The Poetic Edda is our main source for the myths of the Norse gods and heroes. Written down in medieval Iceland, this “original storehouse of Germanic mythology” collects 35 narrative poems recounting most of what we know about the religious beliefs of the ancient Northmen.

Henry Adams Bellows’ 1923 translation has long been recognized as one of the most aesthetically faithful, being rendered in the original alliterative meters of the Norse poems. This revised edition updates it according to modern scholarship, adding a foreword by historian Thomas Rowsell, dozens of beautiful illustrations, and facing Old Norse text. Each poem has been newly introduced by Tristan Powers, writing from the perspective of a living practitioner of the Norse religion, giving us deeper insight into the worldview and religious spirit that animates them.

This edition corrects the flaws and retains the strengths of the 1923 edition. The result is the ultimate edition of the Poetic Edda both for serious students of Norse myth, and for lovers of poetry.