Old Norse Yngvi , Old High German Ing/Ingwi and Old English Ing are names that relate to a theonym which appears to have been the older name for the god Freyr. Proto-Germanic *Ingwaz was the legendary ancestor of the Ingaevones, or more accurately Ingvaeones, and is also the reconstructed name of the Elder Futhark rune ᛜ and Anglo-Saxon rune ᛝ, representing ŋ.
A torc, the so-called "Ring of Pietroassa", part of a late third to fourth century Gothic hoard discovered in Romania, is inscribed in much-damaged runes, one reading of which is gutanī [i(ng)]wi[n] hailag "to Ingwi[n] of the Goths holy".
Etymology
Old Norse Yngvi as well as Old High German Inguin and Old English Ingƿine are all derived from the Proto-Germanic *Ingwaz. Sound changes in late-Proto-Germanic transformed *Ingwaz into *Ingwi(z) in the nominative case and *Ingwin in the accusative case. His epithet *Fraujaz appears in Old Norse compounds Ingvifreyr and Ingunarfreyr. In Beowulf we see Hrothgar called (OE) fréa inguina, which means 'Lord of the Inguins', i.e. lord of the Ingvaeones, the 'friends of Ing'. This strongly indicates that the two deities, Ing and Freyr are indeed the same. However, it is also possible that Ing and Freyr were separate people because they had different fathers. Ing’s father was Mannus. Freyr’s father was Njörðr. The Ingvaeones, who occupied a territory roughly equivalent to modern Denmark, Frisia, Northern Germany, and the Low Countries at the turn of the millennium, were mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Natural Histories as one of "five Germanic tribes". Tacitus asserts their descent from the three sons of Mannus or *Mannaz cognate with Manus in Hinduism, the 'first man', of whom *Ingwaz may have been one. Other names that retain the theonym are or Ingemar and Yngling, the name of an old Scandinavian dynasty.
The Ingwaz rune
The rune (with variants and ) together with Peorð and Eihwaz is among the problematic cases of runes of uncertain derivation unattested in early inscriptions. The rune first appears independently on the futhark row of the Kylver Stone, and is altogether unattested as an independent rune outside of such rows. There are a number of attestations of the bind rune or (the "lantern rune", similar in shape to the Anglo-Saxon gēr rune ), but its identification is disputed in most cases, since the same sign may also be a cipher rune of wynn or thurisaz. The earliest case of such an bindrune of reasonably certain reading is the inscription (perhaps referring to the "Mærings" or Ostrogoths) on the silver buckle of Szabadbattyán, dated to the first half 5th century and conserved at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest.
The Old English rune poem contains these obscure lines:
Norse mythology
In Norse mythology, Yngvi, alternatively spelled Yngve, was the progenitor of the Yngling lineage, a legendary dynasty of Swedish kings, from whom also the earliest historical Norwegian kings claimed to be descended. Yngvi is a name of the god Freyr, perhaps Freyr's true name, as freyr means 'lord' and has probably evolved from a common invocation of the god.
In the Íslendingabók (written in the early twelfth century by the Icelandic priest Ari Þorgilsson) Yngvi Tyrkja konungr 'Yngvi king of Turkey' appears as the father of Njörðr who in turn is the father of Yngvi-Freyr, ancestor of the Ynglings. According to the Skjöldunga saga (a lost epic from 1180 to 1200, saved only partially in other sagas and later translation) Odin came from Asia and conquered Northern Europe. He gave Sweden to his son Yngvi and Denmark to his son Skjöldr. Since then the kings of Sweden were called Ynglings and those of Denmark Skjöldungs.
In the Gesta Danorum (late twelfth century, by Saxo Grammaticus) and in the Ynglinga saga (ca. 1225, by Snorri Sturluson), Freyr is euhemerized as a king of Sweden. In the Ynglinga saga, Yngvi-Freyr reigned in succession to his father Njörðr who had – in this variant – succeeded Odin. In the Historia Norwegiæ (written around 1211), in contrast, Ingui is the first king of Sweden, and the father of a certain Neorth, in his turn the father of Froyr: "Rex itaque Ingui, quem primum Swethiæ monarchiam rexisse plurimi astruunt, genuit Neorth, qui vero genuit Froy; hos ambos tota illorum posteritas per longa sæcula ut deos venerati sunt. Froyr vero genuit Fiolni, qui in dolio medonis dimersus est […]"