Valuable as the early Christian poetry of England is, we look
in vain there for the humour, the large-minded simplicity of motive,
the suggestive character-drawing, the swift dramatic action, which
are as conspicuous in many poems in the Edda as in many of the Sagas.
Omitting the heroic poems, there are in Codex Regius the following: (1)
Of a more or less comprehensive character, _Voeluspa, Vafthrudnismal,
Grimnismal, Lokasenna, Harbardsljod_; (2) dealing with episodes,
_Hymiskvida, Thrymskvida, Skirnisfoer. Havamal_ is a collection
of proverbs, but contains two interpolations from mythical
poems; _Alvissmal_, which, in the form of a dialogue between
Thor and a dwarf Alviss, gives a list of synonyms, is a kind of
mythologico-poetical glossary. Several of these poems are found
in another thirteenth-century vellum fragment, with an additional
one, variously styled _Vegtamskvida_ or _Baldr's Dreams_; the great
fourteenth-century codex Flateybook contains _Hyndluljod_, partly
genealogical, partly an imitation of _Voeluspa_; and one of the MSS. of
Snorri's Edda gives us _Rigsthula_.
_Voeluspa_, though not one of the earliest poems, forms an appropriate
opening. Metrical considerations forbid an earlier date than the
first quarter of the eleventh century, and the last few lines are
still later. The material is, however, older: the poem is an outline,
in allusions often obscure to us, of traditions and beliefs familiar to
its first hearers.
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