AN
IDEA
OF THE
MORE ANCIENT
EDDA.
IT is now time to describe what remains of the former Edda, compiled by Soemund, surnamed the Learned, more than an hundred years before that of Snorro. It was a collection of very ancient poems, which had for their subject some article of the Religion and Morality of Odin. The share that Sæmund had in them, was probably no more than that of first collecting and committing them to writing. This collection is at present considered as lost, excepting only three pieces, which I shall describe below: But some people have, not without good reason, imagined that this ancient Edda, or at least the greatest part of it, is still preserved. It were to be
