The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson

The Poetic Edda and Prose Edda together constitute the most complete account of Norse mythology ever preserved. The Elder Edda, a collection of mythological and heroic poems dating to the 11th and 12th centuries, contains the visionary cosmogony of the creation and destruction of worlds, the troublings of the trickster god Loki, the doomed love of Sigurd and Brynhild, and the apocalyptic vision of Ragnarok. The Younger Edda, written by the scholar Snorri Sturluson around 1220, provides a prose framework that contextualizes these myths while offering a handbook of poetics for medieval skalds. These texts are the wellspring from which all modern Norse fantasy flows, from Wagner's Ring to Tolkien's Middle-earth. They preserve not merely the stories of Odin, Thor, and Freya, but an entire worldview: one where heroes face their destinies with clear eyes, where the end of the world has already been written but courage remains possible anyway.