ANTHONY FAULKESDESCENT FROM THE GODS
1. The development of the Old Icelandic langfe›gatal
There are a number of ways in which the idea of descent from the gods isused in medieval writings. In some legends individual heroes are said tobe sons of gods or descended from a god, like Hercules and Æneas. Thus in
Eddic poems adjectives such as reginkunnigr and go›borinn are used ofsome heroes to distinguish them from ordinary mortals.1 This divine ancestryof selected individuals was presumably understood literally in heathen times.
Even as far back as the time of Tacitus, however, there existed inGermanic tradition another idea that appears in connection with theuniversally popular kind of legend that tells of the origins of things. In
Germania 2, Tacitus mentions the tradition of a progenitor of the tribesof the Ingævones, Istævones, and Herminiones (and perhaps of other tribes
too, he adds) called Mannus, son of the god Tuisto whom the earth brought
forth. In such primitive legends there was probably no clear distinction
made between the origin of nations and the origin of mankind as a whole,and the tradition reported by Tacitus can be seen as paralleled in the
Norse poem Rígsﬂula, which tells how each of the three classes of men(slaves, freemen, noblemen) are descended (on the male side) from the
god Rígr, identified in the prose introduction with Heimdallr. The same
conception seems to be implied in the first verse of Vƒluspá.2 The idea of
universal and thus basically undifferentiated descent of all men from afirst man who was son of a god found reinforcement in Christian times inthe book of Genesis, and Adam is sometimes referred to as son of God.3

For a list of editions of texts referred to, see p. 37.
1 Helgakvi›a hundingsbana I 32, Ham›ismál 16 and 25 (PE 135, 271, 273). It

is possible that regin- is simply an intensive (‘of mighty descent’ or ‘having
mighty wisdom’?), and that the other word should be gó›borinn (‘well-born’);but it would be churlish to deny all the evidence for the belief in divine descentin heathen Scandinavia. Cf. K. von See, Mythos und Theologie im Skandinavischen Hochmittelalter (Heidelberg, 1988), p. 76.
2 PE I and 280 ff.
3 See Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ed. T. Wright and J. O. Halliwell, II (London, 1843),
173; the Anglo-Saxon chronicle s.a. 855; Nennius, Historia Brittonum, p. 161.

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

Probably as a development of these two, a third idea became common,and was used to support the claims to nobility of individual families,
both to differentiate them from commoners and in rivalry with otherfamilies either within the same national group or outside it. Already inthe sixth century Jordanes (De origine actibusque Getarum 13–14) traced
the descent of the Gothic royal house of the Amali from ‘semidei’ called
Anses (i.e. Æsir) and names the progenitor of the family Gapt.4 This
name is thought to represent Ó›inn, one of whose names in Norse tradition
is Gautr. Jordanes did not himself regard these ancestors as divine, but
his motive for reporting the tradition was presumably to show that theAmali had as respectable a genealogy as the noble Roman families whocounted gods among their ancestors; moreover it is uncertain how muchgenuine Gothic tradition Jordanes knew. Always when such genealogies
are recorded by Christian writers (e.g. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica I 15),
the gods that appear in them will have been interpreted euhemeristically,i.e. as great kings or heroes who came to be worshipped as gods after
their deaths. Descent from such great and successful men would havebeen regarded as a claim to nobility, while heathen gods themselves could
hardly have been regarded with anything but abhorrence. Since the gods
in genealogies were considered to have been really mortals, there wasmoreover felt to be no inappropriateness in continuing the genealogicallists back beyond them, sometimes even as far as Noah and Adam.5 (It is
likely that Biblical genealogy, such as is found in Genesis and Matthew
1, played a part in encouraging medieval scholars to compile genealogies
stretching back to the remote past.)
The transition from the type of tradition recorded by Tacitus to theroyal genealogies of Christian times must have been gradual. Names that
4 Jordanis Romana et Getica, ed. T. Mommsen (Berolini, 1882; Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi V, i), p. 76. Cf. Nennius, Historia
Brittonum, p. 172, where Hengest and Horsa are given a genealogy from ‘Geta,qui fuit, ut aiunt, filius Dei’; Asser, Life of Alfred, ch. 1: ‘Geata, quem Getam
iamdudum pagani pro deo venerabantur’; Textus Roffensis, ed. P. Sawyer, I(Copenhagen, 1957; Early English manuscripts in facsimile, 7), fol. 101r: ‘Geata.
ﬂene ﬂa hæﬂena wur›edon for god’. Cf. K. Sisam, ‘Anglo-Saxon Royal
Genealogies,’ Proceedings of the British Academy, XXXIX (1953), 313–14; Sisam
also points out (p. 323) that other early Germanic genealogies do not include
names of gods. Jordanes probably described the Anses as ‘semidei’ to try tosoften the idolatrous picture he presents of his heathen forefathers.
5 As in the Anglo-Saxon genealogies quoted in note 3 above; cf. also Nennius,
Historia Brittonum, pp. 154 and 172.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

3

originally applied to the tribe or nation seem, as political relationships
became more complex, to have come to be applied to dynasties, whichwere perhaps believed to preserve the pure line of descent from the original
progenitors best. Thus there seems to be a connection between theIngævones of Tacitus, the Ingwine of Beowulf, and the Ynglingar in
Icelandic historical writings.6 All three names imply descent from anancestor called Ing or Yngvi, but in Icelandic sources the Ynglingar are
no longer a tribe or nation but a dynasty. Similarly the name Scyldingas
in Beowulf seems to refer to the Danes as a nation, but in Norse writings
the Skjƒldungar are the royal house of the Danish rulers.7
Such legends of eponymous ancestors or founders of tribes anddynasties, however, did not always involve divine figures at all. It seems
not to have been until the twelfth century that Skjƒldr is made son ofÓ›inn—in Beowulf, though Scyld’s origin is mysterious, the idea of
divine ancestry is not introduced—and it is uncertain how early Yngvi
came to be regarded as identical with the god Freyr. Other eponymous
founders of nations were never given divine status (e.g. Danr, Nórr).8
The motive of divine ancestry is often found in association with legends
about the origins of nations and dynasties, but not invariably, and it ought
to be treated as a separate phenomenon; it cannot be assumed that theearliest figures in extended genealogies were always considered divine.
The Icelandic genealogies in fact provide very little evidence for the
divine status of any of the figures in them; when there is any interpretation
at all, they are always treated as human kings, even in the oldest examples(Íslendingabók and apparently Háleygjatal; the part of Ynglingatal thatwould have thrown light on this problem is not extant9). It is possible
6 See Beowulf, ed. F. Klaeber (Boston, 1950), p. xxxvii. It may be noted thatan Ingui appears in a genealogy of Northumbrian kings (sixth from Woden) in
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 547; but there is no hint there that he had any
special status.
7 Most sources however are rather ambiguous on this point; in Beowulf, forinstance, the Danes evidently existed as a nation before the coming of Scyld,
and Arngrímur Jónsson in his version of Skjƒldunga saga writes ‘à Scioldo,
qvos hodie Danos, olim Skiolldunga fuisse appellatos, ut et Svecos ab Ingone
Inglinga’ (Opera, I 333).
8 See Heimskringla, I, xlvii. On the vexed question of the divinity of Yngvi
and other figures in Norse tradition see W. Baetke, Yngvi und die Ynglinger(Berlin, 1964; Sitzungsberichte der Sächsichen Akademie der Wissenschaften
zu Leipzig, Phil.-hist. Kl. 109.3), and the review of recent study by R. McTurk,‘Sacral kingship in Ancient Scandinavia,’ Saga-Book, XIX, 139–69.
9 See Heimskringla, I, xxxii.

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

that the introduction of figures from mythology into Icelandic genealogy
was the result of the influence of English traditions, for Anglo-Saxon
genealogies included names of gods long before Norse ones can be shownto have done so.
There are therefore several kinds of ambiguity in records of ancientgenealogy. It is often uncertain whether a given figure was regarded inany sense as a god; it is often unclear whether we are being told of theorigin of a dynasty or of a nation (generally the Icelandic sources areconcerned with dynasties, but Upphaf allra frásagna, believed to be
derived from the beginning of the lost Skjƒldunga saga, Ynglinga saga,
and the prologue to Snorra Edda all have vague references to the Æsirbeing accompanied by a large following;10 while Rígsﬂula, though it began
by accounting for the origin of the human race, ended by celebrating thenoble descent of the kings of Denmark); and thirdly, since a list of rulers
and a genealogy look very much the same, it is sometimes not quite clear
when we have to do with succession and when with descent. But thegreatest uncertainty concerns the age of the various traditions. For obvious
reasons it is always difficult to trace them back beyond the introductionof literacy which with all Germanic nations came as a consequence ofthe conversion to Christianity (runic inscriptions offer no information
about genealogical traditions of pre-Christian times). If genealogies weretaken back to the gods in heathen times, they were presumably closely
associated with the kind of legend that survives in the Eddic poems quoted
above, and may have implied that those who could claim such descentwere different from ordinary mortals. But if the gods were only introduced
into genealogies after the coming of Christianity, then the euhemeristic
interpretation of the gods must have preceded the construction of thegenealogies. This latter view makes it easier to explain certain aspects ofthe extant genealogies, for instance the fact that many of them conflictwith each other, so that there appears to have been no fixed tradition
about the relationships of the gods and their human sons, and the evenmore striking fact that the family relationships of the gods in genealogies
are very different from those they have in mythology. In Christian times
the constructors of genealogies would have had no reason to pay attention
to the authority of myths, but one would have thought that in heathen
times they would have been bound to.
10 Danakonunga sƒgur, p. 39; Heimskringla, I, 14; Snorra Edda, p. 5. The

prologue to Snorra Edda (p. 7), like Skjƒldunga saga (Danakonunga sƒgur, p. 39),
assumes that the Norse language was brought to the north by the invading Æsir.
Heimsl‡sing (see section 3 below) is certainly concerned with the origin of nations.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

5

In Icelandic tradition, as in Anglo-Saxon, most of the genealogies goingback to the gods concern the families of national rulers, but someIcelanders had connections with royal families and a number of the extant
versions of langfe›gatal trace the lines of individual Icelandic families
back to great heroes and gods. Such family pride was common in Iceland,
and the genealogies are just one of many ways in which it found expression.
Rivalry of various kinds (between Goths and Romans, between different
royal families in Anglo-Saxon England, between various Icelandic families
and between Icelanders and other Scandinavians) must have been theprincipal reason for the compilation of most of the genealogies inGermanic tradition that include mythological names.
The oldest Norse genealogy that survives seems to be that in Ynglingatal,
supposed to have been composed by the Norwegian poet ﬁjó›ólfr of Hvinir
about 890.11 It survives as quotations in Snorri Sturluson’s Ynglinga saga,
and was clearly his chief source for his account of the Yngling kings,
though he probably had other sources as well. In the verses that are extant,the poem traces the genealogy of the kings of Norway back to Fjƒlnir,
who is said to be a contemporary of the Skjƒldung king Fri›-Fró›i,
grandson of Skjƒldr (according to other sources Fró›i was ruling in thetime of the emperor Augustus12). Snorri has three more names beforeFjƒlnir: he places Ó›inn first, and he is succeeded by Njƒr›r (who in
Snorri’s account is not Ó›inn’s son13), whose son is Freyr, according to
Snorri also known as Yngvi or Yngvi-Freyr, and Fjƒlnir is his son. It isdifficult to believe that Snorri in this part of his account is following lostverses of Ynglingatal—the fact that he does not quote any verses for thenames before Fjƒlnir suggests that either he did not know any or that he
was following a tradition that differed from Ynglingatal here.14 One would
11 Skjaldedigtning, A I, 7–15; Heimskringla, I, 26 ff. On the different versionsof the Yngling genealogy see S. Ellehøj, Studier over den ældste norrøne
historieskrivning (København, 1965), pp. 109 ff. On doubts about the date of
Ynglingatal, see K. von See, Mythos und Theologie 77–8.
12 See Stefán Karlsson, ‘Fró›leiksgreinar fra tólftu öld’, Afmælisrit Jóns
Helgasonar (Reykjavík, 1969), pp. 332 and 341–3.
13 Snorri’s respect for mythology is probably the reason for this, for Njƒr›r
and Freyr were Vanir, unrelated to Ó›inn and the Æsir.
14 Compare Snorri’s accounts of Háleygjatal: when he says Sæmingr is son of
Yngvi-Freyr in the prologue to Heimskringla (I, 4; Ingunarfreyr in the prologue
to his Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga, ed. O. A. Johnsen and Jón Helgason (Oslo,1941), p. 4), but son of Ó›inn in Ynglinga saga (Heimskringla, I, 21), as in the
prologue to Snorra Edda (p. 7), it is apparent that on one occasion or the other hewas ‘correcting’ his poetical source in its account of mythological figures, and6

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

also have expected Ynglingatal to have begun with Yngvi.15 Besides
Ynglingatal, there existed in Snorri’s time three other versions of thispart of the genealogy. Ari’s genealogy in Íslendingabók, which is also
based on Ynglingatal, begins Yngvi, Njƒr›r, Freyr, Fjƒlnir. The genealogicallists in AM 1 e β II fol., which seem to be derived from a compilation of
genealogies and regnal lists made in the early thirteenth century and usedby Snorri both in Heimskringla and the prologue to his Edda (see below),
have the sequence Ó›inn, Njƒr›r, Yngvi-Freyr, Fjƒlnir. According toSkjƒldunga saga, Ingi-Freyr (Ingo), like Skjƒldr, was son of Ó›inn.16 It
would seem likely that in Ynglinga saga Snorri has departed from
Ynglingatal for the names before Fjƒlnir and has preferred to follow thegenealogical list from which AM 1 e β II fol. is derived (in the prologue
to Snorra Edda, on the other hand, Skjƒldunga saga is followed). The
increasing tendency to put Ó›inn at the head is probably due to English
influence (cf. also Jordanes), for in Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies he is
the most prominent progenitor among the gods;17 in addition the scaldic
and mythological tradition in the centuries before Snorri seems gradually
he may have done the same with Ynglingatal. On the other hand his vacillation withregard to the beginning of Háleygjatal could be taken to imply that he was supplying a gap in his knowledge of it. In the prologue to Heimskringla (I, 4) he admits
that he has followed Ynglingatal but has ‘ﬂar vi› aukit eptir sƒgn fró›ra manna’.
15 As does Ari’s Yngling genealogy in Íslendingabók. Cf. the prologue toSnorri’s Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga, p. 3: ‘allt til Ingunarfreys er hei›nirmenn kƒllu›u gu› sinn.’
16 Upphaf allra frásagna in AM 764 4to (Danakonunga sƒgur, p. 39); Arngrimi
Jonae Opera, I, 333. Arngrímur’s account probably represents the beginning of thesaga more reliably than the version in the fragment in AM 764 4to, which may haveused other sources as well, even perhaps the prologue to Snorra Edda. See BjarniGu›nason, Um Skjöldungasögu (Reykjavík, 1963), pp. 18–22. On the genealogical lists in AM 1 e β II fol, see Anthony Faulkes, ‘The Genealogies and Regnal
Lists in a Manuscript in Resen’s Library,’ Sjötíu ritger›ir helga›ar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júli 1977 (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977), pp. 177–90.
17 Cf. Bjarni Gu›nason, op. cit. pp. 173, 187, 287; A. Heusler, Die gelehrte
Urgeschichte im Altisländischen Schrifttum (Berlin, 1908), p. 66 (reprinted in
Kleine Schriften, II (Berlin, 1969), p. 132). The identification of Yngvi, progenitor
of the Ynglingar and perhaps son of Ó›inn, with Freyr, and the consequent conflictwith the mythological tradition, according to which Freyr was son of Njƒr›r,presumably led to the various attempts to work all four names into the genealogy.
Cf. Heimskringla, I, xlvii and xxxv; Baetke, op.cit. (note 8 above), pp. 85 ff.
Ó›inn might also have been preferred as progenitor after the development of the
migration legend (see section 3 below), which, because of the etymologicalassociation with Asia, involved Æsir rather than Vanir.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

7

to have made Ó›inn the most prominent of the Norse gods at the expenseof some of the others.
The rest of the genealogy in Ynglingatal is also of doubtful antiquity.
There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the last six names (fromHalfdan hvítbeinn down to the poet’s own time), but at that point thepoem makes the genealogy of the Norwegian kings a branch of the Swedish
royal family. It is possible that ﬁjó›ólfr did not in fact have any information
about his patron’s family further than five generations back, and so joined
it on to the better-known Swedish dynasty.18
Whether or not there were gods at the head of the genealogy in Ynglingatal,
the poem implies descent from the gods by the use of the terms
go›kynningr, Freys afspringr (and áttungr), T‡s áttungr.19 The next oldest
surviving genealogy is that in Háleygjatal, supposed to have been
composed about 985 by Eyvindr skáldaspillir in imitation of Ynglingatal.
This poem seems to have begun its account of the ancestry of the jarls of
Hla›ir with Ó›inn and his son Sæmingr, though the beginning of thispoem too is not well preserved, and the genealogy in it can only bereconstructed from later lists.20 But gods certainly appeared in it, and theword Manheimar in verse 3 implies a contrast with Go›heimar, which inturn implies the concept of euhemerised gods.21 The third poem belonging
to the genre is Nóregskonungatal (composed about 1190), but the line ofkings in this poem is not taken back to the gods or to prehistoric times atall.22 Hyndluljó› includes gods in its genealogy (cf. verse 8), but the ageof this poem is altogether uncertain.23
18 See Heimskringla, I, xlii–xliv.
19 Verses 11, 17, 21, 27 (Skjaldedigtning, A I, 9, 11, 12, 13). The reading go›kynning
is not certain, as some manuscripts have go›konung.
20 Only sixteen verses or parts of verses have been preserved (see Skjaldedigtning,
A I, 68–71) of which five are in Snorra Edda, five in Fagrskinna, and ten in
Heimskringla (four of these ten being the same as four of the verses inFagrskinna). The beginning of the genealogy in the surviving verses (seeHeimskringla, I, 21–2) cannot be said to be quite clear, and Snorri’s accounts of
it are contradictory (see note 14 above). The later lists (Heimskringla, I, 47,note) seem to be derived from that in AM 1 e β II fol. (see note 27 below), whichin the case of the Yngling line does not follow Ynglingatal exactly, and so may
not follow Háleygjatal exactly either. It cannot therefore be regarded as certainthat the line in Háleygjatal began with Ó›inn. See Anthony Faulkes, ‘The genealogies and regnal lists in a manuscript in Resen’s library,’ pp. 189–90, note 36.
21 Cf. til go›a in verse 1 (Skjaldedigtning, A I, 68); and Skjƒldunga saga, p. 39.
22 Flateyjarbók, II, 520–28.
23 PE, 289.

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

Apart from the oldest genealogical poems, all the other Norse genealogies were not only first written down in Christian times: they werealso first compiled in Christian times. If in view of the problems about
the beginning of Ynglingatal it must be regarded as uncertain how
common it was for genealogies in heathen times to go back to the gods,
in Christian times it became almost universal. The oldest non-poetic
genealogy is that of Ari and is based on Ynglingatal; it is preserved as anappendix to his Íslendingabók (pp. 27–8), admittedly only in seventeenthcentury manuscripts, but they are thought to reproduce accurately thecontents of a text first compiled in the early twelfth century. This
genealogy begins Yngvi Tyrkja konungr, Njƒr›r Svía konungr, Freyr,Fjƒlnir. There is no accompanying narrative that survives but evidently
Ari had in mind some idea of a migration of euhemerised gods from theBlack Sea area to Scandinavia, perhaps in imitation of other European
legends of the foundation of nations by survivors of the Trojan war (seesection 3 below), though it is impossible to know exactly what Ari meant
to imply by the word Tyrkir. A similar genealogy is found at the beginningof Historia Norvegiæ, written in Norway about 1190, but this has no
mention of the Turks.24
It is thought that about the time Ari was tracing his genealogy to the
Ynglings, a member of the Oddaverjar family was tracing his to theSkjƒldungs, perhaps in rivalry with Ari.25 This genealogy was incorporated
in Skjƒldunga saga, written perhaps about 1200, now only known from a
Latin version by Arngrímur Jónsson and from passages incorporated inother works.26 It is uncertain how much if any of this genealogy wasderived from poetic sources. Skjƒldunga saga began with Ó›inn and hisson Skjƒldr, ancestor of the Skjƒldungs, who is said to be brother of Ingi
(Ingi-Freyr in the fragment believed to be derived from the beginning of
the saga in AM 764 4to, Ingo in Arngrímur’s Latin), ancestor of the Ynglings.
Thus by the end of the twelfth century there existed genealogies, partly
in prose, partly in verse, of each of the three chief ruling houses of
Scandinavia, the Ynglings, the Skjƒldungs, and the Hla›ajarlar, in each
24 Monumenta historica Norvegiæ, ed. G. Storm (Kristiania, 1880), p. 97(quoted at the beginning of section 2 below). According to von See, Mythos undTheologie p. 76–9, all euhemerism in the North derives from Christian sources.
25 See Bjarni Gu›nason, op. cit. (note 16 above), pp. 150 ff.; Stefán Karlsson,
op. cit. (note 12 above), pp. 335–6; Einar Ól. Sveinsson, ‘Sagnaritun Oddaverja,’
Studia Islandica, I (1937), 13–16; Halldór Hermannsson, ‘Sæmund Sigfússon
and the Oddaverjar’, Islandica, XXII (1932), 41.
26 Arngrimi Jonæ Opera, I, 333 ff. (see also I, 148 f. and cf. IV, 107–17).

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

9case tracing the line back to names of Norse gods. These three genealogies
were incorporated in a single table, with Ó›inn now heading each line,
in a compilation probably made in the early thirteenth century, but now
surviving only in late copies of which the best is in AM 1 e β II fol.27 The
compiler, however, made a significant addition to the genealogies: headded four more lists, all derived from an English source, three givinglines of descent from Ó›inn through two more sons (Veggdegg andBeldegg) to Anglo-Saxon kings, and one giving Ó›inn’s descent througheleven generations from Seskef (a misunderstanding of Old English Se
Sceaf). Thus Ó›inn himself now, for the first time in Icelandic genealogies,
had ancestors.28
Further developments first appear in the prologue to Snorra Edda, which
has an even more elaborate scheme. Here Ó›inn is said to have had six
sons. Three are the ancestors of the three Scandinavian dynasties (though
the author has preferred to make them Skjƒldr, Yngvi, and Sæmingr,
following Skjƒldunga saga and Háleygjatal, which is mentioned by name,rather than Skjƒldr, Njƒr›r, and Sæmingr as in AM 1 e β II fol.).29 The
other three sons are said to have been kings in different parts of Germany;
27 The genealogies in this manuscript were copied by Árni Magnússon from amanuscript in P. H. Resen’s library, destroyed in 1728, which had been madeabout the middle of the thirteenth century, but the compilation it contained was
almost certainly known to Snorri Sturluson. See the article referred to in note 16
above. There is another version of most of the lists in AM 1 e β II fol., written in
the early seventeenth century in AM 22 fol., fol. 63, though it may be derived
from an earlier version of the compilation in Resen’s manuscript rather thanfrom that manuscript itself. The West-Saxon regnal list at the end of Breta sƒgur
is not closely related to that in AM 1 e β II fol., but is most similar to that in
Cotton Tiberius A iii, fol. 178. See Bjarni Einarsson, Litterære forudsætninger
for Egils saga (Reykjavík, 1975), p. 234.
28 According to the mythological tradition embodied in Gylfaginning (cf. PE,
1 and 293), Ó›inn was the son of Borr, the son of Buri, the first man, who waslicked from salt stones by the primeval cow Au›humla. This parentage isoccasionally included in later genealogies as an alternative to the names fromthe Anglo-Saxon source (Flateyjarbók, I, 26; cf. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar(Hafniæ, 1848–87), II, 636).
29 Cf. notes 14 and 20 above. The sentence ‘telja ﬂar Nóregskonungar sínarættir til hans’ (i.e. to Sæmingr; Snorra Edda, p. 7) is presumably only amodification of the facts in the interest of uniformity with the other descendantsof Ó›inn, for it was well known that Sæmingr’s descendants, the Hla›ajarlar,
never became kings and that according to Ynglingatal the kings of Norway traced
their ancestry to a branch of the Ynglings of Sweden. The compiler of the prologue
salves his conscience by adding ‘ok sva jarlar ok a›rir ríkismenn’. It is indeed

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

two of them are the Veggdegg and Beldegg that appear in AM 1 e β II fol.
and are derived from English sources (though neither they nor AM 1 e β
II fol. say anything about Germany), the third is Siggi, father of Rerir
and ancestor of the Vƒlsungs, and the information about him is presumably
taken from an early version of Vƒlsunga saga, whether written or oral (aforerunner of the extant Vƒlsunga saga was also probably used in partsof Skáldskaparmál, though the Sigur›ar saga mentioned in Háttatal does
not seem to mean a particular form of the story30). This Vƒlsung genealogy
is the only part of the genealogy in the prologue to Snorra Edda (apartfrom the remoter ancestors of Ó›inn) that was neither in Skjƒldunga saga
nor the compilation from which AM 1 e β II fol. is derived (Ynglinga
saga on the other hand does not go beyond the information in thatcompilation at all as regards Ó›inn’s sons, and does not include any ofÓ›inn’s ancestors31). Moreover the Vƒlsung genealogy is only known
from Norse sources; besides Snorra Edda, it appears at the beginning of
the extant Vƒlsunga saga, in Vƒlsungs rímur I and II, at the beginning of
Flóamanna saga, and as part of the genealogy at the beginning of Sverrissaga in Flateyjarbók (it is perhaps unlikely that this genealogy was
included in the original version of Sverris saga and taken from there by
the author of the prologue to Snorra Edda).32 Four of the six sons ofÓ›inn in the prologue (i.e. excluding the two Anglo-Saxon names) aretrue that Ása, daughter of Hákon jarl Grjótgar›sson, bore Haraldr finehair sons,among whom was Hálfdan svarti, who held power for a brief time in Norway,
and Magnús Erlingsson was also descended from the Hla›ajarlar (Heimskringla
III, pp. 323, 373–4; cf. Klaus von See, ‘Snorris Konzeption einer Nordischen
Sonderkultur,’ Snorri Sturluson. Kolloquium anläßlich der 750. Wiederkehr
seines Todestages, ed. Alois Wolf, Tübingen 1993, p. 171). But it seems clearthat there was a desire for symmetry in Ó›inn’s descendants, and this is expressedin concrete form in the lists from which Árni made his copy in AM 1 e β II fol.,for there the compiler had put three lines of descent from Ó›inn according to
Anglo-Saxon sources on one page, the three lines according to Icelandic sources
on a second, and lists of the rulers of Norway, Denmark and Sweden on a third.
30 Snorra Edda, 126–34 and 231; cf. Snorra Edda, lvi, and J. de Vries,
Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, II (Berlin, 1967), 468–9.
31 In Heimskringla, I, 14, however, there seems to be a reference to the accountin the prologue to Snorra Edda of the settlement of Ó›inn’s sons in Germany.
32 Vƒlsunga saga, ed. M. Olsen (København, 1906–08) pp. 1 ff.; Rímnasafn,
ed. Finnur Jónsson (København, 1905–22), I, 318, 321 ff.; Flóamannasaga, ed.
Finnur Jónsson (København, 1932), p. 1; Flateyjarbók, II, 533. In Vƒlsungasaga, Vƒlsungs rímur and Sverris saga the form Sigi (Sige) is found, in Flóamannasaga the form Sigarr; in Vƒlsungs rímur the form Rerri, in Flóamanna saga andSverris saga, Reri; and in Sverris saga, Reri is made Ó›inn’s son, Sigi his grandson.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

