Ynglinga Saga

About this saga

Snorri Sturluson's euhemeristic introduction to Heimskringla, in which the Norse gods are presented as historical kings from Asia. The saga links mythology to the genealogy of the Norwegian royal line.

A Odin in Ásgarðr

Snorri Sturluson opens Ynglinga saga with a euhemeristic reading of the mythological tradition: the Aesir are a people from Asia, and Odin is their chieftain-king and priest-king. From the great city of Ásgarðr in the land of Ásaland he governs a powerful realm. His wisdom is unmatched, his arts are feared by neighboring peoples, and his name is carried as an epithet by all who hold high office after him.

The Aesir and the Vanir do not always live in peace. War breaks out between the two peoples, the first war that the world had seen. The struggle is prolonged and neither side can break the other, and at last they make peace. As was customary when sealing pacts in ancient times, they exchange hostages: Njörðr and his son Yngvi-Freyr are sent to the Aesir, and Hœnir and the wise Mímir are sent to the Vanir.

Among the Vanir it soon becomes apparent that Hœnir is decisive in action but at a loss whenever Mímir is absent to give counsel. The Vanir suspect they have been deceived in the exchange. In anger they cut off Mímir's head and send it back to Odin. Odin rubbed the head with herbs and sang incantations over it so that it retained its wisdom and could give him counsel long afterward.

A Odin's arts and the Vanir hostages

Odin commands arts that few others possess. He can change his shape and travel in animal form while his body lies as if sleeping; his spirit ranges far and wide. He can speak with the dead and rouse knowledge from the underground, for the wisdom of runes and the secrets of seiðr are his. He always speaks in verse, for the poet's craft belongs to him as well.

He establishes laws and sacrifices. In his honor weapons are to be consecrated on the burial mound, for those who fall in battle earn their place in Valhöll. Three great sacrifices are instituted through the year: one at the onset of winter for the year's harvest, one at midwinter in memory of the dead, and one in summer for victory. These customs spread with the people of the Aesir and persist long after Odin's time.

When Odin at last departs the land and turns northward, he raises Njörðr to succeed him. Njörðr is a mild and wealth-loving lord who wins favor and prosperity during his time. The people carry his name in devotion, and his son Freyr grows to be held in even higher esteem than his father.

A Freyr and Uppsala

Njörðr is succeeded by his son, called Yngvi-Freyr, and it is with him that the lineage of the Swedish kings properly begins. Freyr has a mighty temple built at Uppsala and makes that place the ritual center of the realm. He is a people's king in the deepest sense: the people love him, the harvests are good, and peace is long-lasting. Under his rule gold flows as never before.

When Freyr dies, his closest men dare not announce it to the people. For three years he is kept hidden in the burial mound while his men collect the tribute paid to the mound, as though Freyr still lived and received it. The people believed that Freyr's presence in the mound gave good harvests and peace, and so they came to pay tribute to the dead king.

When the truth at last becomes known, the people take it as a sign of divine power rather than a deception. Yngvi-Freyr is thereafter worshipped as a god-king and offered sacrifice far into historical times. His line is the root of the Yngling dynasty and his name, Yngvi, lives on as the people's name, the Ynglingar.

A Fjölnir and Sveigðir

Freyr's son Fjölnir inherits the realm and the power. His time is good and peace endures, but his end is bizarre and unexpected. He visits the Danish king Fróði in Denmark, where feasting with mead takes place on such a scale that the farmstead can barely contain all the vats. One night Fjölnir goes out into the darkness and falls into one of the great mead-vats. There he drowns, the Swedish king who survived all his enemies but perished in a vat of mead.

His descendant Sveigðir meets a different supernatural end. His life's overriding occupation is the search for Goðheimr, the place where the gods dwell and where Odin has his hall. During one of his journeys he sits outside a great rock in the evening when a dwarf appears in an opening in the stone and calls to him, saying that Odin dwells within. Sveigðir rushes in and the stone closes behind him. He never returns.

These two royal deaths represent a recurring pattern in the Yngling lineage: the supernatural endings. The kings rarely die in their beds. They drown in mead-vats, vanish into rocks, are gored by boars, or burn in their own halls. Death is a neighbor who always comes calling.

A Dómaldi and the sacrifices

During King Dómaldi's reign the realm of the Swedes is struck by famine. The hunger is severe and none of the usual remedies help. In their desperation the Swedes gather for sacrifice at Uppsala. The first year they offer oxen, but the grip of famine does not loosen. The next year they sacrifice men, and still the hardship endures. In the third year the leading men deliberate and reach agreement on what must be done.

Dómaldi himself is led forward to the altar. It is an act of collective necessity and the logic of an ancient offering: when the realm suffers, the king must pay. With his blood they hope that the earth's fertility will return and that the harvests will be good again. So ends Dómaldi, king over the Swedes, sacrificed on the altar where his people had sought remedy for three years.

