THE TWO EDDAS, THE ELDER AND THE YOUNGER, THE POETIC AND THE PROSE.—CONTENTS OF THE FORMER.—DIVISION INTO CLASSES. 1. THE MYSTICAL. 2. THE MYTHIC-DIDACTIC. 3. THE PURELY MYTHOLOGICAL. 4. THE MYTHIC-HISTORICAL.—POEMS OF EACH CLASS.—THE PROSE EDDA.—SNORRO STURLESON. THE religion of the ancient Northmen—which, though it has many points of affinity with other religions, has yet a sufficient number of its own peculiarities to constitute it a distinct system—has been always admitted to be a most interesting and most curious subject of inquiry, not merely in the north of Europe, but in England, in Germany, and in France. Yet until the last few years, the popular notions concerning it were vague and inaccurate; and for the best of all reasons—that, of the two sources from which alone a full knowledge of it could be acquired, the one had been carelessly, the other partially published. The two works to which we allude are the two Eddas, the Elder and the Younger; the former attributed to Sæmund, the other to Snorro, the son of Sturlo, both Icelanders and both Christians,—the one born in the eleventh, the other in the twelfth century. Sæmund, who, from his varied knowledge, is styled _hin Frode_, or the Learned, and by posterity at least was regarded as a wizard, had greater advantages of education than we should have expected in an Icelander of that remote period. He studied, we are told, both in France and Germany, and is supposed to have visited Rome. On his return he settled at Oddé, in the northern part of the island, embraced holy orders, and was entrusted with the cure of souls. Much of his time, however, was devoted to the education of youth, and to literary pursuits. Whether, as Christianity had not long been established in that remote island, he was still in some degree influenced by the lingering spirit of paganism, or whether (a more probable supposition) a taste superior to the age in which he lived led him to preserve, instead of destroying, the remaining monuments of paganism, we are indebted to him for one of the most curious books that has ever occupied the attention of the human mind. This was the Elder Edda, the first part of which was published for the first time in 1787. The second part did not issue from the press until 1818, nor the third until 1828. No writer, therefore, prior to these years, could have any just notice of this venerable collection of pieces, or, consequently, of the religion which they illustrate. To the advantage furnished to the modern student by their publication must be added the vast erudition of Finn Magnusen, editor of the third or last part, whose Mythological Lexicon and Critical Dissertations (especially the one elaborately devoted to “the Edda Doctrine and its Origin”) have not only exhausted the subject, but pointed out many of the affinities between the Scandinavian religion and that of the most celebrated