900-1000 and to some of the texts, such as the Elder
Edda and Snori Sturluson's Younger
Edda (c.
He published a children's book, Norse Stories Retold from the
Eddas (1882); My Study Fire (1890); Books and Culture (1896); The Life of the Spirit (1899), a popular uplift book; William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist and Man (1900); and Heroines That Every Child Should Know (1908).
According to a frequently advanced theory, the "beanstalk " is the ash, Yggdrasil, of the
Eddas, the giant is All - Father, whose three treasures are the wind, the rain, and the red hen which lays golden eggs (the sun).
The illegitimate son of a servant girl and a farmhand, Jonsson had little education, but he soon became an avid reader of the ancient Icelandic sagas and
Eddas. Miserably poor all his life, he was first a farmhand, then a small tenant farmer.