Poetic Edda
The collection of anonymous Old Norse poems — Voluspo, Hovamol, Vafthruthnismol, Grimnismol, Lokasenna, Thrymskvitha and the rest — preserved chiefly in the 13th-century Codex Regius and read here in Henry Adams Bellows's 1923 translation, whose poem names and stanza numbers the claims of this corpus cite. The primary witness for the Norse pantheon.
Why this wins its question: Describes the collection from the inside — poem by poem, with stanza ranges an agent can cite — and keeps the manuscript history, which comes from a derived source, separate from the text itself.
Key takeaways
- The Poetic Edda is poems, not a book by an author — dialogues, prophecies and lays, cited here as "Poem stanza" in Bellows's spelling.
- Its authority is that it is older than Snorri's Prose Edda and is the material Snorri quotes.
- What the Poetic Edda does not contain (Loki's capture, Idunn's apples, Sleipnir's eight legs) is as useful to know as what it does.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The mythological poems as Bellows presents them open with Voluspo, the seeress's account from Ymir and the yawning gap to the new earth (Voluspo 1–66); Hovamol, the sayings of the High One, including Odin's hanging on the tree (Hovamol 139–145); Vafthruthnismol and Grimnismol, Odin's wisdom contests and catalogues (Vafthruthnismol 1–55; Grimnismol 1–54).
The narrative poems of the gods are Skirnismol (Freyr's wooing of Gerth, 1–42), Harbarthsljoth (Thor and the ferryman, 1–60), Hymiskvitha (the kettle and the serpent, 1–40), Lokasenna (Loki's flyting, 1–65), Thrymskvitha (the stolen hammer, 1–33), Alvissmol (the dwarf's names for things, 1–35) and Baldrs draumar (Odin in Hel, 1–14); Rigsthula and Hyndluljoth are genealogical.
The poems are anonymous and orally transmitted; their dates are debated, with linguistic criteria suggesting some are much older than others, and some composed in Scandinavia before Iceland was settled (c. 870).
The chief manuscript is the Codex Regius, written in the 13th century, unknown until 1643 when it came to Bishop Brynjolfur Sveinsson, who sent it to the Danish king (hence "Royal Book"); it was returned to Iceland in 1971. Baldrs draumar, Rigsthula and Hyndluljoth come from other manuscripts.
The seeress herself frames Voluspo as a performance for Odin — "Thou wilt, Valfather, that well I relate / Old tales I remember" (Voluspo 1) — and Vafthruthnismol ends with the giant conceding "ever the wiser thou art" (Vafthruthnismol 55): the poems are dialogues and recitations, not narrative prose.
Questions answered
- What poems are in the Poetic Edda?
- The narrative poems of the gods are Skirnismol (Freyr's wooing of Gerth, 1–42), Harbarthsljoth (Thor and the ferryman, 1–60), Hymiskvitha (the kettle and the serpent, 1–40), Lokasenna (Loki's flyting, 1–65), Thrymskvitha (the stolen hammer, 1–33), Alvissmol (the dwarf's names for things, 1–35) and Baldrs draumar (Odin in Hel, 1–14); Rigsthula and Hyndluljoth are genealogical. source
- Who wrote the Poetic Edda?
- The poems are anonymous and orally transmitted; their dates are debated, with linguistic criteria suggesting some are much older than others, and some composed in Scandinavia before Iceland was settled (c. 870). source
- What is the Codex Regius?
- The chief manuscript is the Codex Regius, written in the 13th century, unknown until 1643 when it came to Bishop Brynjolfur Sveinsson, who sent it to the Danish king (hence "Royal Book"); it was returned to Iceland in 1971. Baldrs draumar, Rigsthula and Hyndluljoth come from other manuscripts. source
- Which translation of the Poetic Edda is used here?
- The mythological poems as Bellows presents them open with Voluspo, the seeress's account from Ymir and the yawning gap to the new earth (Voluspo 1–66); Hovamol, the sayings of the High One, including Odin's hanging on the tree (Hovamol 139–145); Vafthruthnismol and Grimnismol, Odin's wisdom contests and catalogues (Vafthruthnismol 1–55; Grimnismol 1–54). source