n.
Body of ancient Icelandic literature.
Contained in two 13th-century books, it is the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Germanic mythology. The Prose Edda ( Younger Edda , or Snorra-Edda ; 0441; 1222), a handbook on poetics by Snorri Sturluson , explains diction and metre in skaldic and Eddic poetry and recounts tales from Norse mythology. The Poetic Edda ( Elder Edda , or Sæmundar Edda ; 0441; 12501300) is a collection of mythological and heroic poems of unknown authorship composed 0441; 8001100. These austere lays are the oldest surviving antecedents of the Nibelungenlied legends.