The Great Lacuna - The missing texts of the Poetic Edda
The Codex Regius is the single most important manuscript of Norse mythology—but it carries a haunting mystery at its core. Eight leaves are missing from its heroic section, a gap known as the Great Lacuna. This loss strikes at the very heart of the Sigurðr–Brynhildr tragedy, erasing the poetic account of love, betrayal, and death that once stood alongside the greatest epics of world literature. What remains are fragments and echoes: prose sagas, later German adaptations, and the faint outlines of poems now gone. This blog explores what was lost, what scholars believe the lacuna once contained, and why it matters so deeply for our understanding of the medieval Norse imagination.
The Codex Regius - Poetic Edda
The Codex Regius is more than a medieval manuscript—it is the beating heart of Norse mythology. Written in Iceland around 1270, this fragile book preserves the Poetic Edda, the only complete collection of ancient mythological and heroic poems that tell of Odin’s wisdom, Thor’s hammer, Sigurd the dragon-slayer, and the doom of Ragnarök. Lost for centuries and rediscovered in 1643, the Codex travelled to Denmark and was only returned to Iceland in 1971, where it is now celebrated as a national treasure. Without it, much of what we know about the Viking Age worldview and early Icelandic heritage would have vanished forever.
What is The Hávamál?
The Hávamál, “Sayings of the High One,” is one of the most remarkable works of Norse mythology. Preserved in the Poetic Edda, it is a collection of wisdom, myth, and magic attributed to Odin, the god of knowledge and poetry. At once a handbook of everyday conduct and a meditation on the pursuit of wisdom, the Hávamál bridges Viking Age society with the spiritual world of the North. Rooted in oral tradition and saved by the medieval Codex Regius manuscript, it remains a timeless voice of Norse belief.