A technical manual designed to teach 13th Century Christian Icelanders to write traditional Icelandic poetry.  It largely consists of examples and explanations of ‘kennings’ – something like perversely obscure clichés.  There’s not much to be got out of it for the casual reader.  It would be useful to someone who was studying Icelandic and needed a crib.

However, the opening is a collection of Norse myths.  Very enjoyable and quite mind-bending at times.  The purpose seems to be that these myths would need to be known to 13th century would-be poets.  It’s imaginatively written.  It opens with a fantastical history of the Nordic peoples which turns out to be a frame story for a dialogue with the gods, which in turn is a frame for more myths.

I have Anthony Faulks’ translation.  Apparently this is the only one that translates the whole thing.  All the other English translations are just the myths with the technical sections removed.  Looking at the other ratings here I think I would have enjoyed this a lot more if the myths had been a greater part of what I have just suffered.  Don’t read this edition unless you have a jolly good reason to.

Lest for masteren. 

Må si denne var MYE mer leselig enn den eldre, men likte faktisk den eldre Edda bedre. Føler de derimot komplimenterer hverandre godt, og at det gjør at man får et helhetlig bedre inntrykk av mytene som behandles i begge versjoner.