Snorri Sturluson

Snorri Sturluson (1179 – 23 September 1241) is an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician.

He is twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing.

He is the author of the Prose Edda or Younger Edda, which consists of Gylfaginning ("the fooling of Gylfi"), a narrative of Norse mythology, the Skáldskaparmál, a book of poetic language, and the Háttatal, a list of verse forms.

He is also the author of the Heimskringla, a history of the Norwegian kings that begins with legendary material in Ynglinga saga and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history.

For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of Egil's saga.

As an historian and mythographer, Snorri is remarkable for proposing the theory (in the Prose Edda) that mythological gods begin as human war leaders and kings whose funeral sites develop cults .

As people call upon the dead war leader as they go to battle, or the dead king as they face tribal hardship, they begin to venerate the figure.

Eventually, the king or warrior is remembered only as a god.

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