Óláfs saga helga
Óláfs saga helga or the Saga of St. Olaf, written in several versions, is one of kings' sagas on the subject of King Olaf Haraldsson the Saint. Oldest Saga of St. Olaf, ca. 1190 lost. Legendary Saga of St. Olaf, ca. 1210. Óláfs saga helga by Styrmir Kárason, ca. 1220 lost. Separate Saga of St. Olaf, by Snorri Sturluson, ca. 1225. Óláfs saga helga in Heimskringla, by Snorri Sturluson, ca. 1230. Óláfs saga helga in Flateyjarbók, an expanded version of the Separate Saga of St. Olaf; the saga draws from skaldic poetry and Latin hagiography, with embellishments from popular oral legends. The earliest version, the so-called Oldest Saga of St. Olaf written in Iceland, has not survived except in a few fragments; the next version known as the Legendary Saga of St. Olaf, is preserved in a unique Norwegian manuscript, De Gardie 8. A third, by Icelandic cleric Styrmir Kárason, is now lost except as chapters excerpted and added to the Flateyjarbók recension, these fragments demonstrating evidence of a richer rhetorical style.
Snorri Sturluson not long thereafter compiled his version of the saga, written under an "overall plan" of a more secular design, in the style of "Icelandic saga tradition as well as.. Secular biographies in the Latin tradition"; this work has been termed the Separate Saga of St. Olaf, to distinguish it from the form that Snorri incorporated into his compendium, the Heimskringla. Snorri may have derived his versions from the Legendary sagas and Styrmir's version, or at least, he seems to use have used the same common sources as these earlier versions. Redactions contain Snorri's version at the core, but are expanded using additional material. For example, the Flateyjarbók redaction contains a much more detailed account of the capture of the sword Bæsingr from the burial mound of Olaf Geirstad-Alf to be given to the infant St. Olaf, hinted as being a reincarnation of his namesake, the subsequent use by him to combat the margýgr and great boar that the heathens worship in idolatry. Þórarinn loftunga speaks of the miracle at Olaf's grave in his Glælognskviða.
The same poet also composed the Tøgdrápa in praise of Olaf being driven out of Norway by Knut. Sigvatr Þórðarson's Erfidrápa Óláfs helga, mentions the horns on Vísundr, the name of Olaf's ship that had a bison's head on the stem. Einarr Skúlason's Geisli. Among the hagiographic sources known to be used are two lost Lives of the saint in Latin, the Passio et miracula beati Olavi, dating to mid 12th century
Harald Fairhair
Harald Fairhair is portrayed by medieval Icelandic historians as the first King of Norway. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, he reigned from c. 872 to 930. Two of his sons, Eric Bloodaxe and Haakon the Good, succeeded Harald to become kings after his death. Most of Harald's biography remains uncertain, since the extant accounts of his life in the sagas were set down in writing around three centuries after his lifetime. Indeed, although it is possible to write a detailed account of Harald as a character in medieval Icelandic sagas, his life is described in several of the Kings' sagas, none of them older than the twelfth century. Their accounts of Harald and his life differ on many points, but it is clear that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Harald was regarded as having unified Norway into one kingdom. Old Norse hár translates straightforwardly into English as'hair', but fagr, the adjective of which fagri is a form, is trickier to render, since it means'fair, beautiful'.
Although it is convenient and conventional to render hárfagri in English as'fair-hair', in English'fair-haired' means'blond', whereas the Old Norse clearly means'beautiful-haired'. Accordingly, some translators prefer to render hárfagri as'the fine-haired' or'fine-hair' or even'handsome-hair'. Through the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, historians broadly accepted the account of Harald Fairhair given by Icelandic sagas. However, Peter Sawyer began to cast doubt on this in 1976, the decades around 2000 saw a wave of revisionist research that suggested that Harald Fairhair did not exist, or at least not in a way resembling his appearance in sagas; the key arguments for this are as follows: There is no contemporary support for the claims of sagas about Harald Fairhair. The first king of Norway recorded in near-contemporary sources is Haraldr Gormsson, claimed to be the king not only of Denmark but Norway on the Jelling stones; the late ninth-century account of Norway provided by Ohthere to the court of Alfred the Great and the history by Adam of Bremen written in 1075 record no King of Norway for the relevant period.
