Skiringssal

Skiringssal (Old Norse: Skíringssalr) was the name of a Viking Age hall which stood at a site now known as Huseby, about 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) southwest of the village of Tjøllingvollen in Larvik Municipality in Vestfold county, Norway.

Skiringssal is mentioned in several early medieval sources, including the Ynglinga saga, the Fagrskinna and the Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum.

[13] The place-name "Huseby" seems to have originated as an appellative for a place with an older name, it occurs frequently in Scandinavia, and it is linked with administrative control of a district.

[16][Fn 4] Stefan Brink suggests that the settlement area known in the Middle Ages as Skíringssalr had its origin in an Iron Age settlement area centred on a lake immediately north of Tjølling, around which he identifies numerous place-names that are cultic in origin, suggesting in turn that the lake itself had been a sacred place.

[23] The Sögubrot af nokkrum fornkonungum reports that, in the time of the legendary Sigurd Hring, there was an important, annual sacrifice made at Skiringssal, which was attended by the whole population of Viken.

[24] On the basis of these reports Norwegian historian Gerhard Munthe wrote in 1838 that Tjølling church stood on the site of "Viken's grandest Pagan Temple".

[31] Archaeologist Dagfinn Skre links the development of Skiringssal and Kaupang with the first two Norwegian members of the Yngling dynasty, Halfdan Whiteleg and Eystein Fart, and introduces the idea of "king[s] of Skiringssal",[32] but historian Przemysław Urbańczyk regards this interpretation as requiring "a specific way of reasoning, [through which] a nice-looking puzzle [has been] constructed [from historical sources] using carefully selected pieces of unclear shape and of uncertain origin.