father predecessor successor house birth_place death_date death_place title spouse issue article_title name reign
ragnvald ulfsson emund the old eric and eric house of stenkil västergötland , västra götaland county , sweden 1066 svitjod , sweden king of sweden ingamoder emundsdotter halsten stenkilsson håkan the red inge the elder stenkil
 stenkil 1060 -- 1066
stenkil

stenkil -lrb- old norse steinkell -rrb- was a king of sweden who ruled c. 1060 until 1066 .
he succeeded emund the old and became the first king from the house of stenkil .
he was not from uppsala , but probably from västergötland and related to the previous dynasty by marriage to emund 's daughter .
he supported the christianization of sweden and cooperated with bishops from the archbishopric of hamburg-bremen .
however , when adalvard the younger at sigtuna wanted to destroy the temple at uppsala , stenkil stopped adalvard 's plans , as he feared a pagan insurgence .
the fears were probably motivated .
according the `` hervarar saga '' , stenkil 's son inge the elder was deposed and exiled for wanting to cancel the pagan sacrifices at the temple .
stenkil resided mainly in västergötland where he was long remembered as the king who `` loved west geats before all his other subjects '' , and he was lauded as a great archer whose hit marks were long shown with admiration .
the tradition that stenkil was beloved by the geats appears to be supported by snorri sturluson 's `` heimskringla '' .
in a speech by thorvid , the lawspeaker -lrb- lagman -rrb- of västergötland before a battle with harald hardrada , the lawspeaker expresses the geats ' -lrb- gautland people -rrb- loyalty to stenkil : according to a legend stenkil was buried in the `` royal hill '' near levene in västergötland .
his two sons halsten and inge the elder would both become kings of sweden .
the `` hervarar saga '' has a great deal to tell about stenkil : the `` hervarar saga '' describes stenkil as the son of a ragnvald and later historians have identified this father as ragnvald ulfsson who was the earl of staraja ladoga and the grandson of the legendary viking skagul toste .
but this presumed family-connection is not supported by any other sources and must therefore be regarded as very uncertain .
the icelandic sagas mention a wife and two sons to ragnvald ulfsson but none are identical with stenkil and his mother astrid .
