Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by zachlittrell
Poems of the Elder Edda by
4.0
Patricia Terry's translation is a delight and makes reading Norse poetry about as fun as it must've been hearing it in the past. She gives equal love to Odin's challenge of wits with a giant, a captured warrior bravely accepting his fate being thrown into a snakepit, or Loki getting really really drunk and making fun of Njord for being taken hostage and a buncha serving-maids um..."squatted over you / made water into your mouth."
It sags a little in the middle when it goes over the endless list of overlapping lays all about the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, and if you don't care about that story...you're in for a long ride. But I think it's a great credit to the original poets and Terry's readable translation that every single time I went from "ah jeez, more of this hunh?" to "oh wow, this is fun!" even when we were talking about what characters were doing LONG after Sigurd and Brynhild were dead.
It sags a little in the middle when it goes over the endless list of overlapping lays all about the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, and if you don't care about that story...you're in for a long ride. But I think it's a great credit to the original poets and Terry's readable translation that every single time I went from "ah jeez, more of this hunh?" to "oh wow, this is fun!" even when we were talking about what characters were doing LONG after Sigurd and Brynhild were dead.