Although sagas have Erik Bloodaxe, who does seem to correspond to a historical figure, as the son of Harald Fairhair, no independent evidence supports this genealogical connection. The twelfth-century William of Malmesbury does have a Norwegian king called Haraldus visit King Æthelstan of England, which chimes with saga-traditions in which Harald Fairhair fostered a son, Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri, on Æthelstan, but William is a late source and Harald a far from uncommon name for a Scandinavian character, William does not give this Harald the epithet fairhair, whereas he does give that epithet to the Norwegian king Haraldr Sigurðarsson. Although Harald Fairhair appears in diverse Icelandic sagas, few if any of these are independent sources, it is plausible that all these were participating in a shared textual tradition begun by the earliest Icelandic prose account of Harald, Ari Þorgilsson's Íslendingabók. Dating from the early twelfth century, this was written over 250 years after Harald's supposed death.
The saga evidence is pre-dated by two skaldic poems, Haraldskvæði and Glymdrápa, which have been attributed to Þorbjörn hornklofi or alternatively to Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, are according to the sagas about Harald Fairhair. Although only preserved in thirteenth-century Kings' sagas, they might have been transmitted orally from the tenth century; the first describes life at the court of a king called Harald, mentions that he took a Danish wife, that he won a battle at Hafrsfjord. The second poem relates a series of battles won by a king called Harald. However, the information supplied in these poems is inconsistent with the tales in the sagas in which they are transmitted, the sagas themselves disagree on the details of his background and biography. Meanwhile, the most reliable manuscripts of Haraldskvæði call the poem's honorand Haraldr Hálfdanarson rather than Haraldr hárfagri, Glymdrápa offers no epithet at all. All the poems show is that there was once a king called Haraldr. Sources from the British Isles which are independent of the Icelandic saga-tradition, are earlier than the sagas, do attest to a king whose name corresponds to the Old Norse name Haraldr inn hárfagri—but they use this name of the well attested Haraldr Sigurðarson.
These sources include manuscript D of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the related histories by Orderic Vitalis, John of Worcester, William of Malmesbury. Thus the Icelandic saga-tradition of Harald Fair-Hair can be seen as part of an origin myth created to explain the settlement of Iceland in which a cognomen of Haraldr Sigurðarson was transferred to a fictitious early king of all Norway. Sverrir Jakobsson has suggested that the idea of Iceland being set
Harold Godwinson
Harold Godwinson called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England, his death marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule over England. Harold was a powerful member of a prominent Anglo-Saxon family with ties to Cnut the Great. Upon the death of his brother-in-law King Edward the Confessor on 5 January 1066, the Witenagemot convened and chose Harold to succeed. In late September, he repelled an invasion by rival claimant Harald Hardrada of Norway before marching his army back south to meet William the Conqueror at Hastings two weeks later. Harold was a son of Godwin, the powerful Earl of Wessex, of Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, whose brother Ulf the Earl was married to Estrith, the daughter of King Sweyn Forkbeard and sister of King Cnut the Great of England and Denmark. Ulf and Estrith's son would become King Sweyn II of Denmark in 1047.
Godwin was the son of Wulfnoth a thegn and a native of Sussex. Godwin began his political career by supporting King Edmund Ironside, but switched to supporting King Cnut by 1018, when Cnut named him Earl of Wessex. Godwin remained an earl throughout the remainder of Cnut's reign, one of only two earls to survive to the end of that reign. On Cnut's death in 1035, Godwin supported Harthacnut instead of Cnut's initial successor Harold Harefoot, but managed to switch sides in 1037—although not without becoming involved in the 1036 murder of Alfred Aetheling, half-brother of Harthacnut and younger brother of the King Edward the Confessor; when Harold Harefoot died in 1040, Harthacnut became King of England and Godwin's power was imperiled by his earlier involvement in Alfred's murder, but an oath and large gift secured the new king's favour for Godwin. Harthacnut's death in 1042 involved Godwin in a role as kingmaker, helping to secure the English throne for Edward the Confessor. In 1045 Godwin reached the height of his power.
