《老埃达》（The Elder Edda）是丹麦主教吕恩约尔弗·斯汶逊（Brynjólfur Sveinsson）于1643年发现的，是手抄本，内容是关于北欧传说及神话的诗，因此又被称之为「诗体埃达」（The Poetic Edda）。另外，也有些有学者误认为《老埃达》是由冰岛历史学家塞蒙恩德·弗鲁德（1056—1133）收集整理，故又有「塞蒙恩德埃达」（Sæmundar Edda）之称。一般学者认为，《老埃达》被编写的时间应该比《新埃达》要晚约50年，但其内容和诗的格式则大约创作于维京时期。

冰岛的《老埃达》是在九世纪时，由从挪威而来的迁徙者所带来的一种独特口头文学。十三世纪时，由北欧吟唱诗人（Skald）将其写定成篇。《老埃达》共收诗歌35篇，其中神话诗14篇，英雄诗21篇。神话诗记录的是有关北欧诸神的传说，有叙事体，也有教谕体。英雄诗都是短诗，内容为古代英雄或北欧海盗时期前的国王和战士。《老埃达》的首篇是〈女巫的预言〉（Völuspá），它叙述世界和人类的创造、毁灭和再生。

Poetic Edda is the modern attribution for an unnamed collection of Old Norse anonymous poems, which is different from the Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all consisting primarily of text from the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript known as the Codex Regius. The Codex Regius is arguably the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century onwards, it has had a powerful influence on later Scandinavian literatures, not merely by the stories it contains but also by the visionary force and dramatic quality of many of the poems. It has also become an inspiring model for many later innovations in poetic meter, particularly in Nordic languages, offering many varied examples of terse, stress-based metrical schemes working without any final rhyme by instead using alliterative devices and strongly-concentrated imagery. Poets who have acknowledged their debt to the Codex Regius include Vilhelm Ekelund, August Strindberg, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, and Karin Boye.