11

included in the ﬂula of names of Ó›inn’s sons (alongside other names
from mythological tradition) appended to Skáldskaparmál, and Semingr,
Skiolldr and ‘Reyri’ appear among his sons in the fragment of mythology
in AM 162 m fol.33
The eleven ancestors of Ó›inn back to Seskef that are listed in AM 1 e
β II fol. (and are derived from Anglo-Saxon tradition) appear also in the
prologue to Snorra Edda, but the author of the prologue has extended theline back yet further, to Tror/ﬁórr, son of Munon/Mennon and Troan,daughter of Priam of Troy. Between Seskef and ﬁórr are put six namesthat are all variants of names that elsewhere in Norse tradition areassociated with ﬁórr: Lor(r)i›i, Einri›i and Vingeﬂórr correspond to
Hlórri›i, Eindri›i and Vingﬂórr, which all appear in the ﬂula of ﬁórrnames in Snorra Edda 196, verse 428; Hlórri›i also in Hymiskvi›a andﬁrymskvi›a, Vingﬂórr in ﬁrymskvi›a and Alvíssmal.34 Vingenir, Mó›i andMagi correspond to Vingnir, Mó›i and Magni, which all appear in Vafﬂrú›nismál 51 (though Vingnir is not in the Codex Regius text of the Eddic poems),
quoted in Snorra Edda 75; Vingnir is apparently a name for ﬁórr, Mó›i(also in Hymiskvi›a) and Magni (also in Harbar›sljó› and Snorra Edda
103) are his sons, both of whom are also mentioned in Snorra Edda 87.35
The six names may have been chosen to fill the gap between ﬁórr andSeskef because the compiler thought them appropriate for descendantsof ﬁórr, and the variations from the normal spelling elsewhere may bedeliberate attempts at archaism or ‘foreign’ spellings, in which considerable
interest is shown elsewhere in the prologue (though the compiler may
simply of course have wanted to distinguish the names from the actualnames of ﬁórr and his sons while retaining their associations with ﬁórr).
But the reason for having ﬁórr at all in this part of the genealogy is not clear;
he is not elsewhere found as a progenitor of royal lines in genealogies,
and his introduction at this point, in association with the Trojan figuresand so many generations earlier than Ó›inn, makes for uncomfortableconflict both with the mythological tradition and historical plausibility.
The beginning of the genealogy in the prologue seems to have been
constructed from names chosen arbitrarily from various learned writings.
Priamus and Troan are probably derived from Trójumanna saga, which
also mentions in two places a Men(n)on who may be the source of the
prologue’s Munon/Mennon (though his relationship with Priam has no
33 Snorra Edda, 196 and Edda Snorra Sturlusonar (Hafniæ, 1848–87), II, 636.
34 PE, 88, 90, 93, 95, 112, 113, 115; 111, 125.
35 PE 55, 94, 79, 86.

12

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

authority).36 Tror is perhaps an echo of Tros son of Erichthonius, who ismentioned in Dictys Cretensis (but not in Trójumanna saga).37 The
identification of Tror with ﬁórr and Sibyl with Sif is presumably based
purely on similarity of sound; the sibyls also are not mentioned in
Trójumanna saga but appear commonly in medieval Latin writings.38 As
to ﬁórr’s foster-parents, Lorikus has not been identified, while Lora/Glorais presumably a variant of Hlóra (Snorra Edda 95). No source is known
for the stories told about Tror/ﬁórr in the prologue.
The author of the prologue thus succeeded, by rather arbitrary means,in relating the beginnings of Scandinavian dynasties, through Ó›inn andﬁórr, to Priam of Troy, thus making their ancestry as noble as those of theFrankish and British kings (though only on the distaff side). In the versionof the prologue in Codex Wormianus the line is extended further backstill, to Saturn.39 This part of the genealogy is again based on learned sources,
but used in a more scholarly way, and has more authority than the linefrom Priam to Seskef. Priam’s descent from Saturn was quite well known
in the Middle Ages, and appears for example in Honorius Augustodunensis,
De imagine mundi III, and in the first mythographer.40 The inclusion of
Priam’s ancestors now meant that the kings of Scandinavia were not only
36 P. 9: Priamus ré› ﬂá fyrir Tyrklandi and dœtr ﬂeira ﬂær Casandra ok Polixena
ok Troan; p. 56: Kasandra er Troan hét ƒ›ru nafni (these three passages are onlyin the Hauksbók text but may have also been in earlier manuscripts that are nowlost). Men(n)on appears on pp. 71–2 and 108. Dares Phrygius (see note 127
below) mentions Memnon, and some manuscripts spell the name -nn-. Troan isthought to have been originally a misunderstanding of the Latin adjective in aphrase such as ‘filia Trojana’; cf. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae,I, 3 (p. 225): ‘ex Trojana namque matre natus erat’ (Assaracus); this passage ishowever correctly translated in Breta sƒgur.
37 Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeridos belli Troiani libri sex, ed. F. Meister (Lipsiae,1872). Tros appears also in the first three of the sources quoted in note 40 helow.
The name is found in the form Thror in Stjórn, ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania,1862), p. 82.
38 E.g. besides Æneid, VI, in S. Augustine, De civitate Dei, X, 27, XVIII, 23(Patrologia Latina, 41, 306 and 579–81); Honorius Augustodunensis, De imagine
mundi, III (Patrologia Latina, 172, 169).
39 Codex Wormianus was written ahout the middle of the fourteenth century,
but it is uncertain when the additions to the prologue that appear in it werecompiled.
40 Patrologia Latina, 172, 171 (Honorius however lacks the link Jupiter–
Dardanus); Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini tres I, ed. G. H. Bode (Cellis,
1834), pp. 34 and 43; cf. Iliad, XX 215 ff. and Servius on the Æneid, I, 139 and
VIII, 319. see also note 42 helow.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

13

descended from Norse gods but from classical gods too (no attempt wasmade in the genealogies to identify figures in the two mythologies).
The final stage was reached in versions of langfe›gatal, in which thegenealogy of Norwegian kings and Icelandic families is traced back to
Noah and Adam. Probably the oldest versions of this are the genealogiesof the Sturlung family that are preserved in two manuscripts of Snorra
Edda, the Uppsala manuscript and AM 748 II 4to.41 These genealogies
are not part of the Edda, and in their present form may have been compiled
after Snorri’s time, but it is likely, in view of their inclusion in manuscripts
of his work and the fact that they concern his family, that parts of them
are derived from genealogies constructed by him. The Sturlungs traced
their descent back through the Skjƒldung line to Ó›inn. This part of their
genealogy is presumably derived from Skjƒldunga saga and differs insome details from that in AM 1 e β II fol. From Ó›inn back to Priam inthese and other versions of langfe›gatal is derived from the prologue toSnorra Edda, as is shown for instance by the fact that they nearly all(excepting only the version in Sverris saga in Flateyjarbók) have theintrusive fragment of narrative ‘Munon e›a Mennon hét konungr í Tróju’,and all have the female link through Troan (like Ari’s genealogy inÍslendingabók and those in AM 1 e β II fol., the versions of langfe›gatal
are in the main simply lists of names, unlike the genealogies in the poems,
in Skjƒldunga saga, and in the prologue to Snorra Edda, where they are
worked into narratives). Whether the line from Priam to Saturn in theversions of langfe›gatal is derived from the version of the prologue in
Codex Wormianus or vice versa is impossible to say; but Codex Wormianus
itself was written later than the oldest manuscript of langfe›gatal that
contains this part of the genealogy (i.e. the Uppsala manuscript).
It is uncertain where the Icelandic compiler found the links between
Saturn and the Biblical names. Cælus or Celius father of Saturn of Creteis part of classical tradition (e.g. Servius on the Æneid V 801). ‘Zechim’(i.e. Cethim) back to Adam is from Genesis. The two links between Celius
and Zechim, Cretus and Ciprus (or Ciprius) also appear in some thirteenthcentury Welsh genealogies, where the whole line from Saturn back to
Adam appears in similar form to the Icelandic langfe›gatal.42 Presumably
41 Diplomatarium Islandicum (Kaupmannahöfn, 1857 ff.), I, 504–6, and III,

10–13; Edda Snorra Sturlusonar (Hafniæ, 1848–87), III, lxxiii f. The Uppsalamanuscript was written in the first quarter of the fourteenth century, AM 748 II
4to ahout 1400
42 See Heusler, op. cit. (note 17 above), pp. 76–7 (140–41), who quotes Godfreyof Viterbo, Pantheon (Patrologia Latina, 198, 1028; Monumenta Germaniae

14

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

there was a common medieval Latin source for this genealogy, but it has
not yet been discovered.
The other versions of langfe›gatal were probably mostly compiled in
the fourteenth century. Haukr Erlendsson wrote his own and his wife’s
genealogy back to Adam, like the Sturlung genealogy through theSkjƒldung line.43 The version of Sverris saga in Flateyjarbók traces Sverrir’s
descent both through the Yngling line to Njƒr›r and also through Haraldr
hárfagri and the Vƒlsungs back to Ó›inn, Priam and Adam.44 It is likelythat this genealogy was not in the earliest version of the saga. At the
beginning of Flateyjarbók there is a collection of genealogies, including
the Yngling line back to Ó›inn with his descent from Burs and Burri(these are evidently ultimately derived from the Borr and Buri in
Gylfaginning), who is said to have been king in Tyrkland; and theSkjƒldung genealogy in a form similar to that in AM 1 e β II fol., as well
as Haraldr hárfagri’s descent from Adam through a version of theSkjƒldung genealogy more similar to that embodied in Skjƒldunga saga
(though the later part of this genealogy too corresponds to AM 1 e β IIfol.), with the line back from Ó›inn as in other versions of langfedgatal.45
In AM 415 4to there is a collection of genealogies which as a whole is
Historica, Scriptores in folio 22 (Hannoverae, 1872), pp. 300–01); there Saturn’sfather Celius is said to be son of Cres, son of Nembrot (= Nimrod?—according
to Godfrey descended from Sem son of Noah), and this provides part of the link.
The Biblical Cethim (Kittim) is associated with Citium, the city in Cyprus, by
Gervase of Tilbury (c. 1210), Otia Imperialia. Recreation for an Emperor, ed. S. E.
Banks and J. W. Binns, Oxford 2002, II 26 (p. 531). Cf. von See, Mythos undTheologie 75–6, who quotes from Godfrey of Viterbo, Speculum regum I,5–8, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores in folio 22 (Hannoverae, 1872), pp. 35–9.
—The Welsh genealogies are printed in P. C. Bartrum, Early Welsh Genealogical
Tracts (Cardiff, 1966), pp. 36, 39, 95. See also Historia Gruffud vab Kenan, ed.
D. Simon Evans (Caerdydd, 1977), p. 2 (cf. pp. ccxvii f.). A similar genealogy
linking Saturn to Noah is found in Y Bibyl Ynghymraec, ed. T. Jones (Caerdydd,1940), pp. 623 (cf. p. 124 and pp. xx, xxiii, xlvi–xlvii). I am indebted to PatrickSims-Williams for these two references. The line from Priam back to Celus father
of Saturn is also in some versions (particularly Irish ones) of Historia Brittonum,ed. T. Mommsen, Chronica Minora Saec. IV. V. Vl. VII, vol. III (Berolini, 1898),
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi, XIII, pp. 149–51 (andcf. also p. 161); cf. Lebor Bretnach, ed. A. G. van Hamel (Dublin, 1932), p. 16).
43 Hauksbók, 504–05; Diplomatarium Islandicum, III, 5–8 (AM 281 4to, foll.
103–04 and AM 738 4to, foll. 29–30; both written in the late seventeenth century).
44 Flateyjarbók, II, 533–4.
45 Flateyjarbók, I, 26–7 (‘Ættartala Harallds frá Ó›ni; Ættartala; Ætt Harallds
frá Adam’).

