Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) was an Icelandic chieftain, poet and historian, raised at Oddi in the household of the powerful chieftain Jón Loftsson. He twice served as lawspeaker of the Althing, the Icelandic assembly, and visited the Norwegian court of King Hákon Hákonarson and Earl Skúli in 1218-1220. Besides the Edda he is credited with Heimskringla, the sagas of the kings of Norway, and Egil's Saga is often attributed to him. He was killed at his farm at Reykholt in September 1241 by men acting for his rival Gizurr Þorvaldsson.
“Erst was the age when nothing was: Nor sand nor sea, nor chilling stream-waves; Earth was not found, nor Ether-Heaven, — A Yawning Gap, but grass was none.”
The Prose Edda is a handbook of Norse myth and of the art of skaldic poetry, written in Iceland around 1220 by the chieftain and historian Snorri Sturluson. It was meant to teach young poets the old stories and the poetic names (kennings) that the court verse of Scandinavia depended on, at a time when Iceland had been Christian for more than two centuries.
