A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia ed. by Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn, and Brittany Schorn (review)

A Handbook to Eddic Poetry, edited by Carolyne Larrington (Oxford), Judy Quinn (Cambridge), and Brittany Schorn (Cambridge) has long been anticipated by students and scholars. The handbook was a desideratum of research and education in the field of English-speaking and international Scandinavian Studies and related fields. The demand for such a book is evident in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry's sales. It was published in September 2016, and the hardback edition was sold out by November. The editors can rightly call this a huge success for themselves as well as for eddic studies in general, which will benefit tremendously from the immense research and work completed by the editors in the past few years, as well as from the contribution of the handbook.

The handbook is divided into eighteen main chapters. The front matter includes lists of illustrations and of contributors, a register of translations and abbreviations of the eddic poems used in the handbook, an introduction written by Carolyne Larrington including acknowledgments and notes about the handbook. Reference material following the chapters includes a consolidated bibliography divided into primary and secondary works, and a reader-friendly index. In the introduction, Larrington compares the mode of eddic poetry with the cauldron, which Þórr and his companion Týr try to obtain at the hall of the giant Hymir in Hymiskvíða, and states that "the mode of eddic poetry is just such a gigantic kettle, an all-encompassing container for Old Norse myths and heroic legends which froth, bob, and jostle together within it" (p. 1). Larrington's introductory remark emphasizes her scholarly appreciation of eddic poetry. At the same time, it can be read as a statement toward the variety of theories and methods presented in the handbook, and of the diverse structures of the essays. After a short discussion of written sources of eddic poetry and their transmission, from the Rök Stone, the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda (GKS 2365 4to) and the manuscript AM 748 Ia 4to, to the later manifestations, among others, in fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas), Íslendingasögur (sagas of icelanders), and "neo-eddic" poems, Larrington turns toward the Eddic Network, established by Larrington, Quinn, and Schorn in 2012. The Network held two international and interdisciplinary workshops on eddic poetry at St John's College, University of Oxford, in 2013 and in 2014, to develop and promote new scholarly approaches to eddic poetry, and to challenge and discuss the understanding of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry, its traditional categorization, and the definition of the eddic corpus in total. Thus, the publication of A Handbook to Eddic Poetry can be credited to the Eddic Network and its renewed focus on eddic literature in general during the last decade.

The handbook is intended for several audiences. It aims at students who are at the beginning of their studies of Old Norse poetry, as Larrington states. It seeks to provide them with a useful tool for understanding eddic poetry and its scholarly reception. Furthermore, scholars in neighboring disciplines are also addressed by the handbook. It seeks to heighten their awareness of the importance of the eddic material for the medieval European literary tradition. Finally, experts in Old Norse-Icelandic literature will also "find much that is new, eye-opening, even provocative" (p. 5).

On the following pages, Larrington neatly summarizes the content of each chapter and outlines the contributor's arguments before concluding her introduction with a remark on how "vital, fresh, and enthralling" (p. 10) eddic poetry is today, almost 750 years after the production of the codex Regius of the Poetic edda.

In the first chapter on "The Transmission and Preservation of Eddic Poetry," Margaret Clunies Ross presents an overview of the different contexts in which eddic poetry was transmitted and preserved, both in oral composition and in written form, drawn from her tremendous knowledge in Old...