The Poetic Edda
These are the original source texts for Norse mythology — Odin, Thor, Ragnarok, the World Tree — preserved in medieval Icelandic manuscripts.
“Cattle die, kinsmen die, you yourself must also die; but the word about you will never die, if you win a good name.”
Why It Matters
These are the original source texts for Norse mythology — Odin, Thor, Ragnarok, the World Tree — preserved in medieval Icelandic manuscripts. Without the Poetic Edda, we would have almost no direct record of pre-Christian Scandinavian belief. Tolkien, Wagner, Marvel, and the entire modern fantasy genre draw directly from these poems.
The 
Take
Personal reviewToo much work to find out what’s actually going on but the choice of diction and setting of witches and waves and rings and warriors and mead felt uniquely Norse
Notable Quotes
“I know that I hung on a windswept tree, nine long nights, wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin, myself to myself.”
“Brothers shall fight and slay each other; kinfolk shall break the bonds of kinship. Hard is it on earth; an age of axes, an age of swords.”