#Prose Edda

[hedgewitchgarden]

“From this they realized that Earth was alive, and had a sort of life. And they knew that she was immensely ancient of years, and powerful of nature. She raised all life, and she received everything in death. For this reason they gave her a name, and counted their lineages from her.”

~ Snorri Sturlusson, Introduction to the Prose Edda, 1225 A.D.

[saphronethaleph]

Who the Edda you

The door to Odin’s study opened with a dramatic thud, which wasn’t quite the crash that Thor could manage but was still quite passable.

“Father!” Loki began, without preamble.

“Loki,” Odin replied, turning around. “You seem upset.”

“Congratulations, you can tell,” Loki replied. “I don’t suppose your all-seeing eye has told you why I’m here?”

Odin frowned, then shook his head slightly.

“I don’t know that,” he said. “I know you went to Midgard recently.”

“Well, of course you’d know that,” Loki agreed. “But I have to ask. Am I adopted?”

Odin winked.

“...what?” he asked, mostly to buy time.

“Because some of this stuff is complete nonsense,” Loki went on, slamming a book down on the nearest table.

Odin saw that it said Prose and Poetic Edda, but Loki just kept going. “I mean, really, complete nonsense. It’s impossible for you to conceive of just how ridiculous this is, I read the whole thing and according to this book’s version of things, Sleipnir is my son.”

Odin stared for a moment, then looked at the book again.

“Sleipnir…” he repeated, slowly. “The horse.”

“Yesss,” Loki confirmed. “I understand your confusion, old man, because I very much share it. Admittedly they do have an explanation, but – that’s not even the only child I have in this book! I also have a sea serpent, a giant wolf called Fenris and a half-zombie woman called Hel!”

Odin coughed.

“They what?” he asked, coughing again. “...where did you even get that book, anyway?”

“Book store, while I was waiting for Thor to finish… being Thor,” Loki replied. “Amazingly enough, they quite like books down in Midgard. And some of the things they mention in it are quite familiar. A lot of names, for example, though it’s astonishing what they get wrong. Heimdall’s in there, he’s described as the whitest of the gods.”

Odin looked at the book, then out the window towards the Bifrost (which wasn’t actually visible from this angle), then back to the book.

“And you’re using this book for information?” he asked.

“I said it got all kinds of things ridiculously wrong,” Loki said. “That’s why I’m asking you. I have to say, though, if some of the details here are correct then I’m very much looking forward to them.”

He picked up the book, and flicked through to one of the pages with a turned-over corner. “For example, according to this story Thor and I go on a heist to get Mjolnir back after someone steals it.”

Odin now looked even more baffled.

“Couldn’t Thor just call it back to his hand?” he said, despite himself.

“I don’t know, but knowing Thor he may have forgotten,” Loki said. “And I was apparently having too much fun with the heist plan to actually mention it to my brother… what with how the plan was to disguise Thor as the most beautiful of the goddesses, and insist on the dowry being Mjolnir.”

He smirked. “I do suspect that I came up with that idea. It has my flair.”

“Aren’t you getting it out of a book, right now?” Odin asked.

Loki’s expression soured.

“Fair point,” he admitted. “Did you really pluck out an eye and impale yourself to gain omniscience, though?”

He gave Odin an askance look. “And if you did, is that an Asgardian thing, a parent thing, or just… you, being yourself?”

“...does that book say I was impaled?” Odin asked.

“To death, actually,” Loki confirmed. “Apparently you got better. I don’t pretend to understand.”

Odin frowned, thinking.

“If there’s some deep, dark secret, do tell,” Loki requested. “I know a huge part of this book is absolute nonsense, but some of it is extremely telling and I’ve even got some ideas from it. I should really try shapeshifting into an eagle and flying around some time.”

He made a face. “Not doing a mare, though.”

“Why not?” Odin said, again trying to buy time to think.

“According to the book – which, again, I know isn’t true,” Loki noted, “Sleipnir came about when you’d hired a giant to build the walls of Asgard but didn’t want to pay him. About two thirds of the work was done by his magic horse, and apparently I seduced the horse.”

Odin nodded, slowly.

“Loki,” he said. “My son. I can tell you that that part of the book is Millennial nonsense.”

Loki blinked.

“...what’s a Millennial?” he asked.

“People born this millennium,” Odin clarified. “So, anyone under nine hundred and eighty years old.”

He paused.

“Oh, and – yes,” he added. “You were adopted, but I wanted to wait until you and your brother were mature enough to accept that.”

“You don’t think I’m mature enough now?” Loki asked, hurt.

“I do know about that time you had a bet with Thor to vanish out of a plane in mid-flight,” Odin said. “And, before you ask, that’s both of you that I mean.”

Loki frowned.

“I concede that,” he said, sounding pained. “All right, I’ll try to process that.”

He picked up the book again. “Though I may need to stay away from mistletoe from now on. Getting involved with that particular plant doesn’t seem to end well for me…”

[widget117]

Guide to the Edda

I am by no means an expert, but I AM a proud literature buff 💪 📢

The Poetic Edda is a collection of Norse myths divided into four parts:

The Prologue: differing from the other parts of the Edda in terms of structure, subject and information, the Prologue relates Norse stories to those of the Graeco-Romans, hoping to make it's reader take it more seriously (the Edda was written down in the time of Christianity entering Iceland, so this isn't too surprising). It's unclear whether the Prologue was a part of the original texts, or if it was added only with the scribing of the Edda itself, in order to relate to a medieval Christian audience by drawing connections to familiar Christian concepts.

The Gylfaginning: the "core" of the Edda. It is our best source of the Creation story, struggles of Gods and events leading to Ragnarok. It is written as a dialogue between King Gylfi of Sweden and three god-like figures. Gylfi disguies himself as a traveller and journeys to visit the Æsir (the Norse Gods). The three god-like figures are three manifestations of Odin, who Gylfi questions on the order of the Norse Pantheon and the formation of the world.

The Skaldskaparmal: the stories in this section of the Edda give mostly background and explanation for references in Old Norse verse. The Skaldskaparmal gives us stories of heroes, dragon slayers and whatnot.

The List of Metres/Hattatal: undoubtedly composed by Snorri Sturluson himself as an attempt to make himself amicable with the Norwegian King, the Hattatal is a work of 102 stanzas that demonstrate poetics metres and devices. It's a pretty obscure section and is often left out of translations.

The Prose Edda serves as a "how to read Norse poetry" guide for medieval scholars. It's more or less just a couple hundred pages of "here's what's up"

Æsir

The Norse Gods are separated into two groups: the Æsir and the Vanir, who are pretty consistently at war with each other until they eventually fuse into just one group, taking on the name "Æsir" to mean all Norse Gods. The Æsir live in Asgard and rarely quarrel over humans or heroes. They don't like being immortal, either.

The Æsir commonly represent war.

Ex) Odin, Thor, Týr, Frigg

Vanir

The Vanir are Gods of fertility, wisdom and prophecy. Their home is Vanaheimr. After the Æsir-Vanir War, they become a subgroup of the Æsir.

Ex) Freya, Freyr, Njord

Other Creatures

Giants/Jötnar

The Jötnar live in contrast to the Gods (sometimes called "Anti-Gods"); Loki is often considered a Jötunn. There are many names for these entities (Trolls, risi, gýgr, tröllkona, þursar). The connotations for Jötnar become less cool and more evil as Christianity enters the picture, and these beings are not necessarily very large, as the name "giant" might have you expect.

Ex) Hrungnir, Fárbauti, Gerðr

Elves

The Edda mentiones Elves mostly in passing. Though their presence is scarce, it is implied that they held a lot of importance in original Scandinavian myths. There are different types of Elves, such as light and dark, and there are place names connected to them.