Godwin and Gytha had several children—six sons: Sweyn, Tostig, Gyrth and Wulfnoth. The birthdates of the children are unknown. Harold was aged about 25 in 1045, which makes his birth year around 1020. Edith married Edward on 23 January 1045 and, around that time, Harold became Earl of East Anglia. Harold is called "earl" when he appears as a witness in a will that may date to 1044. One reason for his appointment to East Anglia may have been a need to defend against the threat from King Magnus the Good of Norway, it is possible that Harold led some of the ships from his earldom that were sent to Sandwich in 1045 against Magnus. Sweyn, Harold's elder brother, had been named an earl in 1043, it was around the time that Harold was named an earl that he began a relationship with Edith, who appears to have been the heiress to lands in Cambridgeshire and Essex, lands in Harold's new earldom. The relationship was a form of marriage, not blessed or sanctioned by the Church, known as More danico, or "in the Danish manner", was accepted by most laypeople in England at the time.
Any children of such a union were considered legitimate. Harold entered the relationship in part to secure support in his new earldom. Harold's elder brother Sweyn was exiled in 1047 after abducting the abbess of Leominster. Sweyn's lands were divided between a cousin, Beorn. In 1049, Harold was in command of a ship or ships that were sent with a fleet to aid Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor against Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, in revolt against Henry. During this campaign, Sweyn returned to England and attempted to secure a pardon from the king, but Harold and Beorn refused to return any of their lands, Sweyn, after leaving the royal court, took Beorn hostage and killed him; when in 1051 Earl Godwin was sent into exile, Harold accompanied his father and helped him to regain his position a year later. Godwin died in 1053, Harold succeeded him as Earl of Wessex; this arguably made him the most powerful figure in England after the king. Harold became Earl of Hereford in 1058, replaced his late father as the focus of opposition to growing Norman influence in England under the restored monarchy of Edward the Confessor, who had spent more than 25 years in exile in Normandy.
He led a series of successful campaigns against Gruffydd ap Llywelyn of king of Wales. This conflict ended with Gruffydd's defeat and death in 1063. In 1064, Harold was shipwrecked at Ponthieu. There is much speculation about this voyage; the earliest post-conquest Norman chroniclers report that King Edward had sent Robert of Jumièges, Archbishop of Canterbury, to appoint as his heir Edward's maternal kinsman, William of Normandy, that at this date Harold was sent to swear fealty. Scholars disagree as to the reliability of this story. William, at least, seems to have believed he had been offered the succession, but there must have been some confusion either on William's part or by both men, since the English succession was neither inherited nor determined by the reigning monarch. Instead the Witenagemot, the assembly of the kingdom's leading notables, would convene after a king's death
Viking expansion
Viking expansion is the process by which Norse explorers and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, sailed most of the North Atlantic, reaching south to North Africa and east to Russia and the Middle East as looters, traders and mercenaries. Vikings under Leif Erikson, the heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up a short-lived settlement in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Canada. Longer lasting and more established settlements were formed in Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Great Britain and Normandy, it is debated. There is much debate among historians about. One held idea is that it was a quest for retaliation against continental Europeans for their previous invasions of Viking homelands, such as Charlemagne's campaign to force Scandinavian pagans to convert to Christianity by killing any who refused to become baptized; the historian Rudolf Simek has observed, "It is not a coincidence if the early Viking activity occurred during the reign of Charlemagne." Those who favor this explanation point out that the penetration of Christianity into Scandinavia caused serious conflict and divided Norway for a century.
