[OMACL release #15b]
 The Heimskringla, by Snorri Sturlson
 
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                             Heimskringla
 
                                  or
 
                 The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway
 
                                  by
 
                            Snorri Sturlson
                             (c.1179-1241)
 
 Originally written in Old Norse, app. 1225 A.D., by the poet and
 historian Snorri Sturlson.  English translation by Samuel Laing
 (London, 1844).
 
 The text of this edition is based on that published as
 "Heimskringla: A History of the Norse Kings" (Norroena Society,
 London, 1907), except for "Ynglinga Saga", which for reasons
 unknown is curiously absent from the Norroena Society edition. 
 "Ynglinga Saga" text taken from Laing's original edition (London,
 1844).
 
 This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by
 Douglas B. Killings (DeTroyes@AOL.COM), April 1996.  Some
 corrections and "Ynglinga Saga" added courtesy of Ms. Diane
 Brendan, May 1996.
 
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 PREPARER'S NOTE:
 
 The "Heimskringla" of Snorri Sturlason is a collection of sagas
 concerning the various rulers of Norway, from about A.D. 850 to
 the year A.D. 1177.
 
 The Sagas covered in this work are the following:
 
 1.  Ynglinga Saga
 2.  Halfdan the Black Saga
 3.  Harald Harfager's Saga
 4.  Hakon the Good's Saga
 5.  Saga of King Harald Grafeld and of Earl Hakon Son of Sigurd
 6.  King Olaf Trygvason's Saga
 7.  Saga of Olaf Haraldson (St. Olaf)
 8.  Saga of Magnus the Good
 9.  Saga of Harald Hardrade
 10. Saga of Olaf Kyrre
 11. Magnus Barefoot's Saga
 12. Saga of Sigurd the Crusader and His Brothers Eystein and Olaf
 13. Saga of Magnus the Blind and of Harald Gille
 14. Saga of Sigurd, Inge, and Eystein, the Sons of Harald
 15. Saga of Hakon Herdebreid ("Hakon the Broad-Shouldered")
 16. Magnus Erlingson's Saga
 
 While scholars and historians continue to debate the historical
 accuracy of Sturlason's work, the "Heimskringla" is still
 considered an important original source for information on the
 Viking Age, a period which Sturlason covers almost in its
 entirety.
 
 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
 
 ORIGINAL TEXT --
 
 Athalbjarnarson, Bjarni (ed.): "Heimskringla" vol. I-III
 (Reykjavik, 1946-51).
 
 OTHER TRANSLATIONS --
 
 Hollander, Lee M.: "Heimskringla" (University of Texas Press,
 1964)
 
 Magnusson, Magnus and Hermann Palsson: "King Harald's Saga"
 (Penguin Classics, London, 1966).  "Saga of Harald Hardrade"
 only.
 
 Morris, William and Eirikr Magnusson: "Heimskingla", in "Saga
 Library", vol III-VI (London, 1893).
 
 RECOMMENDED READING --
 
 Jones, Gwyn: "A History of the Vikings" (Oxford University Press,
 Oxford, 1968; Revised, 1984).
 
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 PREFACE OF SNORRE STURLASON.
 
 In this book I have had old stories written down, as I have heard
 them told by intelligent people, concerning chiefs who have have
 held dominion in the northern countries, and who spoke the Danish
 tongue; and also concerning some of their family branches,
 according to what has been told me.  Some of this is found in
 ancient family registers, in which the pedigrees of kings and
 other personages of high birth are reckoned up, and part is
 written down after old songs and ballads which our forefathers
 had for their amusement.  Now, although we cannot just say what
 truth there may be in these, yet we have the certainty that old
 and wise men held them to be true.
 
 Thjodolf of Hvin was the skald of Harald Harfager, and he
 composed a poem for King Rognvald the Mountain-high, which is
 called "Ynglingatal."  This Rognvald was a son of Olaf
 Geirstadalf, the brother of King Halfdan the Black.  In this
 poem thirty of his forefathers are reckoned up, and the death and
 burial-place of each are given.  He begins with Fjolner, a son of
 Yngvefrey, whom the Swedes, long after his time, worshipped and
 sacrificed to, and from whom the race or family of the Ynglings
 take their name.
 