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

15

similar to that in AM 1 e β II fol., though the order is different: here there
is a langfe›gatal tracing the Yngling line through Ó›inn back to Noah(including an explanatory note about Ó›inn that corresponds closely tothat in AM 1 e β II fol.), the Skjƒldung line back to Ó›inn in a similar
form to that in AM 1 e β II fol., and lists of rulers of Norway, Sweden,and Denmark that again correspond to lists in AM 1 e β II fol.46 In Uppsala
University Library DG 9 the genealogy of Bishop Jón Arason is traced
through the Skjƒldung line and Ragnarr lo›brók back to Adam.47
All these versions of langfe›gatal have virtually the same names inthe sequence from Ó›inn back to Adam (with scribal variants andoccasional omissions), and in the part from Ó›inn to Priam are probably
all derived (ultimately) from the prologue to Snorra Edda. From Ó›inn
down to the time of the settlement of Iceland there was a choice of fourlines, the Skjƒldungs, Ynglings, and Háleygjajarlar (these three were allavailable in the compilation from which AM 1 e β II fol. is derived), andthe Vƒlsungs; and in this part of the genealogy different versions oflangfe›gatal follow different lines. For the links with Icelandic families
various sources must have been used, some of them probably dating fromthe twelfth century. In many cases compilers of individual versions oflangfe›gatal were clearly using various conflicting sources, and it is notpossible to construct a straightforward stemma of relationships.48
There is also a genealogy going back to Balldr son of Ó›inn in AM 1 ffol., fol. 13, copied by Ketill Jörundsson in the early seventeenth century
from the continuation of the fragment AM 162 m fol., originally part ofthe same manuscript as AM 764 4to. This is a separate concoction notdirectly related to the versions of langfe›gatal described above.49
46 Alfræ›i, III, 55–9.
47 Biskupa sögur, II (Kaupmannahöfn, 1878), 417–20 (DG 9 was writtenc.1580–90).
48 Heusler, op. cit. (note 17 above), pp. 19–20 (93–4) discusses the relationshipsof the various versions of the genealogy from Ó›inn backwards, and points out
the close relationship between the two versions in Flateyjarbók and that in DG
9, and between the versions in the two manuscripts of Snorra Edda. But the
picture is complicated by the fact that the compiler of the lists in AM 415 4tocertainly used, besides a version of langfe›gatal, a compilation similar to that in
AM 1 e β II fol. (which was unknown to Heusler); and the compiler of the lists
at the beginning of Flateyjarbók used similar sources and also a version of Snorra
Edda. Moreover the genealogies in the prologue to Snorra Edda were probably
used in the compilation of langfe›gatal rather than vice-versa as Heusler assumes.
49 See Stefán Karlsson, Ættbogi Noregskonunga,’ Sjötíu ritger›ir helga›ar Jakobi
Benediktssyni 20. júli 1977 (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977), 677–704.

16

DESCENT FROM THE GODSThe Old Icelandic langfe›gatal, therefore, developed in several clearly
defined stages. In preliterary times there were poems tracing genealogies
of ruling families back to the ancestors and founders of dynasties Yngvi
and Sæmingr, and possibly also traditional genealogies in other forms
tracing other lines back to eponymous ancestors like Skjƒldr. By at any
rate the twelfth century it had become customary to have the names of
Norse gods at the head of these genealogies, and it became increasingly
common for Ó›inn to appear either as a replacement for other figures orin front of them. By the early thirteenth century Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies became known in Iceland, and names were introduced from themextending the lines back several generations beyond Ó›inn, as in AM 1 e
β II fol. These names were incorporated in the prologue to Snorra Edda,
the compiler of which extended the line back even further and introduced
figures at its head associated with Troy, using names that were partly
derived from Norse mythology and partly from Latin writings. A reviserof the prologue added the ancestors of Priam of Troy from classicaltradition back to Saturn, thus introducing the names of classical gods aswell. Finally, by the end of the thirteenth century an unknown genealogist
added some more apocryphal pseudo-classical names from an unknown
source that was also known to Welsh writers, linking Saturn’s father Celus/
Celius to the descendants of Japhet in Genesis, thus taking the line rightback to Adam. In some versions of langfe›gatal the descent of thirteenthcentury Icelandic families is traced back to the Scandinavian royal lines
and thus linked on to the same line of descent through Ó›inn.
The final versions thus included names from the Bible and classicalmythology and legend, as well as the names from Germanic (AngloSaxon and Old Norse) historical and mythological traditions. A similar
mixture of elements from three traditions is found for instance in the
Anglo-Saxon poem Widsi›, which includes classical names like Alexander
and Cæsar, and names of Biblical nations like Israelites and Hebrews,
among lists containing predominantly Germanic names (lines 15, 20, 76,82–4). Anglo-Saxon genealogies themselves sometimes go back to Noahand Adam, but do not introduce classical (Trojan or mythological) names;
they are therefore considerably shorter than the Icelandic langfe›gatal.
Genealogies of British kings in versions of Historia Brittonum (some ofthem Irish ones) and later Welsh lists provide the closest parallels to the
Icelandic ones, in that they too include names associated with Troy andthe names of classical gods as well as being linked to Genesis (see note
42 above), though it is difficult to believe that there is any direct link
between these and Icelandic tradition.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

17

2. Euhemerism in Icelandic sources
All genealogies written in Christian times, whether in Iceland or England,that contain names of heathen gods also contain an assumption of euhemerism.
In some cases the doctrine is made explicit, as in Ari’s genealogy inÍslendingabók, where Yngvi is described as king of the Turks and his sonNjƒr›r king of the Swedes; and it is even more so in the corresponding
passage in Historia Norvegiæ:Rex itaque Ingui, quem primum Swethia monarchiam rexisse plurimi
astruunt, genuit Neorth, qui vero genuit Froy; hos ambos tota illorum posteritas per longa sæcula ut deos venerati sunt. Froy vero genuit Fiolni . . .50

The genealogy of Ó›inn in AM 1 e β II fol. has the following comment:
Voden, ﬂann kƒllum vér Ó›in. Frá honum eru komnar flestar konunga ættir
í nor›r hálfu heimsins. Hann var Tyrkja konungr ok fl‡›i fyrir Rúmverjum
nor›r higat.51

Even Ynglingatal and Háleygjatal may have contained a more or lessexplicit euhemeristic interpretation of the heathen gods mentioned inthem.52 Already Jordanes had applied the interpretation to Germanic gods
when he gave the supposed descent of the Amali from the Anses:
Proceres suos, quorum quasi fortuna vincebant, non puros homines, sed semideos id est Ansis vocaverunt . . . Horum ergo heroum . . . primus fuit Gapt.53

There are similar comments in some Anglo-Saxon genealogies, such as
Asser’s Life of Alfred, ch. I and Textus Roffensis, fol. 101r.54 But themost detailed exposition of the theory of euhemerism in Anglo-Saxon isin Ælfric’s homily De falsis diis, of which there is a translation in Hauksbók
that may well have been made already in the twelfth century, and thus
known to early Icelandic historians:
Enda fengu ﬂeir enn meiri villudóm ok blóta›u menn ﬂá er ríkir ok rammir
váru í ﬂessum heimi, sí›an er ﬂeir váru dau›ir, ok hug›u ﬂat at ﬂeir myndu
orka jammiklu dau›ir sem ﬂá er ﬂeir váru kvikir.55
50 Monumenta Historica Norvegiæ, ed. G. Storm (Kristiania, 1880), p. 97.
51 Cf. Alfræ›i, III, 58.
52 See Heimskringla, I, xxxii.
53 See note 4 above. Cf. H. Wolfram, ‘Methodische Fragen zur Kritik am‘sakralen’ Königtum germanischer Stämme,’ Festschrift für Otto Höfler (Wien,
1968), II, 478 ff.
54 See note 4 above.
55 Hauksbók, ‘Um ﬂat hva›an otru hofsk’, 158; Homilies of Ælfric, A
Supplementary Collection, ed. J. C. Pope, II (Oxford, 1968; Early English Text

18

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

Although Ælfric’s examples were mainly taken from classical mythology,
he identified the Roman gods with their Norse counterparts, so that theapplication of the theory to Norse mythology was already explicit in his
homily. (Norse equivalents to classical gods appear also in Clemens saga,probably introduced by the translator of the Latin source.)
Saxo Grammaticus most of the time treats the Norse gods euhemeristically;see particularly the account of Ó›inn and ﬁórr in Gesta Danorum I 7 andVI 5.56 Saxo’s treatment (like, it seems, Jordanes’s) is especially similar
to Snorri’s and that in Trójumanna saga (see below) in that he unequivocallymakes his kings achieve the status of being the object of worship while
they are alive, not just after death as in most other medieval Latin versionsof the doctrine.
One of the fullest narrative developments of the theme in Old Icelandic
is in the fragment Upphaf allra frásagna, which is thought to be derived
from the beginning of Skjƒldunga saga. Here the doctrine is expoundedclearly:Ó›inn ok hans synir váru stórum vitrir ok fjƒlkunnigir, fagrir at álitum ok
sterkir at afli. Margir a›rir í ﬂeira ætt váru miklir afbur›armenn me›‡misligum algerleik ok nokkura af ﬂeim tóku menn til at blóta ok trúa á okkƒllu›u go› sín.57

As well as telling the story of the migration of the Æsir from the southeast, Skjƒldunga saga reported that King Fró›i, great-grandson of Ó›inn,
lived at the time of Christ, thus placing the Norse gods in a specifichistorical context.58
Society, No. 260), pp. 681–2. Cf. The homilies of Wulfstan, ed. D. Bethurum(Oxford, 1957), p. 335. Ælfric also expresses euhemerism in De initio creaturæ,see The Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. B. Thorpe, I (London,1844), p. 22; see also Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. W. Skeat, I (London, 1881),
126. Cf. Ursula and Peter Dronke, ‘The Prologue of the Prose Edda: Explorationsof a Latin Background’, Sjötíu ritger›ir helga›ar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júli
1977, Reykjavík 1977, pp. 153–76.
56 Ed. J. Olrik and H. Raeder, I (Hauniæ, 1931), 25 and 152. See R. Schomerus,
Die Religion der Nordgermanen im Spiegel christlicher Darstellung (BornaLeipzig, 1936), pp. 49 ff.
57 Danakonunga sƒgur, p. 39.
58 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, V 15 (ed. cit. pp. 141–2), also associatedthe peace of Fró›i with the incarnation; see note 12 above. Compare Rómverjasƒgur, where pax Romana and the reign of Augustus are associated with theincarnation (Konrá› Gíslason, Fire og Fyrretyve Prøver af Oldnordisk Sprog og
Literatur (Kjøbenhavn, 1860), pp. 251–2).

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

19Skjƒldunga saga was known to Snorri, and it is probably from it that
he developed his own account of euhemerism. In the prologue to Snorra
Edda, the process of deification is described in some detail:En hvar sem ﬂeir [theÆsir] fóru yfir lƒnd, ﬂá var ágæti mikit frá ﬂeim sagt,
svá at ﬂeir ﬂóttu líkari go›um en mƒnnum . . . Sá tími fylg›i fer› ﬂeirra, athvar sem ﬂeir dvƒl›ust í lƒndum ﬂá var ﬂar ár ok fri›r gó›r, ok trú›u allir at
ﬂeir væri ﬂess rá›andi.59

But euhemerism is even more explicit in Ynglinga saga:Ó›inn . . . var svá sigrsæll at í hverri orrostu fekk hann gagn ok svá kom athans menn trú›u ﬂví at hann ætti heimilan sigr í hverri orrostu . . . En Ó›inok ﬂá hƒf›ingja tólf blótu›u menn ok kƒllu›u go› sín ok trú›u á lengi sí›an.60

Euhemerism appears elsewhere in Icelandic literature too, in places where
the foreign source is more obvious. The introductory chapter toTrójumanna saga in Hauksbók gives an account of classical mythology(in which classical gods are identified with their Norse counterparts)
interpreted from a historical and euhemeristic viewpoint. It is possiblethat this account was known to the author of the prologue to Snorra Edda
(it was certainly known to the person who added the interpolations in
Codex Wormianus). The traditional story of the origin of idolatry in theworship of Bel (cf. Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica, Genesis XL:‘De morte Beli et ortu idolarum’)61 is reproduced in Veraldar saga andAM 194 8vo, as well as in the translation of Elucidarius, where, as aresult again of the identification of Jupiter of Crete with ﬁórr, the doctrineof euhemerism is also applied to Norse mythological figures (as in Trójumanna saga and the prologue to Snorra Edda in Codex Wormianus):
Hann (Ninus) lét gera likneskju eftir fe›r sínum dau›um, en hann hét Belus,
ok bau› hann allri ﬂjó› ríkis síns at gƒfga líkneskit. En ﬂar námu a›rir eftir
ok ger›u líkneski eftir ástvinum sínum, e›a eftir hinum ríkastu konungum
dau›um, ok bu›u l‡›inum at blóta ﬂá svá sem Rúmaborgar menn Romulum,
Krítar menn ﬁór e›a Ó›in.62
59 Snorra Edda, 5/10–12 and 6/16–18, cf. 8/18–20.
60 Heimskringla, I, 11 and 20. Euhemerism is further developed in the extended

version of the prologue to Snorra Edda in Codex Wormianus, and in AM 162 m
fol. (see notes 33 and 49 above).
61 Patrologia Latina, 198, 1090.
62 Veraldar saga, pp. 42–3; Alfræ›i, I, 49; Hauksbók, p. 170. Cf. also Hauksbók,
pp. 498–9 and Konrá› Gíslason, ‘Brudstykker af den islandske Elucidarius,’
Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie 1858, pp. 150–51 and 155–6;

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

All these accounts are of course part of a long tradition going back toclassical times, and euhemerism had become one of the usual ways ofinterpreting heathen gods. Most Christian writers would think of Wisdom
14, especially verses 15–21:. . . multitudo autem hominum, abducta per speciem operis, eum qui ante
tempus tanquam homo honoratus fuerat nunc deum æstimaverunt . . .

