Ed"da (?), n.; pl. Eddas (#). [Icel., lit. great-grandmother (i. e., of Scandinavian poetry), so called by Bishop Brynj�xa3;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.
⇒ 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.
© Webster 1913.