Indispensable as it is, Old Norse literature isn’t our only source of information concerning the pre-Christian religion of the Germanic peoples.

Sophus Bugge (ed.), Norrœn fornkvæði: Islandsk Samling af Oldtidsdigte om Nordens Guder og Heroer almndelig kaldet Sæmundar Edda hins fróða (Oslo: Aschehough, 1926): Völundarkviða, manuscript spelling. Valiant on thy seat art thou, Bragi! but so thou shouldst not be, Bragi, the bench's pride! Go and fight, if thou art angry; a brave man sits not considering." An interpolation in the Hyndluljód poem, the “Short Völuspá” is seen as an inferior version, as well as being shorter, than the traditional Völuspá. The Heroic Poems and Lays (Included in the Codex Regius) The Helgi Hundingabana LaysOther dating criteria include the use of the negative adverb eigi 'not', and alliteration of vr- with v-. In western dialects of Old Norse the former became r- around the year 1000, but in some Eddic poems the word vreiðr, younger form reiðr, is seen to alliterate with words beginning in an original v-. This was observed already by Olaf ‘White Skald’ Thordarson, the author of the Third Grammatical Treatise, who termed this v before r the vindandin forna; 'the ancient use of vend'. Helgakviða Hundingsbana II or Völsungakviða in forna ( The Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane, The Second Lay of Helgi the Hunding-Slayer, A Second Poem of Helgi Hundingsbani) The Prose Edda consists of a Prologue and three separate books: Gylfaginning, concerning the creation and foretold destruction and rebirth of the Norse mythical world; Skáldskaparmál, a dialogue between Ægir, a Norse god connected with the sea, and Bragi, the skaldic god of poetry; and Háttatal, a demonstration of verse forms used in Norse mythology. Late in the first century CE, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote a book on the Germanic tribes who dwelt north of the Empire. This work, De origine et situ Germanorum, “The Origin and Situation of the Germanic Peoples,” commonly referred to simply as Germania, contains many vivid descriptions of the religious views and practices of the tribes.

Terry, Patricia, ed. (1969), Poems of the Vikings: The Elder Edda, Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, ISBN 0672603322

The seeress then reveals to Odin that she knows some of his own secrets, and that he sacrificed an eye in pursuit of knowledge. She tells him she knows where his eye is hidden and how he gave it up in exchange for knowledge. She asks him in several refrains if he understands, or if he would like to hear more.