The idea is common in the early Middle Ages; Lactantius has several
passages that develop it, e.g.:
Illi ergo, qui dii putantur, quoniam et genitos esse tanquam homines, et
procreasse constat, mortales utique fuerunt; sed dii crediti sunt, quod, cum
essent reges magni ac potentes, ob ea beneficia, qua in homines contulerant,
divinos post obitum honores consequi meruerunt.63

Augustine mentions the doctrine in various places in De civitate Dei, e.g.:
De quibus credibilior redditur ratio, cum perhibentur homines fuisse, et
unicuique eorum ab his qui eos adulando deos esse voluerunt, ex ejus ingenio,
moribus, actibus, casibus, sacra et solemnia constituta.64

Isidore was universally used, and he has a thorough account of heathen
religions from a euhemeristic standpoint in Etymologiæ VIII 11, beginning:
Quos pagani deos asserunt, homines olim fuisse produntur, et pro uniuscujusque vita vel meritis, coli apud suos post mortem cœperunt.65

The material of this chapter is reproduced by Rabanus Maurus, De universo
XV 6 (‘De diis gentium’).66
Although euhemerism is thus extremely common, particularly in theearly Middle Ages, it was not the only way of interpreting the heathengods, and was not necessarily the commonest one. More didactic writers
particularly often preferred another interpretation, that heathen gods wereand Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarius, II. 21, Patrologia Latina, 172, 1151.
The passage only survives in manuscripts of the translation from the fourteenth
century and later, so it is not possible to be certain that ﬁórr and Ó›inn werementioned in the original translation, made in the twelfth century. The accountof Ninus is found also in Stjórn pp. 101–02.
63 Epitome 6; see also Divinæ Institutiones, I, 8–15 (Patrologia Latina, 6,
153–201 and 1023).
64 VII, 18; cf. VI, 7 and VIII, 26 (Patrologia Latina, 41, 208, 184, 253–4).
65 Patrologia Latina, 82, 314. See P. Alphandéry, ‘L’Evhémérisme et les débuts
de l’histoire des religions au moyen âge,’ Revue de l’histoire des religions, CIX(1934), 16–18.
66 Patrologia Latina, III, 426 ff.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

21

manifestations of the devil. But euhemerism remained popular among
writers whose main purpose was historical, like Gregory of Tours andRudolf of Fulda, and among the mythographers.67
In Iceland too, both interpretations were known, and the idea thatheathen gods were really devils is commonly found in hagiographic
writings. But euhemerism is all-pervasive among more secular historical
writers from the earliest times, and must be considered to have been theunderlying concept when names of gods were included in genealogies
from the earliest literary period onwards. Like many of the names
themselves in the genealogies, this idea was an importation from Christian
Europe, and underlines the fact that Icelandic genealogy owes rather little
to native tradition going back to pre-Christian times. But by the time of
Snorri Sturluson, who was the Icelandic writer who made the mostextensive use of euhemerism in his works, the doctrine was well established in Icelandic tradition, and he would not have needed to go beyond
native sources to find it expressed.
3. The origin in Troy
The prologue to Snorra Edda is a puzzling mixture of wit and ignorance.
The first section tells of the origin of heathen religions, and the theory
proposed and its working out is as intelligent a piece of writing as can befound on this subject from the Middle Ages. Then, rather abruptly, theauthor turns to an account of the geography of the world as an introduction
to his story of the origin of the Æsir in Troy, which provides the beginningof his genealogy of the kings of Scandinavia—a story that proposes a
different theory of the origin of the gods, euhemerism, that is virtuallyunrelated to the first part of the prologue, and displays a very hazyknowledge of the story of Troy itself. In his geographical introduction
the author gives the usual three-fold division of the world that is foundfrequently in medieval treatises and derives ultimately from classicalsources.68 Several medieval chronicles have such a geographical intro67 Gregory, Historiæ, 11, 20 (29), Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores

rerum Merovingicarum I, i (Hannoverae, 1951), p. 74; Translatio S. Alexandri,
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores in folio II 675; Fulgentius, Mitologiæ,I, 1; Bode, op. cit. (note 40 above) I 74, 152, 172. Note also Adam of Bremen,
Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, IV, 26 (p. 470). See further J. D.
Cooke, ‘Euhemerism: a mediaeval interpretation of classical paganism,’ Speculum,
II (1927), 396–410; J. Seznec, La survivance des dieux antiques (London, 1940);
Alphandéry, op. cit. (note 65 above); Schomerus, op. cit. (note 56 above).
68 Snorra Edda, 3/8–19. See Pliny, Naturalis historia III, 1 (3 ff.); Isidore of

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

duction.69 Other Icelandic and Norwegian writings reproduce similar
standard information, though it is difficult to point to any one as thesource of the author of the prologue’s knowledge.70 It is probable that hehad direct access to some medieval Latin sources. Paradise was traditionallyin the east, but for the description of the east as a place of wealth andluxury and wisdom, compare Otto von Freising’s Chronica (writtenc.1145), Prologus libri primi.71 The description in the prologue to Snorra
Edda is reproduced in the third Grammatical Treatise: ‘í sjálfu Asia landi
ﬂar sem mest var fegr› (v.l. fræg›) ok ríkdómr ok fró›leikr veraldarinnar.’72
Although the author thus reproduces information derived from learned
Latin sources, he appears in some respects oddly ignorant. He describes
three zones of the world, the (northern) temperate zone, the arctic, andthe equatorial; but seems to be ignorant of the southern hemisphere, though
this is clearly described for instance in Isidore, De natura rerum 10 andin Konungs skaggsjá.73 In Gylfaginning (Snorra Edda 15/20 ff.) a flat
earth is described (kringlóttr, ‘disc-shaped’). This might simply be because
there Snorri is describing the world-picture of the ignorant heathen (thewords are Hár’s), but the beginning of Ynglinga saga too, though thegeography there is slightly more sophisticated than in the prologue toSnorra Edda, seems with the words kringla heimsins to refer to a flat
earth.74 (The phrase is used in Old Norse as an equivalent of orbis
terrarum, though like English orb, kringla may have come to mean

Seville, Etymologiæ, XIV, 2 (Patrologia Latina, 82, 495–6) and De natura rerum,
XLVIII. 2 (Patrologia Latina, 83, 1016–17); Guillaume de Conches, De
philosophia mundi, IV, 1–4 (Patrologia Latina, 172, 85–7); Honorius Augustodunensis, De imagine mundi, I, 1–9 (Patrologia Latina, 172, 121–3).
69 E.g. Orosius, Historiæ, I, 2 (Patrologia Latina, 31, 672 ff.); Nennius, Historia
Brittonum, pp. 160 f.; Otto von Freising, Chronica, I, 1, ed. A. Hofmeister(Hannoverae et Lipsiæ, 1912; Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, 45), pp. 37 f.
70 Alfræ›i, I, 7–10; Heimsl‡sing, Hauksbók, pp. 164–5; AM 764 4to, Antiquités
Russes (Copenhague, 1850–52), II, 443–5; Veraldar saga, p. 13; Elucidarius,
ed. Konrá› Gíslason (see note 62 above), p. 119 (= Patrologia Latina, 172, 1124);
Heimskringla, I, 9; Konungs skuggsjá, ed. L. Holm-Olsen (Oslo, 1945), pp. 3–4;
Stjórn, p. 64. Cf. Heusler, op. cit. (note 17 above), p. 54 (122).
71 Ed. cit., p. 8/22 f. Cf. Genesis 2. 8; Elucidarius, ed. cit. p. 63; Alfræ›i, I, 6;
Veraldar saga, p. 5.
72 Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda, ed. B. M.
Ólsen (København, 1884), p. 60.
73 Patrologia Latina, 83, 978; Konungs skuggsjá, loc. cit.
74 Heimskringla, I, 9.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

23

‘sphere’ as ideas about astronomy changed.)75 But it was well enoughknown in medieval Iceland that the earth is spherical; see Elucidarius,‘hƒfu› hans [i.e. manns] var bƒllótt í glíking heimballar’;76 the second
astronomical treatise, ‘jar›ar yfirbrag› er bƒllótt’;77 AM 685 d 4to, ‘svá
segir Imago mundi at heimrinn sé vaxinn sem egg,’;78 Konungs skuggsjá,‘bƒllóttr er jar›ar hringr’.79 Whether the prologue to Snorra Edda, Gylfaginning, and Ynglinga saga can all be describing a flat earth so as to indicate
the limited horizons of pre-Christian Scandinavia is perhaps doubtful.
Enea as a name for Europe is unexplained, and is perhaps derived fromsome misunderstanding.80 It may relate to the various traditions thatdifferent parts of Europe were settled by survivors of Troy (see below),of whom the best-known was Æneas.
The Icelandic accounts of the origin of the Æsir (and other gods) in thesouth-east, on the boundaries of Europe and Asia, may have been inspired
partly by the traditional idea, originating in classical times, that theGermanic nations (especially the Goths) were originally located in Scythia(usually taken to be an undefined area north of the Black Sea) or Thrace.81
In Icelandic writings, ‘Svíﬂjó› hin mikla’ is usually used as the equivalent
75 E.g. Nikulás saga II, Heilagra manna søgur, ed. C. R. Unger (Kristiania,
1877), II, 145/38: í allri heimsins kringlu = ‘in orbe terrarum,’ B. Mombritius,
Sanctuarium (Parisiis, 1910), II, 307/36.
76 Ed. cit., p. 61.
77 Alfræ›i, II, 104 ff.
78 Alfræ›i, III, 75. The manuscript was written in the fifteenth century, but thematerial in it was probably known earlier. See Honorius Augustodunensis, De
imagine mundi, I, 1 (Patrologia Latina, 172, 121).
79 Ed. cit., p. 11.
80 Snorra Edda, 3, Heimskringla, I, 9, but nowherc else. On the settlement of Italyby Æneas, Rudolf Simek, Altnordische Kosmographie (Berlin, 1990), p. 192, refers
to Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, ed. G. W. von Leibnitz, Scriptores rerum
Brunsvicensium (Hanoverae, 1707–11), I 913; Honorius Augustodunensis, De imagine mundi, III (Patrologia Latina, 172, 171–4); but these seem to have little relevance.
81 See, for example, Isidore, Historia de regibus Gothorum, 66 (Patrologia
Latina, 83, 1075); cf. Pliny, Naturalis historia, IV, 11 and 12 (40–41 and 80–81);
Jordanes, De origine actibusque Getarum 4–5 (ed. cit, note 4 above, pp. 60–66).
See the excellent account in J. A. Leake, The Geats of Beowulf (Madison,
Milwaukee, and London, 1967), chs. 1 and 2, where it is shown to be likely that
this localisation of the Goths results primarily from the application of the nameGetæ to them, and the consequent confusion of the Goths with the Thracian tribeof that name. Jordanes, who seems to have known traditions of the origin of theGoths in Scandinavia, has them migrating in the opposite direction from the
Icelandic sources, i.e. from Scandinavia to Asia. On the Icelandic migration

