Speaking about Scandinavian Medieval Literature is, in fact, speaking about norwish or icelandish literature. Sweden barely have important medieval texts, except for the few rests conserved in runes. Denmark has some interesting examples, but transmited in latin language. vernacular literature limitates exclusively to what we conserve, mostly, through Iceland. In some cases they are works arisen in the atlantic island; in some others, the place of origin is Norway or its colonies, but generally it came to us thanks to the survival of the tradicion in Iceland. On the other hand, just in Iceland and Norway keeps alive, even until the advanced Middle Ages, the pagan tradition, literary, cultural and even religious, of the viking times.

The meaning of the term "Edda"

The name of the works here presented, used to be interpreted as "great-grandmother". Actually, this is the usual meaning of the noun. However, is not clear that the same interpretation can be asigned to the title term, first, of the Snorri work, and its imitation, the poetic collection. The most probable, according to the actual opinion, is that it is a derivation of the place name Oddi, where was Snorri's school. The title would be then, "Book of Oddi", so, it would'nt be able to be applied to anything else than the work of Snorri. According to another theory, the term is related to the word õdr, present in the name of Odin, with the meaning "poetry".

Portable Planetariums has put itself as a goal to represent scandinavian mithology as clearly and precisely as possible, because the confusion in the Internet and other sources in this subject is remarkable. Therefore, the cylinders Scandinavian mythology I and the present Scandinavian mythology II, are based directly on the Eddas of Snorri Sturlusson, the primary source for the actual interpretations of the norse myths. The present cylinder begins with the description and the history of Asgard, the hall of the gods, to begin then from the chapter XX of the "Gylfaginning" (The Trick of Gylfi), the first section of the Edda, known as the "Edda in prose".

Next to each image, will appear the text to refers the image took literally from the Eddas, also with a resume took from the previous study that the actual interpreters in such book that will help the reader to understand better and more globally some aspects that are not observed in the Eddas in prose.

Note from Portable Planetariums: this is a traduction, as literal as possible, from spanish to english from the Eddas. The verbal times are really confusing in the text; it speaks in "present" and suddenly changes to "past". We have transcript the text as literal as possible, in an attempt for keeping loyalty to the source, so the "confusion" in the use of the verbal times remains.