in two parts, _Göttersage_ and _Heldensage_. The poems may
also be found in the first volume of Vigfusson and Powell's _Corpus
Poeticum Boreale_ (Oxford, 1883), accompanied by translations; but in
many cases they are cut up and rearranged, and they suffer metrically
from the system adopted of printing two short lines as one long one,
with no dividing point. There is an excellent palaeographic edition
of the _Codex Regius of the Elder Edda_, by Wimmer and Finnur Jónsson
(Copenhagen, 1891), with photographic reproductions interleaved with
a literal transcription.
(2) _Snorra Edda_.--The most recent edition of the whole is Dr. Finnur
Jónsson's (Copenhagen, 1875). There is a useful edition of the
mythological portions _(i.e., Gylfaginning, Bragaraedur_, and the
narrative parts of _Skaldskaparmal_) by Ernst Wilken (_Die Prosäische
Edda_, Paderborn, 1878).
(3) _Dictionaries and Grammars_.--For the study of the Poetic Edda,
Gering's _Glossar zu den Liedern der Edda_ (Paderborn, 1896) will
be found most useful; it is complete and trustworthy, and in small
compass. A similar service has been performed for _Snorra Edda_ in
Wilken's _Glossar_ (Paderborn, 1883), which forms a second volume to
his edition, mentioned above. Both are, of course, in German. The only
English dictionary is the lexicon of Cleasby and Vigfusson (Oxford).
Of Grammars, the best are German; those of Noreen (_Altnordische
Grammatik_, Halle, 1892), of which there is an abbreviated edition,
and Kahle (_Altisländisches Elementarbuch_, Heidelberg, 1896) being
better suited for advanced students; the English grammars included
in Vigfusson and Powell's _Icelandic Reader_ (Oxford) and Sweet's
_Icelandic Primer_ (Oxford) are more elementary, and therefore hardly
adequate for the study of the verse literature.