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Háleygjatal, and Noregskonungatal. Ynglingatal, thirty-eight stanzas by
Þjóðólfur úr Hvini and incorporated by Snorri in Ynglinga saga, traces
the kings of Norway back to Fjölnir. Snorri added Óðinn, Njörður, and
Yngvi/Freyr/Yngvi-Freyr before Fjölnir (Óðinn not being Njörður’s son),
and is unlikely to have done so on grounds of lost verses of Ynglingatal.73
Eyvindur skáldaspillir’s Háleygjatal, preserved in sixteen stanzas and
half-stanzas in Heimskringla, Snorra-Edda, and Fagurskinna, and dated
to the late tenth century, traces the earls of Hlaðir back to Óðinn and
his son, Sæmingur.74 The poem is, however, so poorly preserved that
its original genealogical line is obscure.75 The youngest in the group,
Noregskonungatal, dates to the last quarter of the twelfth-century, and
exhibits no gods or divine progenitors.76 Taken as a whole, the oldest
langfeðgatöl do not suffice to uphold a claim of pre-Christian genealogies
extending back to then divine figures.
Faulkes’s second main argument is particularly persuasive. Through
compilation and analysis of the extant genealogies a dominant chronologi-
cal trend is identified: expansion through time. Ari took his line back to
Yngvi Tyrkjakonungur, as noted, but it seems to be only around 1200
that all the three major houses in Scandinavia, Ynglingar, Hlaðajarlar, and
Skjöldungar, had put Óðinn as progenitor. This development happened
earlier still in England, which leads Faulkes to suspect Anglo-Saxon influ-
ence on the genealogical elevation of Óðinn. At much the same time eleven
generations were put before Óðinn, while Snorra-Edda extends the line
further yet to the Trojans and Thror/Þór.77 The two final steps were taken
in Codex Wormianus, from Troy to Saturn, and in the Sturlungar genealo-
gies, from Saturn to biblical genealogies and Adam.78 All these genealogies
appear euhemerized, and if we were to argue for pagan genealogies stretch-
ing back to divine progenitors then we would be facing a development
of extended genealogies that were shortened before being re-extended, a
73 Heimskringla I, 9–25; Faulkes, “Descent from the gods”: 96–97.
74 Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning IA, 68ff, IB, 60ff.
75 Faulkes, “Descent from the gods”: 97–98.
76 Flateyjarbók III, ed. Sigurður Nordal ([Reykjavík]: Flateyjarútgáfan, 1945), 131–139.
77 Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, 4–6.
78 Diplomatarium Islandicum I: Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn, sem hefir inni að halda bréf og gjörn-
ínga, dóma og máldaga, og aðrar skrár er snerta Ísland eða íslenzka menn, 834–1262, ed.
Jón Sigurðsson (Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka bókmenntafjelag, 1857–1876), 501–506; III.
1269–1415, ed. Jón Þorkelsson (1896), 10–13; Faulkes, “Descent from the gods”: 99–106.
PAGAN MYTHOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY