The Prose Edda

These are the canonical set of Norse myths, the oldest writing and most definitive set. They were written by Snorri Sturlason, who was writing them down a few hundreds of years after the Xianization of Iceland & the nordic countries.

See Nancy Marie Brown's The Song of the Vikings for a great writeup of Snorri's life, and short retellings of the most compelling stories).

They're written within a wrapper narrative, where king Gylfi / aka Gangleri has a quiz with High, Just-As-High, and Third - serving as narrative ligaments to string together disparate facts and stories. I presume it also served as a prophylactic distancing mechanism so the powerful catholic bishops and priests didn't throw a fit about these pagan stories.

Noted on April 25, 2017