Mitología nórdica

Determining the origin of the myths and legends that make up Norse Mythology is not easy. When transmitted orally, from generation to generation, any of the dates that science assigns them today (it is spoken of the VIII or IX centuries) are mere speculations. We can say that its roots come from the Sacred North Island, the mysterious Thulé, located in what is now the Arctic Circle and where the Hyperborean Race lived in a very remote past. Since then the hidden Wisdom of those Gods was passing in the form of myths and legends from race to race and from generation to generation, until reaching the current time. Around the 10th century the Irish monks who had moved to Iceland seeking solitude and seclusion came into contact with the Vikings who began to establish settlements in Iceland and to collect in writing some of the pagan poems that circulate among the Vikings. Thus, almost all the material that currently exists on Norse Mythology comes from Iceland. The sources of Norse mythology are (mainly) the Eddas, the Edda Major, and the Edda minor. The Edda Mayor, which is also the oldest, is a collection of anonymous poems. The language is Icelandic and dates from the year 1000 or even earlier. The poems can be divided into two groups: mythical poems that speak about the creation and the end of the world, and heroic poems that mainly speak about Odin and Thor. The Minor Edda is also called the Edda of Snorre Sturluson who wrote it around 1220. The so-called Norse Mythology comprises the religion, beliefs and legends of the Scandinavian peoples, including those who settled in Iceland, where the written sources of Norse mythology were gathered. It is the best preserved version of ancient Germanic mythology, common to all Germanic peoples, which also includes the closely related Anglo-Saxon mythology.