The Poetic Edda

• A collection of Old Norse mythological and heroic poems — the primary source for what we know about Norse mythology • Mythological poems: Odin hangs himself from Yggdrasil for nine days to gain the runes. Thor fishes for the world-serpent. Loki is bound with his own son's entrails • Völuspá ("The Seeress's Prophecy"): a völva tells Odin the history and fate of the world — from creation to Ragnarök to rebirth • Ragnarök: the gods know they will lose. Odin is swallowed by the wolf Fenrir. Thor kills the Midgard Serpent but dies from its venom. The world burns and sinks • Then: it rises again. A new green earth. Surviving gods find golden chess pieces in the grass. Cycle begins anew • Hávamál ("Sayings of the High One"): Odin's practical wisdom — how to be a guest, how to drink, how to deal with women, how to die well • Heroic poems retell the Völsung/Sigurd cycle — the same dragon-slayer legend that feeds the Nibelungenlied • Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir, learns bird-speech, wakes the valkyrie Brynhild — then everything goes wrong through betrayal and cursed gold • The tone alternates between cosmic grandeur and brutal domestic violence • No single narrative thread — it's an anthology, sometimes contradictory, always vivid