As in most mythologies including Elves, they are beautiful, dangerous and magical creatures.

Dwarves

Dwarves are pretty negative creatures in the Norse myth. They were the first of all creatures who live in the flesh of the giant Ymir. The Gods, for some reason unbeknownst to us, changed the nature of the Dwarves so that they "assumed the likeness of men" and started dwelling below the ground.

The reason for changing them may have to do with smithing. The Gods were the earliest master smiths, but abandoned forging and left it to the Dwarves.

Valkyries

Odin's gang of Valkryies decide which fallen Norse heroes are allowed into Valhalla (Odin's hall in Asgard, where the most prominent of the Gods are allowed their own halls, such as Freya or Frigg, etc). Valkryies sometimes appear as lovers of heroes or mortals, even as royalty.

Ex) Brynhildr, Sigrún, Göndul

Monsters

From here on out, classification would take me all goddamn day. Besides the aforementioned, you have your serpents, dragons, lindworms, beasts of battle, draugrs, nixies, selkolla, lyngbakr, hafgufa and hamingja.

The Wild Hunt of Odin — Peter Nicolai Arbo

[illustratus]

Nótt riding Hrímfaxi by Peter Nicolai Arbo

[homewardskies]

"From there come girls, knowing a great deal,

Three from the lake standing under the tree;

Urd one is called, Verdandi another—

They carved on a wooden slip—Skuld the third;

They laid down the laws, they chose lives

For the sons of men, the fates of men."

-The Prose Edda: Seeress's Prophecy (trans. Carolyne Larrington, 1996)

[fjorn-the-skald]

Norse Mythology: Snorri and Saxo’s Salty Prose

What happens when two salty men write about Norse mythology in the 13th century? Luckily for us, one is a bit less salty than the other…but it’s still a bit of a mess. #norse #viking #history #medieval #norsemythology

When it comes to ‘primary’ source material about Norse mythology, few are better than the Prose Edda—but everyone hates on its 13th-century Icelandic author, the infamous Snorri Sturluson. There’s plenty of good reasons for that, but I think people take for granted that he was much less salty than his Danish contemporary, Saxo Grammaticus. This raid is about their salty source material, how it…

[the-pagan-crow]

Hot Take

Heathens don't have to read both Eddas in their entirety to be good/proper Heathens.

Allow me to explain...

If you've never tried to read the Eddas or haven't seen how they're written, this may be a little surprising.

The Eddas are very old texts; some of them were originally written in now-dead languages. There have been many translations over the years, and some people have a perffered translator or a specific translation they like the most.

Because of this, the Eddas are written in a way that will seem very foreign to most people. They include vernacular which is often confusing. The language and sentence structure is so completely different than modern English, making it a hard read for most.

Even I, who has spent hours examining the Havamal and specific stories in the Eddas, want to bang my head against a wall during my read through of the Eddas.

I was discussing the difficulty of the Eddas with a friend who has dyslexia. We talked about how they can feel academic in nature. While I don't have dyslexia, and I've always enjoyed a reading challenge, the Eddas truly try my patience and commitment sometimes.

While understanding the stories in the Eddas is a great thing for all heathens and Norse pagans to do, claiming that you need to read them cover to cover is a little ableist. It can be virtually impossible for some people to read the Eddas, whether due to dyslexia, learning disabilities, focusing problems, or any other reason.

Not to mention, the Eddas aren't and should not be considered a holy book. They were written by humans. Humans are flawed and have agendas and biases. To dictate that heathens must consider these tales as solid fact is misinformed at best and manipulative at worst.

TL;DR -

There is value in the Eddas and in understanding them, but treating them like a holy book that all heathens must read cover to cover is not helpful.

[magicaldogtoto]

Noticed on TV Tropes's page for Kamen Rider Ryuki that the only entry under Kamen Rider Odin's character sheet discussing his name origin (that of Odin of Norse myth) just says "He's named after a god, which rings true considering just how overpowered he can be."