However, the first target of Viking raids was not the Frankish Kingdom, but Christian monasteries in England. According to the historian Peter Sawyer, these were raided because they were centers of wealth and their farms well-stocked, not because of any religious reasons. Another idea is that the Viking population had exceeded the agricultural potential of their homeland; this may have been true of western Norway, where there were few reserves of land, but it is unlikely the rest of Scandinavia was experiencing famine. Alternatively, some scholars propose that the Viking expansion was driven by a youth bulge effect: since the eldest son of a family customarily inherited the family's entire estate, younger sons had to seek their fortune by emigrating or engaging in raids. Peter Sawyer suggests that most Vikings emigrated due the attractiveness of owning more land rather than the necessity of having it. However, no rise in population, youth bulge, or decline in agricultural production during this period has been definitively demonstrated.
Nor is it clear why such pressures would have prompted expansion overseas rather than into the vast, uncultivated forest areas in the interior of the Scandinavian Peninsula, although emigration or sea raids may have been easier or more profitable than clearing large areas of forest for farm and pasture in a region with a limited growing season. An idea that avoids these shortcomings is that the Scandinavians might have practiced selective procreation leading to a shortage of women, that the Vikings' main motive for emigration was to acquire wives, although this would not explain why the Vikings chose to settle in other countries rather than bringing the women back with them to Scandinavia, it is possible that a decline in the profitability of old trade routes drove the Vikings to seek out new, more profitable ones. Trade between western Europe and the rest of Eurasia may have suffered after the Roman Empire lost its western provinces in the 5th century, the expansion of Islam in the 7th century may have reduced trade opportunities within western Europe by redirecting resources along the Silk Road.
Trade in the Mediterranean was at its lowest level in history when the Vikings began their expansion. The Viking expansion opened new trade routes in Arab and Frankish lands, took control of trade markets dominated by the Frisians after the Franks destroyed the Frisian fleet. Viking settlements in Ireland and Great Britain are thought to have been male enterprises, however some graves show nearly equal male/female distribution. Disagreement is due to method of classification; the males buried during that period in a cemetery on the Isle of Man had names of Norse origin, while the females there had names of indigenous origin. Irish and British women are mentioned in old texts on the founding of Iceland, indicating that the Viking explorers were accompanied there by women from the British Isles who either came along voluntarily or were taken along by force. Genetic studies of the population in the Western Isles and Isle of Skye show that Viking settlements were established by male Vikings who mated with women from the local populations of those places.
However, not all Viking settlements were male. Genetic studies of the Shetland population suggest that family units consisting of Viking women as well as men were the norm among the migrants to these areas; this may be because areas like the Shetland Islands, being closer to Scandinavia, were more suitable targets for family migrations, while frontier settlements further north and west were more suitable for groups of unattached male colonizers. During the reign of King Beorhtric of Wessex three ships of "Northmen" landed at Portland Bay in Dorset; the local reeve mistook the Vikings for merchants and directed them to the nearby royal estate, but the visitors killed him and his men. The earliest recorded planned Viking raid, on 6 January 793, targeted the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, off the north-east coast of Northumbria. According to the 12th-century Anglo-Norman chronicler Symeon of Durham, the raiders killed the resident monks or threw them into the sea to drown or carried them away as slaves—along with some of the church treasures.
