sigfusson

Updated: May 14, 2025

The older Edda, written in verse, is said to have been collected by Sæmund Sigfusson the learned, one of the early Christian priests of Iceland, who lived about the eleventh century. The other Edda is in prose; it is a collection made about two centuries later.

Allan Menzies - History of Religion: A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems

The Skandinavian version of the Siegfried legend has been handed down to us in five different forms. The first of these is the poetic or older "Edda", also called Saemund's "Edda", as it was assigned to the celebrated Icelandic scholar Saemundr Sigfusson. The "Codex Regius", in which it is preserved, dates from the middle of the thirteenth century, but is probably a copy of an older manuscript.

- The Nibelungenlied

At the end of the eleventh century Saemund Sigfusson, a Christian priest, gathered the popular and hitherto unwritten histories of the North into what is called the "Elder Edda"; and he was satisfied with adding to his compilation the corrective of a Christian hymn.

- Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6