Jason Furman's Reviews > The Elder Edda: Myths, Gods, and Heroes from the Viking World

Two extraordinary sets of stories in verse--the first set out the Norse cosmology from creation through destruction and the second set focus on the Volsungs, especially Sigurd the dragonslayer. Amazingly, only one copy of this was preserved from the Middle Ages, forming much of the source of our knowledge of Norse myths, and even this copy has a missing section--the lacuna. It is a collection so it moves backwards and forwards in time, often telling the same stories from different perspectives or in different ways. Some are more interesting than others and are worth re-reading (e.g., the first epic of creation through destruction) while others are more skimmable. What is particularly striking is the range from adventure to humor to drama to riddles and witty banter.