SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

The end of the Geats
About the year 500, the region around Malaren, centred
on Uppland, gains a special prominence, for it is there that
we find a series of massive burial mounds, at Old Uppsala,
at Husby near Vendel, and elsewhere.t- But does this
Uppland prosperity mean that we have no evidence of
a continuing culture in the Geatish areas? The answer
most surely must be no. Once again, finds of treasure in
the period from c. 400-550 show an east-west distribution
across central Sweden, with southern, coastal outliers
(Figure 6).
Whatever one makes of Snorri's Ynglinga saga and the
lines it incorporates from Ynglingatal, the tradition
reflected there shows clearly that the Geats were very
much a power until many generations after the middle of
the sixth century, when their line was supposed to have
been stamped OUt. 75 The saga meshes with Beowulf in
some of the kings it names: in the Old English poem the
succession is Ongentheow, Onela, Ohihere, Eadgils. Ynglinga
saga (and apparently Ynglingatal) list Aun, Egill,
6ttarr and AMs in the corresponding places; the
relations between these lines are discussed in the Appendix.
But what is to the point here is the insecurity of the kings
of the Soear, their relations with the Gautar, and the survival
of a 'Gautic' kingdom.
When Aun, that peaceful king, was threatened by
Halfdan of Denmark, he ran for sanctuary to West
Gautland. When Ali drove him out of his kingdom a
second time, he sought refuge in the same place. He was
no fighter. His son Egill also had a reputation for peace,
and was kept from his kingdom for a good while by his
thrall Tunni. 6ttarr, according to Snorri's account, was
,. On the problematical relation of these mounds to Beowulf, see the
Appendix.
" Snorri himself was very much aware that what he wrote was tradition, not
history; see the Appendix. The account I give in the following paragraphs is
from chapters 25'39 of Ynglinga saga. The translation quoted is from
Heimskringla, ed. by Erling Monsen and trans!. with the assistance of
A. H. Smith (1932), 25.