SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Appendix
The relations between the Old Uppsala burial mounds
and the accounts of Swedish kings in Beowulf and in
Scandinavian sources are very complex. Briefly stated,
the problems are as follows. Y nglinga saga, Snorri tells
us, is based on oral tradition, both 'historical' and
mythical, and on :Pj6l'56lfr of Hviri's Ynglingatal. Snorri's
own words establish the limits of the credibility of his
work better than any commentary can do: 'In this book
I have had written the old narratives about the chiefs
who have had realms in the Northlands and who spoke the
Danish tongue, even as I have heard wise men, learned in
history, tell, besides some of their family descents even as
I have been taught them; some of this is found in the
family successions in which kings and other men of great
kin have traced their kinship; some is written according
to old songs or lays, which men have had for their amusement.
And although we know not the truth of these, we
know, however, of occasions when wise old men have
reckoned such things as true' (Heimskringla, transl. cited
in note 75 above, xxxv). When Ynglinga saga, with the
citations from Y nglingatal it includes, is set against
Beowulf, it is clear that the two represent traditions which
are different in many respects. The line of the Swedish
kings in Beowulf is Ongenl'5eow-Ohthere-Onela-Eadgils;
Onela is Ohthere's brother, Eadgils is Ohthere's son. In
Y nglinga saga, the descent is Aun, Egill, 6ttarr, Al'5ils.
The Saga further mentions Ali, a Dane who attacks Aun,
and drives him from his kingdom, and Ali, from Uppland
in Norway, who attacked Al'5ils. They fought on the ice
of lake Vanern, and Al'5ils won. This battle is also documented
in Arngrimur J6nsson's paraphrase of Skjpldunga
saga: 'Post-haec ortis inter Adillum illum Sveciae regem
et Alonem, Opplandorum regem in Norvegia, inimicitiis,