The great poetic tradition of pre-Christian Scandinavia is known to us
almost exclusively though the Poetic Edda. The poems originated in
Iceland, Norway, and Greenland between the ninth and thirteenth
centuries, when they were compiled in a unique manuscript known as the
Codex Regius.
The poems are primarily lyrical rather than narrative. Terry's readable
translation includes the magnificent cosmological poem Völuspá (The
Sibyl's Prophecy), didactic poems concerned with mythology and the
everyday conduct of life, and heroic poems, of which an important group
is concerned with the story of Sigurd and Brynhild.
Poems of the Elder Edda will appeal to students of Old Norse,
Icelandic, and Medieval literature, as well as to general readers of
poetry.