The Younger Edda | Page 2

we find it recorded in the Eddas of Iceland.
The present volume contains all of the Younger Edda that can possibly be of any importance to English readers. In fact, it gives more than has ever before been presented in any translation into English, German or any of the modern Scandinavian tongues.
We would recommend our readers to omit the Forewords and Afterwords until they have perused the Fooling of Gylfe and Brage's Speech. The Forewords and Afterwords, it will readily be seen, are written by a later and less skillful hand, and we should be sorry to have anyone lay the book aside and lose the pleasure of reading Snorre's and Olaf's charming work, because he became disgusted with what seemed to him mere silly twaddle. And yet these Forewords and Afterwords become interesting enough when taken up in connection with a study of the historical anthropomorphized Odin. With a view of giving a pretty complete outline of the founder of the Teutonic race we have in our notes given all the Heimskringla sketch of the Black Sea Odin. We have done this, not only on account of the material it furnishes as the groundwork of a Teutonic epic, which we trust the muses will ere long direct some one to write, but also on account of the vivid picture it gives of Teutonic life as shaped and controlled by the Odinic faith.
All the poems quoted in the Younger Edda have in this edition been traced back to their sources in the Elder Edda and elsewhere.
Where the notes seem to the reader insufficient, we must refer him to our Norse Mythology, where he will, we trust, find much of the additional information he may desire.
Well aware that our work has many imperfections, and begging our readers to deal generously with our shortcomings, we send the book out into the world with the hope that it may aid some young son or daughter of Odin to find his way to the fountains of Urd and Mimer and to Idun's rejuvenating apples. The son must not squander, but husband wisely, what his father has accumulated. The race must cherish and hold fast and add to the thought that the past has bequeathed to it. Thus does it grow greater and richer with each new generation. The past is the mirror that reflects the future.
R. B. ANDERSON.?University of Wisconsin,?Madison, Wis., _September, 1879_.
CONTENTS.
Preface 5
Introduction 15
Foreword 33
THE FOOLING OF GYLFE.
CHAPTER I.?Gefjun's Plowing 49
CHAPTER II.?Gylfe's Journey to Asgard 51
CHAPTER III.?Of the Highest God 54
CHAPTER IV.?The Creation of the World 56
CHAPTER V.?The Creation (continued) 64
CHAPTER VI.?The First Works of the Asas--The Golden Age 69
CHAPTER VII.?On the Wonderful Things in Heaven 72
CHAPTER VIII.?The Asas 79
CHAPTER IX.?Loke and his Offspring 91
CHAPTER X.?The Goddesses (Asynjes) 97
CHAPTER XI.?The Giantess Gerd and Skirner's Journey 101
CHAPTER XII.?Life in Valhal 104
CHAPTER XIII.?Odin's Horse and Frey's Ship 109
CHAPTER XIV.?Thor's Adventures 113
CHAPTER XV.?The Death of Balder 131
CHAPTER XVI.?Ragnarok 140
CHAPTER XVII.?Regeneration 147
Afterword to the Fooling of Gylfe 151
BRAGE'S TALK.
CHAPTER I.??ger's Journey to Asgard 152
CHAPTER II.?Idun and her Apples 155
CHAPTER III.?How Njord got Skade to Wife 158
CHAPTER IV.?The Origin of Poetry 160
Afterword to Brage's Talk 166
EXTRACTS FROM THE POETICAL DICTION.
Thor and Hrungner 169
Thor's Journey to Geirrod's 176
Idun 184
?ger's Feast 187
Loke's Wager with the Dwarfs 189
The Niflungs and Gjukungs 193
Menja and Fenja 206
The Grottesong 208
Rolf Krake