Editing Edda (section)

==The ''Prose Edda''==
{{main|Prose Edda}}

[[File:Edda.jpg|thumb|Manuscript of the Prose Edda]]

The ''Prose Edda'', sometimes referred to as the ''Younger Edda'' or ''Snorri's Edda'', is an [[Iceland]]ic manual of poetics which also contains many mythological stories. Its purpose was to enable [[Iceland]]ic poets and readers to understand the subtleties of [[alliterative verse]], and to grasp the mythological allusions behind the many [[kenning]]s that were used in [[skaldic poetry]].

It was written by the Icelandic scholar and historian [[Snorri Sturluson]] around 1220. It survives in four known manuscripts and three fragments, written down from about 1300 to about 1600.<ref name="Wanner2008">{{cite book| author=Kevin J. Wanner| title=Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BoLC0woy4iYC&pg=PA97 |access-date=17 December 2012| year=2008| publisher=University of Toronto Press| isbn=978-0-8020-9801-6| pages=97–98}}</ref>

The ''Prose Edda'' consists of a [[Prologue (Prose Edda)|Prologue]] and three separate books: ''[[Gylfaginning]]'', concerning the [[Norse cosmology#Cosmogony|creation]] and [[Ragnarök|foretold destruction and rebirth]] of the Norse mythical world; ''[[Skáldskaparmál]]'', a dialogue between [[Ægir]], a Norse god connected with the sea, and [[Bragi]], the [[skald]]ic god of poetry; and ''[[Háttatal]]'', a demonstration of verse forms used in Norse mythology.