Page:The Prose Edda (1916 translation by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur).pdf/30

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INTRODUCTION

the Icelandic text, in the Arnamagnæan edition, Copenhagen, 1848-87.

In 1842, G. W. Dasent, the translator of Njáls Saga, and a prominent scholar in the Scandinavian field, printed at Stockholm his Prose or Younger Edda, which contains a translation of Gylfaginning and of the narrative passages of Skáldskaparmál. A similarly incomplete English version was printed at Chicago, in 1880, by Rasmus B. Anderson. Professor Anderson also edited a combined translation of both Eddas, the Poetic Edda by Benjamin Thorpe, and the Prose Edda by I. A. Blackwell. Blackwell's translation, which stops with Bragarædur, had first appeared at London in 1847, together with an abstract of Eyrbyggia Saga by Scott. Samuel Laing's translation is likewise incomplete.

A French version of Gylfaginning, La Fascination de Gulfi, was published at Strassburg by F. G. Bergmann. A second edition appeared in 1871.

So far as I can ascertain, the first translation into German was the work of Friedrich Rühs, Berlin, 1812. This contains a long historical introduction, and ends with the story of the Völsungs in Skáldskaparmál. Karl Simrock's Die Jüngere Edda, published in 1851 and reprinted in 1855, although incomplete, is more accurate than any earlier translation, and is remarkable for its literary excellence. The most scholarly rendering into German is by Hugo Gering, Leipzig, 1892, but unfortunately it includes only the narrative portions of the book.

Until 1900, the best edition of Snorri's Edda was by Thórleifr Jónsson, Copenhagen, 1875. This was superseded by Finnur Jónsson's splendid Danish edition. In 1907, Professor Jónsson produced an Icelandic edition,