The Prose Edda of Snorri Written by Iceland's most versatile literary genius, Snorri was born in western Iceland in 1179, the son of a great chieftain, and early in his career won a reputation at home and in Norway for his poetic talents. Later he traveled to Norway and wrote the lives of the Horse kings in the Helmskringla Saga, Egil's Saga, and St. Olaf's Saga, a work unsurpassed in Icelandic prose. The Prose Edda - edda means "the poetic art" - was designed as a handbook for poets to compose in the style of the skalds of the Viking ages. Snorri feared that the traditional techniques, the pagan kennings, and the allusions to mythology would be forgotten with the introduction of new verse forms from Europe