In 875, after enduring eight decades
Halfdan the Black
This article is about the ninth-century king of Vestfold and father of Harald I of Norway. For his less famous grandson by the same name, see Halfdan Haraldsson the Black. Halfdan the Black was a ninth-century king of Vestfold, he belonged to the House of Yngling and was the father of Harald Fairhair, the first king of a unified Norway. According to Heimskringla and Fagsrkinna, Halfdan was the son of the Yngling King Gudrød the Hunter. Heimskringla names his mother, as Åsa, daughter of King Harald of Agder, his half-brother as Olaf Geirstad-Alf. Heimskringla relates that when Halfdan's father was killed, Åsa took the 1 year-old Halfdan and returned to Agder, where Halfdan was raised; when he was 18 or 19 years old, Halfdan became king of Agder. He began adding to his kingdom, through political negotiation and military conquest, he divided the kingdom of Vestfold with his brother Olaf and, through military action, persuaded King Gandalf of Vingulmark to cede half his kingdom. Based on the formulaic nature of his ties to his predecessors, his strong affiliation with Agder, the failure of an early saga dedicated to him to name any family connections, some scholars have suggested that the linkage to the earlier Yngling dynasty of Vestfold was a invention, created to associate a conquering Halfdan and his son Harald Fairhair with the family glorified in the Ynglingatal, whom he had displaced.
Halfdan next is said to have subdued an area called Raumarike. To secure his claim to Raumarike, Halfdan first defeated and killed the previous ruler, Sigtryg Eysteinsson, in battle, he defeated Sigtryg's brother and successor Eystein, in a series of battles. This established Halfdan's claim not only to Raumarike, but to half of Hedmark, the core of Sigtryg and Eystein's kingdom; these details are only mentioned in Heimskringla. Fagrskinna and Heimskringla both agree that Halfdan's first wife was Ragnhild, daughter of King Harald Gulskeg of Sogn. Halfdan and Ragnhild had a son named "Harald" after his grandfather, they sent him to be raised at his grandfather's court. Harald Gulskeg, being elderly, named his grandson as his successor, shortly before his death. Ragnhild died shortly after her father, the young king Harald fell sick and died the next spring; when Halfdan heard about his son's death, he laid claim to the title of king. No resistance was offered, Halfdan added Sogn to his realm; the narrative in Heimskringla adds another conquest for King Halfdan.
In Vingulmark, the sons of Gandalf of Vingulmark, Hysing and Hake, attempted to ambush Halfdan at night, but he escaped into the forest. After raising an army, he returned killing Hysing and Helsing. Hake fled the country, Halfdan became king of all of Vingulmark. According to Heimskringla, Halfdan's second wife named Ragnhild, had been kidnapped from her home by Hake, a "berserker" who encountered her father in Hadeland and killed him. Halfdan had her kidnapped from Hake. Fagrskinna does not mention any of these details. However, both sagas agree that Ragnhild and Halfdan had a son, named Harald. Heimskringla, Fagrskinna, Ágrip and Historia Norwegiæ all relate that Halfdan drowned when he fell through the ice at the inlet Røykenvik in the lake Randsfjorden on his return home from Hadeland, his horse and sleigh broke through ice weakened by cattle dung near a watering hole dug in the frozen lake. He was buried in a mound at Stein in Ringerike Heimskringlas narrative adds that each of the districts of his kingdom wanted to claim his grave, that it was agreed to divide his body into four pieces so each district could bury a piece of it, resulting in four different sites called Halvdanshaugen.
According to this version, only his head is buried in Ringerike. No contemporary sources mention Halfdan, the details of his life that are provided by kings' sagas are considered semi-legendary by modern historians. Although he has his own saga in Heimskringla, it lacks any skaldic verse, used by Snorri as supporting evidence and this, combined with its rather legendary character, leads historians to be wary of seeing much veracity in it; the "Black" nickname was given to him because of his black hair. Halfdan is mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, Fagrskinna, Ágrip and Historia Norwegiæ; the most elaborate story is found in Heimskringla. According to the Latin Historia Norwegiæ, Halvdan was a king "in montanis", equivalent to Oppland in the Old Norse; this conflicts with the version told in Heimskringla. In season four of the television show Vikings, Halfdan The Black is portrayed as the brother rather than father of Harald Finehair and is played by Finnish actor Jasper Pääkkönen. Halfdan the Black is the main antagonist in the film Erik the Viking.