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

of Scythia. Thus in Rómverja sƒgur ‘per Scythia populos’ (Lucan, De
bello civili I 367) is translated um Svíﬂjó› hina miklu.82 AM 764 4to has
the equivalents Scitia, ﬂat er nú Svíﬂjó› hin mikla, and Cithia, ﬂat kƒllum
vér Svíﬂjó› hina miklu.83 Hauksbók and AM 194 8vo mention two partsof Svíﬂjó› hin mikla, one in Europe and one in Asia, both distinct from
Svíﬂjó› in Scandinavia.84 Isidore already mentions these two parts of
Scythia, the main part in Asia, and Scythia inferior in Europe, north of
the Black Sea.85 In Icelandic usage the definition in mikla is obviously
used primarily to distinguish that Svíﬂjó› from the one in Scandinavia(in AM 194 8vo called Svíﬂjó› in minni),86 and it is easy to see how it
might be assumed that the one was settled from the other. This seems tohave been explicitly stated in Skjƒldunga saga, where the original homeof the Æsir had a more elaborate name: ‘Svíﬂjó› hin stóra e›a hin kalda.’87
The Icelandic use of Svíﬂjó› to mean Scythia is probably merely areflection of the tendency of medieval Latin writers to use the word
Scythia to mean, or at any rate include, Sweden. Richard of S. Victor
writes that the Normans under Rollo, though originally Danish, attacked
Germany and Gallia across the sea from Scythia inferior, which here
perhaps means (some part of?) Scandinavia.88 Theodoricus, quoting this,is uncertain what is meant by Scythia inferior, but says that ‘illam procul
dubio volens intelligi superiorem, quam nos Suethiam appellamus’.89 Saxo
tradition in general, see Heusler, op. cit. (note 17 above) and A. Holtsmark,Studier i Snorris Mytologi (Oslo, 1964), pp. 55–60.
82 Ed. cit. (note 58 above), p. 185.
83 Antiquités Russes (Copenhague, 1850–52), II, 444 and 447. Cf. also Alexanders
saga, ed. Finnur Jónsson (København, 1925), p. 125; Stjórn, p. 78; Alfræ›i, I, 36.
84 Hauksbók, pp. 155, 165; Alfræ›i, I, 8.
85 Etymologiæ, XIV, 3–4 (Patrologia Latina, 82, 500 and 504).
86 Alfræ›i, I, 12.
87 ‘Ipsi autem Svecia (sic specialius dicta) de nomine earum regionum nomen
inditum, unde Odinus cum suis primum emigravit. Huilche ssom ligger Norden
for palude Moeotide, og de gammel Norshe kallede Su<i>thiod hin Store eller
Kolde’ (Arngrímur Jonsson, Opera, I, 333; the second sentence is presumably
mostly Arngrímur’s gloss). The name of the original home of the Æsir is not
mentioned in Upphaf allra frásagna (Danakonunga sƒgur, p. 39). Ynglinga saga
follows Skjƒldunga saga, and there the name is Svíﬂjó› in mikla e›a in kalda(Heimskringla, I, 9). Cf. ‘Scithia frigida’ in Alfræ›i, III, 72.
88 Excerptiones, 1. X, 10, Patrologia Latina, 177, 284. According to Dudo of
S. Quentin, De gestis Normanniæ ducum, II (Patrologia Latina, 141, 631), Rollo
went to Scandsa insula before invading southern Europe.
89 Monumenta historica Norvegiæ, ed. G. Storm (Kristiania, 1880), p. 4. Cf.
Heusler, op. cit. (note 17 above), pp. 44–5 (114–15).

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

25

Grammaticus appears on one occasion conversely to use Svetia to mean
Scythia and Adam of Bremen seems to use Scythia to include the wholeof Scandinavia as well as other parts of northern Europe.90 Other etymological associations that reinforced the connection of Scandinavia withsouth-east Europe were those of the Dani with the Daci (and Danai) andof the Gautar with the Getæ.91
The similarity of the words Æsir (Ás-) and Asia undoubtedly encouraged
Icelandic speculations on the migration from the south-east, and perhaps
led to the particular Icelandic version where the leaders of the migration
were (euhemerised) gods. In Skjƒldunga saga there also seems to havebeen some association of the gods with the Goths: ‘En ﬂá váru ﬂessi lƒnder Asiamenn byg›u kƒllu› Go›lƒnd, en folki› Go›ﬂjó›.’92 The name
Manheimar in Háleygjatal implies a Go›heimar, and Snorri in Ynglinga
saga introduces both names: ‘ﬁessa Svíﬂjó› kƒllu›u ﬂeir Mannheima,en ina miklu Svíﬂjó› kƒllu›u ﬂeir Go›heima.’93 This seems to be an
attempt to combine the Go›lƒnd of Skjƒldunga saga with the account in
Háleygjatal. Snorri adds the further identification of Tanakvísl (the Don)with a presumably invented Vanakvísl, and an associated Vanaland or
Vanaheimr where the Vanir lived.94
90 Gesta Danorum, IX, iv, 29, ed. cit. (note 56 above), I, 259 (here Suetiæ isemended to Scithiæ); Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae
pontificum, I, 62 (64), II, 1, IV, 21, Schol. 130 (125) (pp. 232, 234, 462). Further
examples in Heusler, op. cit., p. 44 (114) and Leake, op. cit. (note 81 above),index: ‘Scythia . . . associated with Scandinavia.’ Adam also (op. cit., IV, 21, p.
462), apparently misunderstanding Orosius, Historiæ, I, 2 (Patrologia Latina,
31, 686) and Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, XX, 1 (ed. T. Mommsen,
Berolini 1864, p. 107), gives a description of Svetia that really applies (at leastin part) to Scythia; cf. his further account in IV, 25 (p. 468).
91 See Leake, op. cit., pp. 71 ff. and 98 ff. Paul the Deacon, in his story aboutÓ›inn and Frigg (Historia Langobardorum, I, 9, Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum (Hannoverae, 1878),
p. 53), makes the following remark, which might have suggested to a casual
reader that the Æsir originated in Greece: ‘Wotan . . . ipse est qui apud Romanos
Mercurius dicitur . . . qui non circa haec tempora, sed longe anterius, nec inGermania, sed in Graecia fuisse perhibetur.’ (The qui probably relates in fact to
Mercurius rather than Wotan.)
92 Upphaf allra frásagna, Danakonunga sƒgur, p. 39.
93 Heimskringla, I, 21–2.
94 Heimskringla, I, 10. The name Tanakvísl otherwise seems only to bementioned in GkS 1812 4to (Alfræ›i, III, 72), though Tanais (the Don) is often
mentioned (Alfræ›i, I, 44, 49, Hauksbók, p. 150; see Isidore, Etymologiæ, XIV,
4, Patrologia Latina, 82, 504).

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It is in fact the Vanir who first appear in Icelandic sources in connection
with the idea of migration from south-east Europe. The first hint of theidea is found in Ari’s genealogy in Íslendingabók, which begins ‘Yngvi
Tyrkjakonungr, Njƒr›r Svíakonungr’. Ari may be assuming a Thracianorigin for the Germanic nations, in accordance with the classical writings
quoted above, and perhaps described the inhabitants as Tyrkir because of
the similarity in sound between Tyrkir and Trakia; but of course there
were Turks near Thrace in his time. But he may also have chosen theTurks because in pseudo-Fredegar both Franks and Turks are said to havebeen descended from survivors of Troy, and the Turks to have settled
near the Danube in the Thracian area; the Turks may also have been
associated with the Teucri.95
The account of the geography of the world in Hauksbók known as
Heimsl‡sing, which may have been compiled in the twelfth century, in a
passage which otherwise contains standard information similar to that in
Isidore’s Etymologiæ, specifically locates the Turks in Thrace, and claims
that from there Sweden was settled.96 In the compilation of genealogies
from which AM 1 e β II fol. is derived, Ó›inn was said to be a king of theTurks.97 In Skjƒldunga saga the Æsir were said to have come from Scythia,
perhaps because of the similarity of the name Æsir with Asia, though inthe fragment Upphaf allra frásagna there is a compromise by which thesettlers of the north are described as ‘Tyrkir ok Asiamenn’.98 In Ynglinga
saga the Æsir are said to have come from Asia ‘fyrir austan Tanakvísl’,but they still have connections with Tyrkland.99
95 See note 108 below. The association of Turci and Teucri in Richard of S.

Victor, Excerptiones 1. X 1 (Patrologia Latina 177, 275 f.) seems, however, tobe editorial rather than authorial. Cf. Richard de Saint-Victor, Liber Exceptionum,ed. J. Chatillon (Paris, 1958), p. 203. The Turks were already noted as living in
the Black Sea area by Pomponius Mela (De Chorographia, I, 19, ed. G. Ranstrand(Göteborg, 1971), p. 23), and Aethicus Hister (Cosmographia, 32, 57, 62–4, ed. H.
Wuttke (Lipsiae, 1853), pp. 18–19, 35, 42–3) gives a lengthy account of them.
96 Hauksbók, p. 155; Etymologiæ, XIV, 4, 6 (Patrologia Latina, 82, 505).
97 Cf. Alfræ›i, III, 58.
98 Arngrimi Jonæ Opera, I, 333; Danakonunga sƒgur, p. 39. The clearest statement of the etymological connection of the Æsir with Asia is in AM 162 m fol.
(Edda Snorra Sturlusonar (Hafniæ, 1848–87), II, 636). If this fragment is connectedwith Sæmundr fró›i and is derived from the same source as some of the material
in Skjƒldunga saga, it may be an indication that the theory of the origin of theÆsir in Asia originated with Sæmundr, who in his stay in France could havelearned of the Frankish origin legend. Cf. Stefán Karlsson, op. cit. (note 49 above).
99 Heimskringla, I, 11, 14, 27. There are echoes of the migration legend inDESCENT FROM THE GODS

27

Since the Turks and Trojans are often connected in medieval writings,100
the connection with Troy may have been implicit already in Ari. But it is
only in Snorra Edda (and the genealogies that use material derived fromthe prologue to Snorra Edda) that Troy and the Trojans are actuallymentioned (and although in the prologue the Æsir come from Troy, i.e.
Asia minor, Thrace is still kept in the picture as the realm of ﬁórr, pp. 3–4).
The descent of the Æsir from Priam of Troy in the prologue may simply
be the result of the author connecting the statements in Ari and thegenealogy from which the lists in AM 1 e β II fol. are derived that theNorse gods were descended from Turks, with the use in Trójumannasaga of Tyrkir as a name for the Trojans.101 But it is likely that in introducing Troy as the place of origin of the ancestors of the Scandinavian
dynasties he was also influenced by one or more of the many European
traditions of the origin of various nations from survivors of the Trojan war.
The model for all such legends of national origins was probably Vergil’s
account (and those derived from Vergil) of the Trojan settlements in Italy
under Æneas and Antenor. But other classical writers suggest thatsurvivors of the fall of Troy were later found dispersed in various areas;
Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium II 51 and Dio Cassius LI 27
speak of Dardani in Illyria/Dalmatia and Moesia, i.e. the Thracian area(from which in the Middle Ages the Getæ/Goths were supposed to haveoriginated, see above). Such statements gave an opportunity and an excuse
for historians of all nations to claim descent from the Trojans. In latertimes there was a persistent tradition that Britain was founded by Britus
or Brutus, grandson of Æneas.102 (This Britus however seems to havebeen a rather disreputable lone fugitive, not accompanied by a large
following of Trojans.) According to the Book of Hyde, Alfred the Great
Oddr Snorrason, Saga Ólafs konungs Tryggvasonar, ed. P. Groth (Christiania,1895), p. 85; Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta II, ed. Ólafur Halldórsson(København, 1961) p. 136; Flateyjarbók, I, 275, 397; cf. Heusler, op. cit. p. 37(108). In Alfræ›i, I, 49 the words á hans dƒgum hófz Svíﬂjó›ar ríki are followed
by ﬂar ré› fyrst sá sem Thaneus hét, vi› hann er kend á sú er Thanais [heitir],
hon skilr Asiam ok Evropam, so that Svíﬂjó› here means Scythia rather than Sweden.
100 Besides pseudo-Fredegar, Aimoin, Historia Francorum, I, 2 (see note 112
below); Richard of S. Victor, Excerptiones, 1, X 1, Patrologia Latina, 177, 275 f.;
Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale, II, 66.
101 Occasionally in Trójumanna saga 1963, never in Trójumanna saga: The
Dares Phrygius version, 1981 (in both the usual term is Trójumenn). On the dateof Trójumanna saga see below.
102 Nennius, Historia Brittonum, pp. 154–5; Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia
regum Britanniæ, I, 3–16 (pp. 224–49).