Aun, another Yngling king, goes even further in his dealings with Odin. Nine times he sacrifices a son in order to extend his own life. Odin grants him years for each sacrifice, but in his extreme old age he can no longer walk and must be carried in a basket like a child. When he reaches the ninth son the Swedes intervene and forbid the sacrifice. Aun then dies in his bed of old age.

A Aðils and Yrsa

King Aðils at Uppsala is one of the most celebrated kings in the Yngling lineage, and his name appears in both Beowulf and the Norse sagas. His greatest adversary is the Norwegian king Áli, against whom he fights on the ice of Lake Vänern. In that battle the legendary hero Hrólf Kraki is also called upon, for Aðils needs help and promises gold in return.

The plains of Fyrisvellir outside Uppsala are the setting for one of the most famous episodes. When Hrólf Kraki's men ride away after having helped Aðils, Aðils scatters gold after them on the plain, as if paying their reward. But Hrólf Kraki's men throw the gold back and thereby show that they will not be bought. The gold of Fyrisvellir afterward became a byword for wealth squandered without honor.

Aðils dies at last during a sacrificial procession. His horse stumbles, he falls, and his head strikes a stone. An unhappy end for a king who had survived so many battles. Yrsa, the woman by his side during part of his reign, is one of the most tragic figures in the saga tradition, torn between her parentage and her loyalty to her husband.

A Ingjald the ill-counselled

Ingjald, called the ill-counselled, marks the end of the Yngling kings' time in Sweden. His rule is characterized by treachery and fire. He invites rival petty kings to feasts and then has them burned inside the hall. In this way he makes himself master of their realms without needing to win them in honorable battle. Those who can flee him do so; those who stay pay the price.

Ingjald has a wife whose counsel suits him well: she encourages his worst impulses and participates in planning the arson killings. The priests of Uppland withdraw and lament what Ingjald does to the realm and to the concept of honor. But the spirit of the age gives Ingjald room and he extends his dominion.

When enemies at last close the ring around Ingjald and the paths of escape are shut, he reaches for the last thing he has left: he sets his own hall alight and burns himself and his entire household within the walls. No one shall take him alive. With Ingjald's death the Yngling kingship in Sweden ends; the lineage continues but now north across the sea, in Norway.

A Ragnvald and Ólafr Tree-feller

With Ingjald's fall the surviving members of the lineage are forced to leave Sweden. It is Ingjald's daughter Ása and her husband Guðröðr who move westward toward Norway, carrying with them what remains of the Yngling bloodline. From them are born sons who leave their mark on the foundations of the Norwegian kingship.

Ólafr Tretelgja, called that because he has Värmland's forests felled and new land brought under cultivation, represents the spirit of a new chapter: building up rather than conquering. During his time settlers seek land in the forests of Värmland. The realm takes new shape, and with Norway as its base the Yngling dynasty's rule continues.

Snorri's purpose in Ynglinga saga is to draw a straight line from the gods Njörðr and Freyr down to the Norwegian kings and finally to his own patrons, Hákon Hákonarson and the circle around him. The storytelling is an act of legitimation: the Norwegian kings' claims to power are supported by a lineage of divine ancestors. History is a tool and the genealogy a weapon.

A Composition and place within Heimskringla

Ynglinga saga is the first saga in Heimskringla, Snorri Sturluson's monumental collection of the sagas of the Norwegian kings, compiled in Iceland around 1225. The work opens with a prologue that sets out Snorri's historical method, and Ynglinga saga follows as the earliest narrative, tasked with anchoring the entire royal lineage in a past that reaches back to the age of the gods.

Snorri draws heavily on the older skaldic poem Ynglingatal, composed by the Norwegian poet Thjodolf of Hvinir in the ninth century. Ynglingatal enumerates thirty generations of Yngling kings and records how each one died. Snorri surrounds these spare details with expansive prose, thereby creating a continuous narrative that makes mythological and historical material accessible to his own time.

Heimskringla has been preserved in several manuscripts, the most important of which are Kringla (now lost apart from a single leaf) and Jöfraskinna. The text also appears in the compilation manuscript Flateyjarbók. The best text is generally considered to be the one recoverable from the Kringla tradition, and it is this that forms the basis of the modern critical editions.

A Gods as kings: the euhemeristic framework

Snorri's most original contribution in Ynglinga saga is his euhemeristic reinterpretation of Norse mythology. Odin, Thor, and the other gods are presented as a group of gifted men who emigrated from Tyrkland (the region of Troy/Asia Minor) and who, through their superiority in the arts of war and sorcery, came to be regarded as gods by the Nordic peoples. This explanatory model, named after the Greek philosopher Euhemerus, was already established in medieval learned tradition, but Snorri applies it with uncommon consistency and narrative skill.