This is true, but I'm here today to say that it goes so much further than that, which I've realized while reading/re-reading the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda.

In the Grimnismal, Odin in disguise as the titular Grimnir gives a list of his numerous names and titles. In particular, Grimnismal 48 has him list "Battle-Merry" and "Battle-Stirrer" as two of them. Both titles point to Odin being a god of battle/war, the latter indicating that he stirs up war. In Ryuki, Kamen Rider Odin is meant to be the Rider stand-in for Shiro Kanzaki, who instigates the Rider War. He notably does this by approaching different people and giving them their Advent Decks, thus stirring them to engage in battle with the other Riders.

One of Kamen Rider Odin's cards is also the Time Vent, which rewinds the events of the Rider War back to the start, erasing everyone's memories (though Shinji manages to hold on somewhat, as shown little more than halfway through the show). This effectively puts the Rider War in an endless loop of Riders fighting, dying, and coming back to life to fight again. Those vaguely familiar with Norse myth may have heard of Valhalla, and of the Einherjar. In Vafthruthnismal, the giant Vafthruthnir describes Valhalla's daily battle as this:

"All the Einherjar in Odin's hall fight each other every day. They kill each other, but then ride back from battle and sit in the evening as friends." (Vafthruthnismal 41)

Valhalla's battle is thus a cyclical one, in an endless loop until Ragnarok. In a way, you can call it one of the oldest examples of a battle royale like the Rider War, with the same fighters dying off only to be brought back to life to fight another day. The Rider War can even be seen to parallel Ragnarok, with how the ultimate end of the war is the winner's ability to rewrite the world as they see fit, much like how Ragnarok is meant to end with the destruction of all the gods, only for a new world to be born from it. Indeed, Odin's whole reason for having battles is to gather warriors for Valhalla--like how Shiro keeps engineering the Rider War for his own goals.

So yes, Kamen Rider Odin is a very appropriately named Rider...

[loki-was-framed]

[pepsimansthickjuicymeatyschlong]

theyre called the eddas cause theyre heavily edda-ted

[cuties-in-codices]

Auðumbla, a primeval cow from norse mythology

in Ólafur Brynjúlfsson's "Sæmundar og Snorra Edda", an illustrated icelandic manuscript retelling the medieval "prose edda", 1760

source: Copenhagen, Royal Library, NKS 1867 4º, fol. 95r

[lokavisi]

I'm trying to figure out what kind of regularly scheduled content I to do (besides just my daily queued reblogs to keep this page active). These are just some ideas I had but I was wondering if y'all have any preferences so I can prioritize. I *could* do them all, but don't want my ADHD excitement to lead to burnout. So we'll start with just one or two for now (depending on the frequency). Leave a comment if you have other ideas or to indicate if you want multiple options. If you're finding this within a week or so of the poll's end, feel free to leave a comment with your choice!

[grimasrunecasting]

What about a grimoire page on Járnviðr and the Járnviðjur?

This was a good exercise! The only other time I've heard of the Ironwood was in the fiction book The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec (highly recommend btw). Sadly there's not much info out there on it, but I'd welcome any newer sources on it.

[homewardskies]

"Thryheim it is called

Where Thjazi lived,

The mighty giant.

But now Skaði,

Pure bride of the gods,

Lives in her father's old house."

- The Lay of Grimnir. II, Prose Edda: Gylfaginning. (Trans. Jesse L. Byock)

[fjorn-the-skald]

What happens when two salty men write about Norse mythology in the 13th century? Luckily for us, one is a bit less salty than the other…but it’s still a bit of a mess.

[monstergirlgang]

Monster Girl October Tarot day 24: Valkyries from the Poetic and Prose Edda as the Knight of Swords card!

The knight of swords is about action, swiftness, determination, and boldness. Valkyries would fly into every battle to determine death or victory, and preserve the souls of the best warriors for Valhalla.