Note 43 — from the Origins To the Renaissance

Grein, "Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie," ed. Wülker; Cassel, 1883 ff., 8vo; "Corpus Poeticum Boreale, The poetry of the old northern tongue, from the earliest to the XIIIth Century," edited and translated by G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Oxford, 1883, 2 vols. 8vo; vol. i., Eddic poetry; vol. ii., Court poetry. Other important monuments of Scandinavian literature are found in the following collections: "Edda Snorri," Ion Sigurdsson, Copenhagen, 1848, 2 vols.; "Norroen Fornkvædi," ed. S. Bugge, Christiania, 1867, 8vo. (contains the collection usually called Edda Sæmundi); "Icelandic Sagas," ed. Vigfusson, London, 1887, 2 vols. 8vo (collection of the "Master of the Rolls"; contains, vol. i., "Orkneinga Saga" and "Magnus Saga"; vol. ii., "Hakonar Saga"); "Sturlunga Saga," including the "Islendiga Saga of Lawman Thordsson, and other works," ed. Vigfusson, Oxford, 1878, 2 vols. 8vo; "Heimskringla Saga, or the Sagas of the Norse Kings, from the Icelandic of Snorre Sturlason," ed. S. Laing, second edition, revised by R. B. Anderson, London, 1889, 4 vols. 8vo. The two Eddas and the principal Sagas will be comprised in the "Saga Library," founded in 1890 by W. Morris and Eirikr Magnusson (Quaritch, London). Edda means great-grandmother; the prose Edda is a collection of narratives of the twelfth century, retouched by Snorri in the thirteenth; the Edda in verse is a collection of poems of various dates that go back in part to the eighth and ninth centuries. Saga means a narrative; the Sagas are narratives in prose of an epic character; they flourished especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.