You will never be "finished" reading the elder Edda, as a modern human being, weakened by civilization, lack of memory, and the written few latinazed words you use daily. You might as well admit it, once and for all: we really lost a lot the last 2 000 or so years. But, it can be restored, with time, dedication and reflection.
Every stanza in the poetic Edda is fully packed with knowlegde and symbolism. They are in a way made and ment for individuals knowing the mythical names, meanings, kennings and stories - by heart.
In this way, you can randomly pick a stanza, and begin to crack the codes. These codes always boils down to a pattern. This pattern is recognizable throughout our myths, songs, ballads, fairy tales and poems.
I hereby give you one random example;
Let us take stanza 42 in Völuspá. I have taken the liberty to translate the stanza directly from modern Norwegian by professor Ludvig Holm-Olsen to English. Why? Because most, if not all, modern translations by scholars are really poor, in fact close to childish. Holm-Olsen is a small exception in my view, but his work is only avaliable in Norwegian.
First, the modern Norwegian translation of the original Norse text:
"Satt der på haugen
og slo harpen,
gygras gjæter,
glade Eggtér;
over ham gol
i galgetreet
fagerrød, hanen
som Fjalar heter"
My English direct translation:
"Sat there on the mound
and stroke the harp,
the shepherd of the Gygri,
the happy Eggtér;
over him in the tree of the hung,
beautiful red, the rooster,
who's name is Fjalar"
There are 66 stanzas in Völuspá. This is only one of them. It starts with telling of a sitting on a burial mound, striking a harp. Our ancestors did this, they visited the burial mounds of our ancestors, to reflect, to gain memory, divine memory, from previous lives. To be sitting on a burial mound and striking the instrument of Bragi (the god of poetry, inspiration - equivalent to Óðinn) - yes, it is Óðinn sitting on the mound, just like it is Óðinn hanging in the tree of life, given to himself by himself. Because, Óðinn is all your accumulated ancestors - in you!
There is no wonder that another kenning of Óðinn is the sheperd, nor that he is the shepherd of the Gygri, because the Gygri is a Troll (Jötun), an avatar of the placenta, the She-Bear, the witch etc. The meta physical, the blood memory - it stems from the same.
There is no wonder that another kenning of Óðinn is Eggtér - the happy shepherd. Another such shepherd of Trolls and Jötnar is of course Þórr, keeping them "in check" at all times. The name Eggtér is, no suprise, related to the egg, the seed and the actual "battle". The myths with Þórr all tell of the same.
Then we have the beautiful blood red rooster, sitting and crowing in the crown of the tree above him. As the eagle sitting in the crown of Yggdrasíll - representing the ancestral spirit flying out with the re-born - the blood red rooster represents the same. Yggdrasíll, the terrible horse, "the wessel of the spirit" is an avatar of the placenta. But, the rooster also carries another significant symbolism related to the physical child and the physical birth as well. Hönír is equivalent to Freyr - the ancestor, the child, the seed, the light elves, the kin etc. Hönír is related to Lík (the physical body) - as the first of the other components being Vörðr, Hamr, Hugr og Önd (represented by the other respective gods - Óðinn, Vile and Vé (Óðinn, Lokí and Freyr, the spirit, the adrenaline and the physical body (inheritance).
The blood red rooster (yes, you are "red" as a newborn) is crowing, the same way you scream when the sun rises symbolically - when you see the light again ("for the first time"), coming out of the womb with your accumulated ancestral spirit. The same way the rooster crows at every sunrise, the same way you scream every time you are born again. Every time you fall from the world tree screaming, taking up runes, given to yourself, from yourself.
If this was not enough, we learn that this blood red rooster is named Fjalar. We know Fjalar as a mythological dwarf. Besides being represented by metals, directions in the sky and well known physical things, the dwarfs are "uncompleted things". And, above all, they are black elves, namely your buried ancestors not yet re-born, dwelling in the soil (of black - away from the sun) with all their rich belongings. Back to Fjalar, there is no coincidence that this rooster is named Fjalar (or the dwarf in fact is the rooster) - because Fjalar togehter with his brother Galar killed the giant Kvasír. Who was this giant? Well, then we have to take a closer look at what the giant´s name Kvasír means; "the best extract of all the gods". Yes, the dwarfes killed him, and made the poetic mead from his blood, being the blood memory, the ancestral memory - the mead of the intellect, by the way; the same the fetus recieves from the placenta.
Now, you would understand clearly that a child in fact is an "uncompleted thing", standing before life and inititations - and that both dwarfes and "busy little bies" of course are related to young children as well.
I can go on and on.... From one single stanza in Völuspá...
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?