Yngling

When Beowulf and Ynglingatal were composed sometime in the eighth to tenth centuries, their respective authors (scops and skalds) expected their audience to have a great deal of background information about these kings, which is shown in the allusiveness of the references.

Saxo Grammaticus held that the Ynglings also included Eric the Victorious, who is usually the first king in modern regnal lists, and his descendants.

The dynasty claimed descent from the gods Freyr and Njörðr, and other kings were likely mythical as well, whereas others may have been real: especially Egil, Ottar, Ale and Adils that are mentioned in Beowulf as well as Nordic sources.

In the Skáldskaparmál section of Edda, he discusses King Halfdan the Old, Nór's great-grandson, and nine of his sons who are the forefathers of various royal lineages, including "Yngvi, from whom the Ynglings are descended".

In traditional Scandinavian lineages we find Halfdan the Old as the Great-grandfather of Ragnvald Eysteinson Jarl of Møre, the father of Rollo, called Gengu-Hrolf in Norse sources, the Viking conqueror who founded Normandy, who Dudo of Saint-Quentin testifies took the name Robert after converting to Christianity.

The 'genealogies' also claim that many heroic families famed in Scandinavian tradition but not located in Norway were of a Finn-Kven stock, mostly sprung from Nór's great-grandson Halfdan the Old.

Another origin for the name skilfing is possible: Snorri described Erik and Alrik, the sons of Skjalf to be the de facto ancestors of this Norse clan.

This is the mythic Yngling family tree based on Historia Norwegiæ, Ynglinga saga, Beowulf and other Old Norse sources.

However, in the Ættartolur, (the genealogies attached to Hversu Noregr byggdist), the Skilfings are of Norwegian origin and include a family identified as Skjöldungs.

Specifically identified as Scylfings are Ongentheow, king of Sweden, and by extension his subject Wiglaf son of Weohstan.

The eddic poem Hyndluljóð, in stanza 16 speaks of descendants of an ancient king named Halfdan the Old:Hence come the Skjöldungs, hence the Skilfings, Hence the Ödlings [Ǫðlingar], hence the Ylfings, ...[4]In the Skáldskaparmál, Snorri Sturluson speaks of the second group of nine sons of Halfdan the Old, from whom many families of legend descend, one of these sons being Yngvi, purported ancestor of the Yngling lineage.

Snorri continues with examples of famous descendants of three of those lineages, followed by: "Of the house of the Ylfings was Eirík the Eloquent (Eiríkr inn málspaki)."

Indeed, the Ættartǫlur later twice gives a quite different list of descendants of the Danish Skjöld who is there made a son of Odin as commonly in Norse texts.

But what seems to be the same figure appears prominently in book 5 of Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum as Ericus disertus.

In the Ynglinga saga the mother of the Swedish kings Alrek and Eirík is named Skjálf, which might also be an eponym for Skilfing.

If so, as it stands, it has been edited to remove material that would obviously conflict with the standard genealogies of the Skjöldungs and Ynglings which also appear in the Ættartǫlur.