SOURCE: Introduction to The Elder Edda: A Selection, translated by Paul B. Taylor & W. H. Auden, Random House, 1967, pp. 13-32.

The following excerpt gives an overview of the Icelandic poetic tradition, with a description of the forms and meters used.

The Old Icelandic Poetic Tradition

Icelandic traditional poetry finds its origin in oral composition long before the art of writing was known or used in Scandinavia to record poetic texts. The poetry is traditional in the sense that it was transmitted by oral performance, and survived for centuries, passed from generation to generation, by oral transmission. There is no question of authorship, for the poet (fornskcild) was a performer rather than an originator. He recounted familiar material and his performance of a particular story differed from other performances in metrical and lexical interpretation. Two versions of the story of Atli's death (Attila the Hun) appear in the heroic...