The song "Halvdan the Black" by German-Norwegian symphonic metal band Leaves' Eyes discusses Halfdan's death. Fagrskinna in Old Norse Ágrip in Old Norse Heimskringla in Old Norse Heimskringla in English, from wikisource
Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga is a legendary saga written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his Heimskringla, it was first published in 1844 by Samuel Laing. Snorri Sturluson based his work on an earlier Ynglingatal, attributed to the Norwegian 9th century skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, which appears in Historia Norwegiae, it tells the most ancient part of the story of the House of Ynglings. Snorri described the descent of the kings of Norway from this royal house of Sweden. Ynglinga saga is the first part of Snorri's history of the Heimskringla. Snorri's work covers the history of the Norwegian kings from the mythical prehistoric age until 1177, with the death of the pretender Eystein Meyla. Interwoven in this narrative are references to important historical events; the saga deals with the arrival of the Norse gods to Scandinavia and how Freyr founded the Swedish Yngling dynasty at Uppsala. The saga follows the line of Swedish kings until Ingjald, after which the descendants settled in Norway and became the ancestors of the Norwegian King Harald Fairhair.
In the initial stanzas of the poem, Asagarth is the capital of Asaland, a section of Asia to the east of the Tana-kvísl or Vana-Kvísl river, which Snorri explains is the Tanais, or Don River, flowing into the Black Sea. The river divides "Sweden the Great", a concession to the Viking point of view, it is never called that prior to the Vikings. Odin is the chief of Asgard. From there he dispatches military expeditions to all parts of the world, he has the virtue of never losing a battle. When he is away, his two brothers, Vili and Vé, rule Ásaland from Ásgarðr. On the border of Sweden is a mountain range running from northeast to southwest. South of it are the lands of the Turks. On the north are the uninhabitable fells, which must be the tundra/taiga country; the Vikings did not encounter the Urals or the Uralics of the region. Snorri evidences no knowledge of them. There is no mention of Troy, not far from Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine empire and militarily beyond the reach of the Vikings.
Troy cannot have been Asagarth, Snorri realizes, the reason being that the Æsir in Ásaland were unsettled by the military activities of the Romans. As a result, Odin led a section of the Æsir to the north looking for new lands in, they used the Viking route up the Don and the Volga through Garðaríki, Viking for Kievan Rus'. From there they went to the lands of Gylfi in Scandinavia; the historical view, of course, is fantastical. The Germanics were in Germany and Scandinavia during earliest mention of them in Roman literature, long before the Romans had conquered Italy. To what extent Snorri's presentation is poetic creation only remains unclear. Demoted from his position as all-father, or king of the gods, Odin becomes a great sorcerer in the Ynglinga Saga, he can shape-shift, speaks only in verse, lies so well that everything he says seems true. He strikes enemies deaf and when his own men fight they go berserk and can not be harmed, he has a ship that can be rolled up like a tablecloth when not used, he relies on two talking ravens to gather intelligence, he consults the talking head of Mimir for advice.
As a man, Odin is faced with the necessity to die. He is cremated and his possessions are burned with him so that he can ascend to - where? If Asgard is an earthly place, not there. Snorri says at first it is Valhalla and adds: "The Swedes now believed that he had gone to the old Asagarth and would live there forever". Krag, Claus Ynglingatal og Ynglingesaga- en studie i historiske kilder Nerman, Birger Det svenska rikets uppkomst Åkerlund, W. Studier över Ynglingatal Ynglinga saga and Heimskringla from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Old Icelandic Heimskringla: The Ynglinga Saga from The Medieval and Classical Literature Library English
Yngling
The Ynglings were the oldest known Scandinavian dynasty, originating from Sweden. It can refer to the clans of the Scylfings, the semi-legendary royal Swedish clan during the Age of Migrations, with kings such as Eadgils and Ohthere; when Beowulf and Ynglingatal were composed sometime in the eighth to tenth centuries, the respective scop and skald expected his audience to have a great deal of background information about these kings, shown in the allusiveness of the references. Ynglings refers to the Fairhair dynasty, descending from the kings of Oppland, Norway. According to surviving early sources, such as Ynglingatal and Íslendingabók, these kings were descended from the Swedish Scylfings of Uppland, Sweden; the House of Munsö, a Swedish dynasty falls under the definition of Yngling. The earliest kings of this dynasty that historians agree are historical are Eirik the Victorious and Olof Skötkonung; some early kings were mythical, whereas others may have been real. Egil, Ottar and Adils are mentioned in several sources and are likely to be real kings.
