_Dawn of Swedish History--Heimskringla and Ynglingatal_
Snorre Sturleson, the great historian and poet of Iceland, of the earlier half of the thirteenth century, is considered to be the author of the history of the kings of Norway which, after the first words of the first chapter, has been called Heimskringla. As an introduction to the work he has put the saga of the Yngling kings of Sweden, of whom many of the Norwegian kings were supposed to be descendants. The Ynglinga Saga is a paraphrase to the much older song of Ynglingatal, a poem composed by the Norwegian poet Thiodulf of Hvin (who lived in the latter part of the ninth century) in praise of the supposed Swedish ancestors of the Norwegian king Ragnvald. The Ynglings were probably not identical with the kings of Upsala, who were of the race of the Skilfings, but of South Swedish or Danish origin. It is either out of ignorance, or out of sagacity, that the poet selected the Upsala rulers as originators of the Norwegian line of kings, but he has been unfortunate in the choice of a name for the dynasty. The poem itself is a trustworthy historical document, at least as far as the times are concerned which come comparatively close to the time of its own composition, the first part containing many traits of a mythical character. The saga spun around it is far from trustworthy. Of the poem evidently the first, or first few, strophes are missing, but the “historian” supplies the vacuum with stories of the gods Odin, Niord and Frey, whom he, according to the ideas of his time, changes from gods into historic kings, the first who ruled Svithiod (Sweden). Among learned men in Snorre’s day there was a craze for tracing the pedigree of all nations of any renown back to some of the heroes of ancient Troy. Snorre serves us a saga of Odin’s migration from Troy which, besides being confuse, would appear only ridiculous, if it had not wielded about as highly disastrous an influence upon correct conceptions of Swedish history as the work by Jordanes. This migration saga is found in a still more elaborate form in an introduction to Snorre’s Edda, and is responsible for the erroneous opinion held by earlier Swedish historians, that the Swedes had migrated from Asia under the leadership of a chief who called himself Odin, and that the Swedes and the Gauts were, if not of different origin, at least of a habitation of differing age in their present locations.