According to Snorri, Odin leads his family and retinue northward through Saxony and Denmark to Sweden, where he founds his kingdom at Old Uppsala. Odin is presented as a mighty chieftain with special abilities: he can change his shape, speak in verse, blind his enemies, and consult the dead. Snorri treats these powers as a form of pagan sorcery rather than divine might.

Njord and Freyr succeed Odin as kings at Uppsala. During Freyr's rule a long period of peace and good harvests occurs, and it is this that gives rise to the sacrificial cult's association with fertility. Snorri's presentation is deliberately rationalising: what mythology describes as divine attributes is explained as human achievements that were exaggerated through generations of storytelling.

A The Yngling kings and their fates

After the mythological opening chapters, the saga moves on to depict the semi-legendary kings of Uppsala. Each of them is given a short chapter that typically concludes with the circumstances of the king's death, information that Snorri draws from the stanzas of Ynglingatal. The cause of death is often dramatic or peculiar: Fjölnir drowns in a vat of mead, Sveigðir vanishes into a stone, Dómaldi is sacrificed by his own people to avert famine.

This catalogue-like structure gives the saga a distinctive rhythm. The individual episodes are brief, sometimes only a paragraph, yet they often contain a kernel of older tradition. The story of Aun the Old, who sacrifices his sons one by one to Odin in order to prolong his own life, has been interpreted as an echo of ritual king-sacrifice. The account of Aðils and his conflict with the Norwegian king Hrólf Kraki connects to the broader Skjöldung tradition.

The saga ends with the Yngling line moving from Uppsala to Norway, where it branches and eventually gives rise to Harald Fairhair and his descendants. This genealogical bridge between the Swedish and Norwegian kingships forms the structural foundation of all of Heimskringla. Without the mythological grounding of Ynglinga saga, the subsequent historiography would lack its deepest root.

B Relationship to mythological sources

Snorri's Ynglinga saga shares material with his own work Gylfaginning in the Prose Edda, yet treats it with an entirely different intent. In Gylfaginning the myths are told from the inside, as if they were true within their own frame. In Ynglinga saga the same traditions are reinterpreted from the outside, as historical events that were misunderstood by ignorant pagan peoples. This dual handling reveals Snorri's sophisticated relationship with his material.

Ynglingatal, which forms the saga's backbone, is itself an important source for pre-Christian Norse royal tradition. The poem mentions places, cults, and customs not found in other sources. Snorri's prose reworking preserves parts of this information while reshaping it in accordance with the Christian historiography of the early thirteenth century.

The connection to Vǫluspá and other Eddic poems is indirect. Snorri employs the same mythological framework (the gods as powers of order, their relationship to the giants, the fertility cult at Uppsala) yet projects it onto a historical timeline. This transformation makes Ynglinga saga a unique document in Norse literature: a text that stands in the borderland between myth and history.

B Scholarly perspectives

Ynglinga saga has been studied from a range of perspectives. The text-critical tradition, represented by scholars such as Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, has focused on the relationship between Snorri's prose and the stanzas of Ynglingatal, and on the question of how faithfully Snorri reproduces his poetic source. These analyses show that Snorri sometimes misunderstood or deliberately reinterpreted the stanzas to fit his narrative.

Historians of religion have found rich material in the saga's depictions of cult and sacrifice. The accounts of blót at Uppsala, of kings who are sacrificed, and of the fertility cult's connection to Freyr, have been used to reconstruct pre-Christian ritual patterns. At the same time, critics such as Walter Baetke have warned against taking Snorri's euhemeristic interpretations too literally, for they reflect the medieval author's Christian worldview rather than the actual pagan cult.

Political readings of the saga have emphasised its function as a narrative of legitimation. By tracing the Norwegian royal line back to the gods, even if rationalised into human leaders, Snorri created a story that gave kingship a mythological anchor. This political dimension interacts with the scholarly ambition and makes Ynglinga saga one of the most layered works in medieval Norse literature.

Interpretive traditions

A What we know

Ynglinga saga is the first saga in Heimskringla, written by Snorri Sturluson around 1225.

The text draws extensively on the older skaldic poem Ynglingatal by Thjodolf of Hvinir (ninth century).

Snorri applies a euhemeristic model in which the Norse gods are presented as historical kings from Asia.

B What we think we know

Snorri probably had access to oral traditions and written sources that no longer survive.

The saga's euhemeristic framework was partly motivated by political considerations and the desire to legitimise the Norwegian royal line.

The strophic information in Ynglingatal about royal deaths may preserve memories of pre-Christian ritual practice.

C What we do not know

It is unknown how much of Ynglingatal's original text has been lost and how much Snorri filled in on his own.

The relationship between Ynglinga saga's depictions of Uppsala and the actual prehistoric cult at Old Uppsala is disputed.