 Eyvind Skaldaspiller also reckoned up the ancestors of Earl Hakon
 the Great in a poem called "Haleygjatal", composed about Hakon;
 and therein he mentions Saeming, a son of Yngvefrey, and he
 likewise tells of the death and funeral rites of each.  The lives
 and times of the Yngling race were written from Thjodolf's
 relation enlarged afterwards by the accounts of intelligent
 people.
 
 As to funeral rites, the earliest age is called the Age of
 Burning; because all the dead were consumed by fire, and over
 their ashes were raised standing stones.  But after Frey was
 buried under a cairn at Upsala, many chiefs raised cairns, as
 commonly as stones, to the memory of their relatives.
 
 The Age of Cairns began properly in Denmark after Dan Milkillate
 had raised for himself a burial cairn, and ordered that he should
 be buried in it on his death, with his royal ornaments and
 armour, his horse and saddle-furniture, and other valuable goods;
 and many of his descendants followed his example.  But the
 burning of the dead continued, long after that time, to be the
 custom of the Swedes and Northmen.  Iceland was occupied in the
 time that Harald Harfager was the King of Norway.  There were
 skalds in Harald's court whose poems the people know by heart
 even at the present day, together with all the songs about the
 kings who have ruled in Norway since his time; and we rest the
 foundations of our story principally upon the songs which were
 sung in the presence of the chiefs themselves or of their sons,
 and take all to be true that is found in such poems about their
 feats and battles: for although it be the fashion with skalds to
 praise most those in whose presence they are standing, yet no one
 would dare to relete to a chief what he, and all those who heard
 it, knew to be a false and imaginary, not a true account of his
 deeds; because that would be mockery, not praise.
 
 OF THE PRIEST ARE FRODE
 
 The priest Are Frode (the learned), a son of Thorgils the son of
 Geller, was the first man in this country who wrote down in the
 Norse language narratives of events both old and new.  In the
 beginning of his book he wrote principally about the first
 settlements in Iceland, the laws and government, and next of the
 lagmen, and how long each had administered the law; and he
 reckoned the years at first, until the time when Christianity was
 introduced into Iceland, and afterwards reckoned from that to his
 own times.  To this he added many other subjects, such as the
 lives and times of kings of Norway and Denmark, and also of
 England; beside accounts of great events which have taken place
 in this country itself.  His narratives are considered by many
 men of knowledge to be the most remarkable of all; because he was
 a man of good understanding, and so old that his birth was as far
 back as the year after Harald Sigurdson's fall.  He wrote, as he
 himself says, the lives and times of the kings of Norway from the
 report of Od Kolson, a grandson of Hal of Sida.  Od again took
 his information from Thorgeir Afradskol, who was an intelligent
 man, and so old that when Earl Hakon the Great was killed he was
 dwelling at Nidarnes -- the same place at which King Olaf
 Trygvason afterwards laid the foundation of the merchant town of
 Nidaros (i.e., Throndhjem) which is now there.  The priest Are
 came, when seven years old, to Haukadal to Hal Thorarinson, and
 was there fourteen years.  Hal was a man of great knowledge and
 of excellent memory; and he could even remember being baptized,
 when he was three years old, by the priest Thanghrand, the year
 before Christianity was established by law in Iceland.  Are was
 twelve years of age when Bishop Isleif died, and at his death
 eighty years had elapsed since the fall of Olaf Trygvason.  Hal
 died nine years later than Bishop Isleif, and had attained nearly
 the age of ninety-four years.  Hal had traded between the two
 countries, and had enjoyed intercourse with King Olaf the Saint,
 by which he had gained greatly in reputation, and he had become
 well acquainted with the kingdom of Norway.  He had fixed his
 residence in Haukadal when he was thirty years of age, and he had
 dwelt there sixty-four years, as Are tells us.  Teit, a son of
 Bishop Isleif, was fostered in the house of Hal at Haukadal, and
 afterwards dwelt there himself.  He taught Are the priest, and
 gave him information about many circumstances which Are
 afterwards wrote down.  Are also got many a piece of information
 from Thurid, a daughter of the gode Snorre.  She was wise and
 intelligent, and remembered her father Snorre, who was nearly
 thirty-five years of age when Christianity was introduced into
 Iceland, and died a year after King Olaf the Saint's fall.  So it
 is not wonderful that Are the priest had good information about
 ancient events both here in Iceland, and abroad, being a man
 anxious for information, intelligent and of excellent memory, and
 having besides learned much from old intelligent persons.  But
 the songs seem to me most reliable if they are sung correctly,
 and judiciously interpreted.