Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Elder Edda is one of the classic books that influenced JRR Tolkien`s The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings. ”I was in the East, battling giants, wicked-hearted women, who wandered the fells; great would be the giant-race, if they all lived: mankind would be nothing under, middle-earth. What did you do meantime, Grey-beard?” (J.R.R). Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating & teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves & magic. He was hugely influential for his advocacy of Beowulf as a great work of literature &, even if he had never written The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, would be recognised today as a significant figure in the rediscovery of these extraordinary tales. Legends from the Ancient North brings together from Penguin Classics five of the key works behind Tolkien`s fiction. They are startling, brutal, strange pieces of writing, with an elemental power brilliantly preserved in these translations. They plunge the reader into a world of treachery, quests, chivalry, trials of strength. They are the most ancient narratives that exist from northern Europe & bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of the magical landscape of Middle-earth (Midgard) which Tolkien remade in the 20th century.