The Prose EddaRecommendations

The Prose Edda is the most famous of all Scandinavian works of literature, as well as our most comprehensive source for Norse mythology. It recalls old legends of the Norse creation epic and narrates the wars that follow as gods, giants, dwarves, and elves struggle for survival. It was written in Iceland a century after the Viking Age ended. It also preserves heroes', warrior kings', and queens' oral histories. The Edda provides unmatched insight into the gods' sorrowful realisation that the future holds one final cataclysmic conflict, Ragnarok, when the world will be destroyed, in straightforward prose mixed with beautiful lyric. These myths and stories from the pagan past have influenced modern works as disparate as Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.