What is "edda"

Edda \Ed"da\, n.; pl. Eddas. [Icel., lit. great-grandmother (i. e., of Scandinavian poetry), so called by Bishop Brynj['u]lf Sveinsson, who brought it again to light in 1643.] The religious or mythological book of the old Scandinavian tribes of German origin, containing two collections of Sagas (legends, myths) of the old northern gods and heroes.

Note: There are two Eddas. The older, consisting of 39 poems, was reduced to writing from oral tradition in Iceland between 1050 and 1133. The younger or prose Edda, called also the Edda of Snorri, is the work of several writers, though usually ascribed to Snorri Sturleson, who was born in 1178.

1771, by some identified with the name of the old woman (literally "grandmother") in the Old Norse poem "Rigsþul," by others derived from Old Norse oðr "spirit, mind, passion, song, poetry" (cognate with Old Irish faith "poet," Welsh gwawd "poem," Old English woþ "sound, melody, song," Latin vates "seer, soothsayer;" see wood (adj.)).\n

\nIt is the name given in Icelandic c.1300, by whom it is not known, to two Icelandic books, the first a miscellany of poetry, mythology, and grammar by Snorri Sturluson (d.1241), since 1642 called the Younger or Prose Edda; and a c.1200 collection of ancient Germanic poetry and religious tales, called the Elder or Poetic Edda. Related: Eddaic; Eddic.

1. n. tropical starchy tuberous root [syn: taro, taro root, cocoyam, dasheen]

2. either of two distinct works in Old Icelandic dating from the late 13th century and consisting of 34 mythological and heroic ballads composed between 800 and 1200; the primary source for Scandanavian mythology

"Edda" (; Old Norse Edda, plural Eddur) is an Old Norse term that has been attributed by modern scholars to the collective of two Medieval Icelandic literary works: what is now known as the Prose Edda and an older collection of poems without an original title now known as the Poetic Edda. The term historically referred only to the Prose Edda, but this sense has fallen out of use because of the confusion with the other work. Both works were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching into the Viking Age. The books are the main sources of medieval skaldic tradition in Iceland and Norse mythology.

Edda are poems and tales of Norse mythology.

It may also refer to:

• Edda, ancestral land of the Edda people in South-eastern Nigeria
• Edda people, sub-group of the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria
• The ancestress of serfs in the Rígsþula
• Edda Award, Icelandic film and television award
• Edda Művek, Hungarian rock group
• Edda Media, Norwegian media group
• 673 Edda, minor planet orbiting the Sun