In the Scandinavian sources they are the descendants of Yngvi-Frey of Vanaheim. Yngling means descendant of Frey, in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus they are called the sons of Frey. Several of these kings appear in Beowulf: Eadgils and Ohthere, but here they are called Scylfings. Snorri Sturluson hints at a less divine origin in Skáldskaparmál for this dynasty: One war-king was named Skelfir. In the 13th century, the official Swedish/Scandinavian term for the modern-day Southern Finland was "Eastern Land", Österland, i.e. the eastern half of Sweden at the time. In Ynglinga Saga in 1220 AD, Snorri Sturluson discusses marriages between Swedish and Finnish royal families. In 1220 AD, in the Skáldskaparmál section of Edda, Sturluson discusses King Halfdan the Old, Nór's great-grandson, nine of his sons who are the forefathers of various royal lineages, including "Yngvi, from whom the Ynglings are descended". According to Orkneyinga Saga in 1230 AD, Nór founded Norway, he was a direct descendant of Fornjótr, the King of "Gotland and Finnland".
Many Scandinavian historians name Halfdan the Old as an ancestor to Rollo, the Viking conqueror who founded Normandy and took the name Robert I after converting to Christianity. He was William the Conqueror's great-great-great-grandfather. In 1387 AD, Hversu Noregr byggðist is an account of the origin of various legendary Norwegian lineages, it too traces the descendants of the primeval Finnish ruler Fornjotr back through Nór and his siblings, Góí and Gór. The Hversu account is paralleled by the opening of the Orkneyinga saga. The'genealogies' claim that many heroic families famed in Scandinavian tradition but not located in Norway were of a Finn-Kven stock sprung from Nór's great-grandson Halfdan the Old. All the lineages sprung from Halfdan are shown to reconvert in the person of Harald Fairhair, the first king of "all Norway"; this information can be confirmed in other sources. The'Ættartölur' account ends to a genealogy of Harald's royal descendants down to Olaf IV of Norway with the statement that the account was written in 1387, with a list of the kings of Norway from this Olaf back to Harald Fair-hair.
Another origin for the name skilfing is possible: Snorri described Erik and Alrik, the sons of Skjalf to be the de facto ancestors of this Norse-Finnish clan. The kings who resided at Upsal had been the supreme chiefs over the whole Swedish dominions until the death of Agne, when, as before related, the kingdom came to be divided between brothers. After that time the dominions and kingly powers were spread among the branches of the family as these increased. According to Snorri Sturluson, the dynasty led the settlement of the Swedish provinces and established themselves as the kings of its provinces, accepting the overlordship of the Swedish king at Uppsala, until the dynasty all but exterminated itself with Ingjald Ill-Ruler and his downfall. A survivor Olof Trätälja was the ancestor of the Norwegian branch. However, both Snorri and Saxo described the clan as remaining in Sweden after this date. Saxo on the Battle of Bråvalla: Now the bravest of the Swedes were these: Arwakki, Keklu-Karl, Krok the Peasant and Gummi from Gislamark.
These were kindred of the god Frey, most faithful witnesses to the gods. Ingi and Oly, Folki, all sons of Elrik, embraced the service of Sigurd Hring, they held the god Frey to be the founder of their race. Amongst these from the town of Sigtun came Sigmund, a champion advocate, versed in making contracts of sale and purchase. Moreover, both in Icelandic sources and in the Gesta Danorum, king Sigurd Hring would become the ancestor of the houses of Ragnar Lodbrok and would thus be the semi-legendary ancestor
