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Showing posts with the label Younger Edda

Book Review: "Song of the Vikings -- Snorri & the Making of the Norse Myths" and NorsePlay on the priceless "Prose Edda".

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Whether you're Ásatrú, Heathen, or a Norse Studies academic, t he important questions most of us who pick up Nancy Marie Brown's Song Of The Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths  are actually looking for answers about are why Snorri Sturluson wrote the Prose Edda , how compromised by the conversion are its contents, and beyond those, is there a divine manifestation in its writing? Before we approach those answers, this 2012 CE work first uses sources & then extrapolations to determine who Snorri was. In terms of direct accounts, the  Sturlunga Saga  shows Snorri's role in the time directly before Iceland cedes its independence to Norway. Beyond this,  Brown's technique of assembling the character of Snorri is somewhat  of a deconstruction of his literary output. Brown infers that since Odin had certain pronounced qualities (i.e. wisdom, guile, leadership, ladies' man who fathers it up) that Snorri in turn had these qualities.  This line of thin...