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was of Trojan descent, for there the genealogy of the West-Saxon kings
is linked to British genealogy.103 Dudo of S. Quentin, writing about 1020,
has the Danes originating from the Trojans, and connects the Dani withboth Danai and Daci (again the Thracian area), but makes them descendants of Antenor.104 He is followed in part by William of Jumièges(c.1070).105 Widukind, also writing in the eleventh century, reports a
tradition that the Saxons originated from the scattered remnants of
Alexander the Great’s army, while Otfrid had mentioned one that theFranks were related to Alexander himself.106
One of the most widely reported of such legends is that of the Trojan
origin of the Franks. The starting point for this may have been Ammianus
Marcellinus, who speaks of traditions that Gaul was settled by scattered
Trojans.107 The earliest accounts of the tradition in the Middle Ages arethose in the pseudo-Fredegar chronicle of the seventh century, II 4–6
and III 2.108 There are a number of striking parallels between theseaccounts and Icelandic sources. They mention a Memnon or Menon as asupporter of Priam, and tell of the hostile encounters of the infant Frankish
nation with the Romans under Pompey, and of a sister-nation also
originating from Troy called Torci or Torqui who settled in the Thracianarea.109 According to the second account, the Franks on their arrival in
103 Liber Monasterii de Hyda, ed E. Edwards (London, 1866; Rolls Series, 45),
pp. 28–9.
104 De gestis Normanniæ ducum, I, Patrologia Latina, 141, 621.
105 Gesta Normannorum ducum, I, 3, ed. J. Marx (Rouen, 1914), p. 8.
106 Widukind, Res Gestæ Saxonicæ, I, 2, ed. P. Hirsch (Hannover, 1935),
Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum 60, p. 4; Otfrids Evangelienbuch, I, 1, 88, ed.
O. Erdman (Tübingen, 1957), p. 13.
107 Res Gestæ, XV, 9.5: ‘Aiunt quidam paucos post excidium Troiae fugitantes
Graecos ubique dispersos loca haec (Gaul) occupasse tunc vacua.’
108 Ed. B. Krusch, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, II (Hannoverae, 1888), pp. 45–6 and 93. There are good general accounts
of Frankish tradition in K. L. Roth, ‘Die Trojasage der Franken,’ Germania, I,
ed. F. Pfeiffer (Stuttgart, 1856), pp. 34–52; and M. Klippel, Die Darstellung der
Fränkischen Trojanersage in Geschichtsschreibung und Dichtung vom Mittelalterbis zur Renaissance in Frankreich (Marburg, 1936).
109 Cf. Snorra Edda 4 (Munon/Mennon); Heimskringla, I, 14 (Romans driveÆsir north); Snorra Edda, Codex Wormianus, p. 6 (Pompey as leader of the
Romans); AM 1 e β II fol., 85v, 86v (= Alfræ›i, III, 58; Ó›inn king of the Turks,
flees from Romans); Ari’s genealogy in Íslendingabók (Yngvi king of the Turks);
Heimsl‡sing, Hauksbók, p. 155 (Turks in Thrace). Cf. the passages from Solinus
and Dio Cassius referred to above.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

29

Europe built a new Troy near the Rhine.110 According to Liber Historiæ
Francorum fugitives from Troy under Priam and Antenor settled in the
Scythian area north of the Black Sea before migrating further into
Europe.111 Many of these details reappear in later writers, such as Aimoin(d. 1008), Historia Francorum I 1 and 2.112
A rather different story appears in Aethicus Hister and the ‘Origo
Francorum’ that is found as a preface to the Lex Salica and is briefly
referred to in some manuscripts of pseudo-Fredegar in an interpolationthat is attributed to ‘Dares Phrygius’.113 Here Francus and Vassus, descended from the royal line of Troy, fight Romulus, are overcome, andflee to Germany to found the nation of the Franks.
References to the Trojan origin of the Franks are found widely throughout the Middle Ages (and later), e.g. in Paul the deacon, Historia Langobardorum VI 23 and Liber de episcopis Mettensibus;114 Otto von Freising,
Chronica I 25–6, IV 32, VI 28;115 Honorius Augustodunensis, De imagine
mundi I 29;116 Godfrey of Viterbo, Pantheon;117 Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale II 66 (where their sister-nation the Turks also appear again).
It is not at all certain that the tradition of the Trojan origin of the Franks
was known in medieval Iceland, at least in the detailed form in which itappears in pseudo-Fredegar. In spite of the parallels noted above in
Icelandic sources, the story of the origin of the Æsir in Troy in the prologue
to Snorra Edda is not really very similar to any of the Frankish accounts;
some of the details in the prologue that seem similar are better explained
as the result of the influence of Trójumanna saga and Breta sƒgur (seebelow; this applies to the name Munon/Mennon and the building of the
new Troy). Others are perhaps the result of coincidence and do not really
110 Cf. Snorra Edda, 6–7; but the prologue’s account of the new Troy is likely
to be influenced more by Breta sƒgur and Trójumanna saga, see below.
111 Ed. B. Krusch, op. cit. (note 108 above), pp. 241 ff. The book is sometimes
called Gesta (regum) Francorum. Cf. Skjƒldunga saga, Arngrimi Jonæ Opera, I, 333.
112 Patrologia Latina, 139, 637–9.
113 Passiones Vitaeqve Sanctorvm Aevi Merovingici, ed. B. Krusch and W.
Levison, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum,
VII (Hannoverae et Lipsiae, 1920), 524–8; pseudo-Fredegar, Chronica, ed. cit.
(note 108 above), pp. 199 f.
114 Historia Langobardorum, ed. cit. (note 91 above), p. 172; Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Scriptores in folio, II (Hannoverae, 1829), 264.
115 Ed. cit. (note 69 above), pp. 56–9, 224, 291.
116 Patrologia Latina, 172, 130.
117 Patrologia Latina, 198, 919–20 and 1028; Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Scriptores in folio, XXII (Hannoverae, 1872), 201 and 301.

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point to pseudo-Fredegar as a specific source. Moreover, when the authorof the prologue wished to include the Franks in his account, the genealogy
by which he links them to the other Germanic and Scandinavian nations
is not a Frankish one and is totally unrelated to Frankish sources: it is theVƒlsung genealogy, which is only found in Icelandic sources.
In fact only two of the European legends about Trojan ancestry seemto be mentioned in vernacular Norse writings, the Roman and the British.
The former appears in Veraldar saga, in one version of Rómverja sƒgur,and in the version of the prologue to Snorra Edda in Codex Wormianus.118
Both are found in Breta sƒgur (which is a translation of Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s Historia), and both are mentioned in Trójumanna saga andin AM 764 4to (the story of Britus/Brutus is referred to at the end of thesame fragment that also contains Upphaf allra frásagna, thought to derivefrom the beginning of Skjƒldunga saga).119
Breta sƒgur and Trójumanna saga appear side by side in manuscripts
and there seem to be verbal echoes of both in the prologue to Snorra
Edda. Ó›inn’s establishment of the Æsir in Sweden is described in the
prologue as follows:
Skipa›i hann ﬂar hƒf›ingjum ok í ﬂá líking sem verit haf›i í Tróju, setti xiihƒfu›menn í sta›inum at dœma landslƒg ok svá skipa›i hann réttum ƒllum
sem fyrr hƒf›u verit í Tróju ok Tyrkir varu vanir. 120

At the end of Trójumanna saga we find:
ﬁau Helenus ok Antromaca tóku ríkit ok efldu ﬂar mikla borg í eptirlíking
Trojam.121

In Breta sƒgur the foundation of London is described thus:
Brito lét borg gera í líking eptir Tróju . . . hann lét ﬂá borg kalla Tróju ena n‡ju.122
118 Veraldar saga, pp. 46 ff.; Rómverja sƒgur, ed. cit. (note 58 above), pp. 382

and 385; Snorra Edda, Codex Wormianus, 6.
119 Breta sƒgur, ed. Jón Sigur›sson, Annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og
Historie 1848, pp. 102 ff. and 124 ff.; Hauksbók, pp. 231 ff. and 238 ff.;
Trójumanna saga, pp. 215 and 238; Fornmanna sögur, XI, 416; see Jónas
Kristjánsson, Um Fóstbræ›rasögu (Reykjavík, 1972), p. 249.
120 Snorra Edda, 6–7 (cf. also 20/4 ff.).
121 p. 235. See Vergil, Æneid, III, 335 ff., 349 ff., 497 f.
122 Ed. cit., p. 140; Hauksbók, p. 244 (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum
Britanniae, I, 17, p. 252, where however there is nothing corresponding to thewords í líking eptir Tróju). Cf. the pseudo-Fredegar chronicle, III, 2 (ed. cit.,
note 108 above, p. 93).

DESCENT FROM THE GODS31

The idea of a new Troy/Ásgar›r is implied also in Snorri’s phrases íÁsgar›i inum forna, Ásgar› hinn forna ok ﬂau ríki er ﬂar liggja til, inn
forna Ásgar›.123
In the prologue ﬁórr/Tror is described thus:Svá var hann fagr álitum er hann kom me› ƒ›rum mƒnnum sem ﬂá er fílsbein
er grafit í eik.124

In one version of Breta sƒgur Askanius is described thus:Svá var til jafna› hans fegr› ok bjartleik hjá ƒ›rum mƒnnum sem hit hvítasta
fílsbein væri skorit í surtar brand.125

It is rather surprising to find ﬁórr of all the gods described in such terms,
but it is worth noting that the description in Breta sƒgur also refers to aman; such hyperbolic descriptions usually relate to women, as in theaccount of Estrilldis in the same saga:Svá var hon hƒrundljós at ﬂví var til jafna› sem n‡fallinn snær e›a fílsbeine›a gras ﬂat er lilium heitir.126

Trójumanna saga is based principally on Dares Phrygius, De ExcidioTrojæ and the Latin version of the Iliad by the author known as Pindarus
Thebanus, sometimes called Homerus Latinus.127 It is uncertain when
the saga was compiled, but in manuscripts it is associated with Bretasƒgur, and both may have been written about 1200 (Gunnlaugr Leifsson,d. c.1220, is said to be the author of Merlínússpá, a verse translation of
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Prophecies of Merlin, and it is likely that Bretasƒgur was either already in existence or was written soon after). Veraldar
saga and Trójumanna saga share some divergences from Dares Phrygius
123 Snorra Edda, 10, 17; Heimskringla, I, 22. Cf. Snorra Edda, 16/20 andfootnote: Ásgar›r, ﬂat kƒllum vér Troja.
124 Snorra Edda, 4.
125 Ed. cit., p. 116, note 3, corrected (= Vergil, Æneid, X, 135–7).
126 p. 142, cf. notes 8 and 9 (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae,II, 2, p. 254). Both these quotations are of the text of the saga as it appears in AM
573 4to. Cf. Fornsögur Su›rlanda, ed. G. Cederschiöld (Lund, 1884), p. xxiii,
where other comparable descriptions of both men and women in romances are quoted.
127 Daretis Phrygii De Excidio Troiae Historia, ed. F. Meister (Lipsiae, 1873);
Homerus Latinus id est Baebii Italici Ilias Latina, ed. F. Vollmer (Lipsiae, 1913;
Poetae Latini Minores, II, 3, second edition). See H. Dunger, Die Saga vom
trojanischen Kriege (Leipzig, 1869), pp. 74 ff.; W. Greif, Die mittelalterlichen
Bearbeitungen der Trojanersage (Marburg, 1886), pp. 147 ff; and further, thearticle Trójumanna saga in Kulturhistotisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder,
XVIII (København, 1974), 652–5.

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DESCENT FROM THE GODS

that could mean that Trójumanna saga was known to the author of
Veraldar saga (fragments of which survive in manuscripts written about
1200).128 Trójumanna saga is also thought to have been known to theauthors of Gunnlaugs saga and Vápnfir›inga saga, and perhaps also to
the author of Skjƒldunga saga, though in the case of the last it may havebeen the Latin original that was used.129 So there is no reason to think it
impossible for chronological reasons, on the evidence at present available,that the prologue to Snorra Edda was both influenced by Trójumannasaga and written by Snorri Sturluson (d. 1241).
What is rather surprising about the account of the origin in Troy in the
prologue, especially if the author used Trójumanna saga, is that it gives
such a curious picture of the Trojan background, which lacks all details
about the Trojan war and mentions none of the well-known Trojan or
Greek heroes except Priam. Those names that do appear have no authority
in any of the traditional accounts of the Trojan war. It is perhaps possiblethat the author thought Trójumanna saga was well enough known for
him not to need to mention any of the standard details of the story, so thathe could just introduce the figures he needed for his genealogy. But theresult looks rather more like the consequence of ignorance or confusion
than selection. There is not even any mention of the fall of Troy itself, orof the Greek invaders, and the migration to Scandinavia, which takes
place many generations after the time of Priam, has very weak motivation(in the version of the prologue in Codex Wormianus, as in Ynglinga saga
128 See Veraldar saga, p xlvii. It is thought that Veraldar saga was compiled
soon after the middle of the twelfth century, and certainly before 1190. There arereasons, however, to doubt whether there is a literary connection between
Trójumanna saga and Veraldar saga (Trójumanna saga 1981, p. LII).
129 See Íslenzk fornrit, III (Reykjavik, 1938), liii, and XI (Reykjavˆík, 1950),
xvii and xxvi f.; Bjarni Gu›nason, op. cit. (note 16 above), p. 261. Maureen
Thomas, in unpublished work on Breta sƒgur, has found indications that Bretasƒgur was known to the translator of Tristrams saga (supposed to have been
compiled in 1226). It seems also to have been known to the author of Egils saga,
see Bjarni Einarsson, op. cit. (note 27 above), pp. 234–5. On the connection of
Trójumanna saga with Vápnfir›inga saga, see Jon Helgason, ‘Paris i Troja,ﬁorsteinn på Borg och Brodd-Helgi på Hof,’ Nordiska Studier i Filologi och
Lingvistik, Festskrift tillägnad Gösta Holm (Lund, 1976), pp. 192–4. The
correspondences between Snorra Edda and Trójumanna saga seem generally torelate to what seems to be the later version of the saga. But even though thearchetype of the two versions of the saga is likely to have been written not muchbefore 1250 (Trójumanna saga 1981, p. LVI), many scholars still believe thatthe translation was originally made about 1200.

