The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway/Volume 1/Preface of Snorro Sturleson

by Snorri Sturluson

THE

HEIMSKRINGLA;

OR,

CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF NORWAY,

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PREFACE OF SNORRO STURLESON.

In this book I have had old stories written down, as I have heard them told by intelligent people, concerning chiefs who 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.

Thiodolf hinn Frode^[1] of Huina was the scald of Harald Haarfager, and lie composed a poem for King Ragnvald the Mountain-high, which is called "Ynglingatal." This Ragnvald was a son of Olaf Geirstad-Alf, 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 Fiolner, a son of Ingvifrey, whom the Swedes, long after his time, worshipped and sacrificed to, and from whom the race or family of the Ynglingers take their name.

Eyvind Skaldaspiller also reckoned up the ancestors of Earl Hakon the Great in a poem called "Haleigiatal," composed about Hakon; and therein he mentions Saiming, a son of Ingvifrey, and he likewise tells of the death and funeral rites of each. The lives and times of the Yngling race were written from Thiodolf'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. ^[2] But after Frey was buried under a mound at Upsal^[3], many chiefs raised mounds, as commonly as stones, to the memory of their relatives.

The Age of Mounds began properly in Denmark after Dan Mikillati^[4]had raised for himself a burialmound, 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 Haarfager was the King of Norway. There were scalds 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 onr 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 scalds to praise most those in whose presence they are standing, yet no one would dare to relate 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 HINN ERODE.

The priest Are hinn Frode^[5] (the Wise), a son of Thorgils the son of Gellis, 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^[6], 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; besides 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 Odd Kollason, a grandson of Hall of Sidu. Odd again took his information from Thorgeir Afradskoll, who was an intelligent man, and so old that when Earl Hakon the Great was killed he was dwelling at Nidaros— the same place at which King Olaf Tryggvesson afterwards laid the foundation of the merchant town of Drontheim which is now there. The priest Are came, when seven years old, to Haukadal to Hall Thorarinson, and was there fourteen years. Hall 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 Thangbrand, the year before Christianity was established by law in Iceland. Are was twelve years of age when Bishop Isleif^[7] died, and at his death eighty years had elapsed since the fall of Olaf Tryggvesson. Hall died nine years later than Bishop Isleif, and had attained nearly the age of ninety-four years. Hall had traded between the two countries, and had been in partnership in trading concerns with King Olaf the Saint, by which his circumstances had been greatly improved, 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 nearly sixty-four years, as Are tells us. Teit, a son of Bishop Isleif, was fostered in the house of Hall of 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 godar^[8] Snorro. She was wise and intelligent, and remembered her father Snorro, 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.^[9] 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.

1. Family surnames were not in use, and scarcely are so now, among the Northmen. Olaf the son of Harald was called Olaf Haraldson; Olaf's son Magnus, Magnus Olafsson; and his son Hakon, Hakon Magnusson: thus dropping altogether any common name with the family predecessors. This custom necessarily made the tracing of family connection difficult, and dependent upon the memory of scalds or others. The appellations Fair-haired, Black, &c., have been given to help in distinguishing individuals of the same name from each other. HinnFrode the Wise, the Much-knowing,— the Polyhistor, as it is trans translated into Latin by the antiquarians,—is applied to many persons; and is possibly connected with the old Norman French appellative Prud-Prud'homme.
2. Bauta-Steina are in Scotland called standing stones by the common people, and we have no other word in our language for those monuments.
3. Uppsalir, the High Halls, was not the present city of Upsal; but Gamle Upsal, two miles north of the present Upsal.
4. Mikill-lati—the Magnificent.
5. Are Frode was born in Iceland 1067, and lived to 1148, or according to some 1158.
6. Lagmen were district judges appointed by the Things to administer the law.
7. Isleif was the first bishop of Iceland, and had studied at Eifurth in Germany, and died 1079
8. Godars were priests and judges, and an hereditary class, apparently, in Iceland in the heathen time. But we hear little or nothing of such a priesthood in Norway; nor is it clear what their civil jurisdiction may have been in Iceland compared to that of the lagmen, or whether the godars, originally the priests by hereditary right, as descendants of Odin's twelve diars, were not ex officio the lagmen or judges also,
9. This happened 1030.