Heimir Pálsson

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Uppsala-Edda

The university library in Uppsala houses a manuscript that is believed to have been written in Iceland during the first quarter of the 14th century, perhaps even as early as the year 1300. According to the rubric on f. 2r (p. 1), it contains the work Edda as put together by Snorri Sturluson. The manuscript found its way to Sweden when Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie arranged for the purchase of a chest of books from the estate of Danish rector Stephan Stephanius of Sorø, Zealand, in 1650. Stephanius had received the book as a gift from his friend Brynjólfur Sveinsson, later Bishop of Skálholt, in 1639. Little else is known of the history of this manuscript, which has since often been referred to as Uppsala-Edda. The version of Snorri’s Edda discussed in this book is only preserved in one single manuscript, in which the work is internally divided with unrelated yet thematically connected material from other sources. The book especially discusses the parts of the work most often referred to as Uppsala Edda, while paying close attention to the fact that the DG 11 4to manuscript is itself an independent textbook that deserves to be understood and explained as such.