DESCENT FROM THE GODS

33

and the compilation of genealogies from which AM 1 e β II fol. is derived,
it is the hostility of the Romans that causes the Æsir to travel north—a
detail in which these sources seem to show affinity with the pseudoFredegar account of the origin of the Franks). The name Tyrkir isfrequently used in Trójumanna saga for the Trojans and Tyrkland isoccasionally used for their country (cf. note 101 above), but the only
Trojan name that has any classical basis in the whole of the account in
the prologue is that of Priam. The other names seem to have been picked
more or less at random and the accounts given of the persons they areattached to have no connection with genuine tradition at all. There is no
known source for any part of the Munon/Mennon story.
The one really specific piece of information about Troy given in the prologue, that there were twelve kingdoms and twelve languages, also has no
authority.130 The number recurs in the account of the new Troy later inthe prologue, and in Gylfaginning there are said to be twelve Æsir, though
to make the following list tally it is necessary to count Ó›inn as separate
and leave out Loki (or include these two and leave out Njƒr›r and Freyr, whowere not Æsir but Vanir; though Njƒr›r is counted among the Æsir when
he is introduced).131 In Skáldskaparmál the list of twelve Æsir similarly excludes Ó›inn (and Baldr and Hƒ›r, though since Nanna is among the Ásynjur
this cannot be because the episode takes place after Baldr’s death), but has inaddition Hœnir and includes Loki.132 Ó›inn is given twelve names in Gylfaginning.133 In Ynglinga saga there are said to be twelve hofgo›ar (v.l. hƒf›ingjar) among the Æsir, in Snorri’s Óláfs saga helga twelve advisers to the kingat Uppsala, and there are twelve spekingar in Hei›reks saga.134 The number
twelve in these places was presumably used to recall the New Testament.
130 Snorra Edda, 4/2–4. All manuscripts read hƒfu›tungur at 4/4, and it is not
at all certain that this is an error for hƒf›ingjar. ﬁessir hƒf›ingjar in the next
sentence could well refer back to the twelve kings implied by 4/2, and the authorof the prologue elsewhere shows great interest in questions of language andlanguage differences (3/4, 7/15–19; note also all the alternative names in the
prologue, where the author gives supposedly native and foreign forms side byside). The author may well wish us to believe that the twelve kings who ruled
over many nations (mƒrg ﬂjó›lƒnd) all spoke different languages.
131 Snorra Edda, 7/1, 27/11, 30/4; cf. also 20/8.
132 Snorra Edda, 78. Cf. Gautreks saga, Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, ed. C. C.
Rafn (Kaupmannahöfn, 1829–30) III, 32 and Hyndluljó›, 29 (PE, 293).
133 Snorra Edda, 10/13 ff.
134 Heimskringla, I, 11, II, 152; The Saga of King Hei›rek the Wise, ed. C. Tolkien(London, 1960), p. 31. Cf. Holtsmark, op. cit. (note 81 above), p. 58; F. Jónsson,
Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie, II (København, 1923), 682–3.

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Trójumanna saga was also used by the compiler of the interpolationsin the version of the prologue to Snorra Edda in Codex Wormianus. Someof the information about classical mythology there uses an account similar
to that in the mythological preface to the saga now only preserved inHauksbók; details about Cerberus and the impregnability of Troy by ordinarymeans (i.e. except by treachery) correspond to later parts of the saga.135
Troy appears in four other places in Snorra Edda. In two places in
Gylfaginning there is reference to old Ásgar›r, expressly identified in
the second case in three of the four manuscripts with Troy.136 Even without
this identification however, the borg í mi›jum heimi and Ásgar› hinn
forna ok ﬂau ríki er ﬂar liggja til clearly refer to the prologue.137 Then at
the end of Gylfaginning, the myths that have been related are said to beallegories of events at Troy, and ﬁórr is now identified with Hector andLoki with Ulixes. These two names could have been taken from Veraldar
saga or Trójumanna saga, and as in the prologue there is no greatknowledge of the Troy story shown, except for the information that Ulixes
was especially hated by the Trojans. This passage is not in the Uppsalamanuscript. Finally, in the so-called epilogue in Skáldskaparmál there isa longer passage (also lacking in the Uppsala manuscript), again statingthat Norse myths are allegories of events in the Troy story.138 Here more
knowledge of the story is shown: the killing of Hector by Achilles, of
Achilles by Alexander, and of Priam by Pyrrhus, and the burning of Troyare all mentioned. This information could all have come from Trójumannasaga.139 There are also some remarkable misunderstandings and lack ofcorrespondence: no source is known for Roddrus, and the words ráku íbraut Elenum conflict both with Trójumanna saga and Veraldar saga,
where Helenus is the supporter of Hector’s sons in their recovery of
Troy.140 Nevertheless, Trójumanna saga was certainly known to the author
135 Snorra Edda, Codex Wormianus, 4–6; Trójumanna saga, 1–4, 30–34,

97/2–4, 217–8. For the earlier interpolation in Codex Wormianus (pp. 2–3), cf.
Veraldar saga, p. 14; Heimsaldrar, Alfræ›i, I, 49; and Stjórn, pp, 64, 66–7,
100–02. See Heusler, op. cit. (note 17 above), pp. 73–4 (138).
136 Snorra Edda, 10 and 16–17. Cf. inn forna Ásgar› in Ynglinga saga
(Heimskringla, I, 22).
137 Snorra Edda, 3/20–4/3.
138 Snorra Edda, 86/20–88/3.
i39 pp. 231, 183, 209, 229, 201. Codex Wormianus has correctly that Alexander
killed Achilles; Codex Regius and the Utrecht manuscript make Elenus also
responsible.
140 Snorra Edda, 87/17 and 88/3; Trójumanna saga, 236–7, Veraldar saga, p. 46.

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35

of this passage, as is shown by the name Volucrontem, found otherwise
only in the Hauksbók text of the saga, where it is an error for Polypoetes.141
This part of Hauksbók is in Haukr’s own hand and was probably written
between 1302 and 1310. The oldest manuscript of Snorra Edda that
contains the account of Volucrontem is the Codex Regius, written in thefirst half of the fourteenth century. Many scholars hold that the ‘epilogue’isan addition to Snorri’s text of Skáldskaparmál, but it could have been
written by him, and the spelling Volucrontem could have been known tohim from an earlier manuscript of Trójumanna saga that no longer
survives. The mention of fyrir stalla ﬁórs as the place where Priam was
killed is also obviously derived from the saga.142
All the references to the Troy story in Snorra Edda are thus a strange
mixture of genuine tradition and fantasy or ignorance. The author had no
excuse for ignorance of the Troy story. Even if he did not know Latin,
and even if Trójumanna saga was not available, there was a perfectly
good summary of the story in Veraldar saga.143
There are some unusual features about the Icelandic migration legend.
Unlike the comparable European stories, it uses euhemerised gods as leadersof the migration, and this is reminiscent of Irish tradition.144 They travel,according to the prologue to Snorra Edda, because with their gift of prophecy
they foresee that their future lies in the North. They are said to have broughta new language with them. This makes the legend seem rather like a dim
memory of some real migration in pre-historic times, but the obvious influenceof written learned continental traditions, though undigested, makes it
unlikely that it is any more than a rather unusual imitation of them.
The first and last parts of the prologue to Snorra Edda, which discuss
the origin of heathen religion and tell of the settlement of northern Europe,
are, in the context of medieval philosophy and historiography, admirable
pieces of writing. But the middle part, with its muddled Troy story andobviously artificial genealogy, is, like the ‘epilogue’ in Skáldskaparmál, sucha confusion of fact and fantasy that scholars have been reluctant to believe
it is actually Snorri’s work. It has been thought unlikely that so sophisticateda writer would be guilty of such naive nonsense, especially when he had
141 Snorra Edda, 87/8, Trójumanna saga, 179. The other manuscripts of thesaga have here Volocroerthen and Voluentem. At Trójumanna saga, 61 the forms
Poliberius and Polidares appear for the same person.
142 Snorra Edda, 87/32, Trójumanna saga, 209 and 229.
143 Veraldar saga, pp. 44–6. Cf. also Hauksbók, p. 155 and Alexanders saga,ed. cit. (note 83 above), pp. 15–16.
144 See A. Nutt, The Voyage of Bran (London, 1895–7), I, 232–3, and II, 165 ff.

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access to reliable sources of information. In fact the inept introduction ofTroy into an account of Norse mythology has probably been the chief reason
why the prologue has so often been assumed to be mainly the work of alater redactor of Snorri’s work, while the more restrained Ynglinga saga,
which virtually excludes all non-Norse matter, has been thought much
more typical of the ‘real’ Snorri. It might, however, be maintained thatthe middle part of the prologue to Snorra Edda is no more naive andmuddled than the pseudo-Fredegar chronicle or Nennius’s Historia
Brittonum or Dudo of S. Quentin. Even the strangely unheroic action ofTror/ﬁórr in killing his foster-father is in fact reminiscent of the career ofBritus/Brutus, founder of Britain, who killed his own father and had toflee.145 Nor does it seem possible to assume that the story is intended to
be a joke, or a deliberate falsification of tradition (there seems no good
motive), though the introduction of the plausible-sounding alternatives
Munon/Mennon (along with Tror/ﬁórr, Ó›inn/Voden) looks suspiciously
ingenious; or that the author is deliberately trying to portray heathen
tradition as childish and unworthy of respect. Whether or not the prologue
is Snorri’s work, it is a less mature piece of writing than Ynglinga saga.
It is not necessary to assume a close relationship between the various
versions in Old Icelandic of the tradition of the origin in the south-east
and either the Frankish or any other particular continental version of theidea. The first suggestions for the idea of a migration to Scandinavia
from the Black sea area could have come from the scattered referencesin classical and later authors to the origins of the Germanic nations,particularly the Goths, there; the localisation in Troy could have been arather naive imitation of any of the continental accounts of Trojan origin,aided by the association of Turks, who happen to have been chosen by
Ari as the nation from which the Scandinavian gods originated, with
Trojans in Trójumanna saga and elsewhere. It is thus that Icelandic
genealogies go back not only to Norse gods but also to the Trojans, aswell as tracing the line of the Trojan kings back through Greek gods to
Noah and Adam. They have as noble an ancestry as anyone in Europe.
145 Snorra Edda, 4. See Nennius, Historia Brittonum, p. 155 and Geoffrey of
Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae, I, 3 (p. 224); Breta sƒgur, ed. cit. (note
119 above), p. 124. The prophecy by which Ó›inn is directed to his new realms
in the north (Snorra Edda, 5) might also be compared with the prophetic dreamthat directs Britus/Brutus to Britain (Historia regum Britanniae, I, 11, p. 239;
Breta sƒgur, 132). The name Loricus (Snorra Edda, 4) is rather similar to
Locrinus, the name of Brutus’s son in Geoffrey of Monmouth and Breta sƒgur;in one place the Hauksbók text actually has the form Loricus (Breta sƒgur, 144).

DESCENT FROM THE GODS37

EDITIONS OF TEXTS REFERRED TO(Quotations in Icelandic, whether from manuscripts or printed books, are given
with normalised spelling)
Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, in Quellen des9. und 11. Jahrhunderts zur geschichte der Hamburgischen Kirche und desReiches, ed. W. Trillmich and R. Buchner (Berlin, 1961).
Alfræ›i Íslenzk, I–III, ed. K. Kålund and N. Beckman (København, 1908–18;
Samfund til Udgivelse af gammel nordisk Litteratur).
Arngrímur Jónsson: Arngrimi Jonæ opera I–IV, ed. J. Benediktsson (Hafniæ,1950–57; Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, 9–12).
Danakonunga sƒgur, ed. Bjarni Gu›nason (Reykjavík, 1982; Íslenzk fornrit, XXXV).
Flateyjarbók, I–III (Christiania, 1860–68).
Fornmanna sögur eptir gomlum handritum útgefnar a› tilhlutun Hins konungleganorræna fornfræ›a félags, I–XII (Kaupmannahöfn, 1825–37).
Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae, ed. A. Griscom (London, 1929).
Gylfaginning: see Snorra Edda.
Hauksbók, ed. Eiríkur Jónsson and Finnur Jónsson (København, 1892–6).
Heimskringla: Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, I–III, ed. Bjarni A›albjarnarson(Reykjavík, 1941–51; Íslenzk fornrit, 26–8).
Íslendingabók: Íslendingabók, Landnámabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (Reykjavík,
1968; Íslenzk fornrit, I), pp. 3–28.
Nennius, Historia Brittonum: F. Lot, Nennius et L’Historia Brittonum (Paris, 1934).
Patrologia Latina: Patrologiæ cursus completus. Series Latina, 1–122, ed. J. P.
Migne (Parisiis, 1844–64).
PE: Edda, Die Lieder des Codex Regius I, ed. H. Kuhn (Heidelberg, 1962).
Skáldskaparmál: see Snorra Edda.
Skjaldedigtning: Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, A I–II, ed. Finnur Jónsson(København og Kristiania, 1912–15).
Snorra Edda: Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, ed. Finnur Jónsson (København, 1931).
Snorra Edda, Codex Wormianus: Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, Codex Wormianus,
ed. Finnur Jónsson (København og Kristiania, 1924).
Stjórn, ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1862).
Trójumanna saga, ed. J. Louis-Jensen (Copenhagen, 1963; Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, A 8). [This is the version referred to unless Trójumanna saga 1981 is
specified.]
Trójumanna saga: The Dares Phrygius version, ed. J. Louis-Jensen (Copenhagen,1981; Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, A 9).
Veraldar saga, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (København, 1944; Samfund til Udgivelse
af gammel nordisk Litteratur).
Ynglinga saga: see Heimskringla, I.
Originally published in Mediaeval Scandinavia 11 (1978–9 [1983]), pp. 92–125.
Now corrected and with many additional references.