We have no wish to pursue farther the list of Danish kings, who, according to Saxo, reigned prior to our Saviour’s birth. Some of them, probably, never reigned at all. Others, certainly, reigned after that event. Others, again, ruled at the same time, over different provinces of the kingdom. The reigns of many whom Saxo places before the Christian era are identical with those which the best Danish writers regard as posterior; and the actions attributed to both are substantially the same. All writers admit that Denmark had no monarch before Skiold, the son of Odin; indeed, it had none for some generations afterwards: for there is room to believe that even his authority was more of a sacerdotal than of a temporal character. In virtue of this character he might, and probably did, claim a twofold sovereignty over the peninsula and islands; but that sovereignty was never virtually exercised—it was one merely nominal. Several of the islands had their separate governors, whom Saxo calls kings; and Jutland, as we have seen in the sketch of Hamlet’s life, had them also. The men whom personal qualities elevated above the rest, became chiefs; and when one chief had others subject to him, he assumed the regal title. There were kings of various kinds. We read of petty kings (sma-konungur, or fylke-konungur); of sea kings, island kings, and cape kings. The name of the last may require an explanation. They were neither more nor less than the pirate chiefs, who lived in caverns or in huts near the promontories, ready, at any moment, to sally forth and seize the unsuspecting mariner. Thus there were kings enough scattered over the seas, the forests, the mountains, the maritime coasts of the north. Probably all those in the Danish islands might yield a nominal homage, at least, to the one that reigned in Scania in Zealand. But no dependence whatever can be placed on the list of Danish kings prior to what we now call the historic times; that is, to about the eighth century of our era. It is astonishing to see how little judgment has been exercised by the historians of this country in regard to the old northern kings. Thus, the authors of the “Universal History,” not satisfied with giving the names of the sovereigns from Dan to Frode III., have been so far misled by the Latin historians of Denmark, as to fix the precise year before Christ when each began his reign.[59]
But later writers have made sad work with this list. They contend that some of the names are altogether fabulous; that Skiold reigned only forty years before Christ; Frode I., thirty-five years after Christ; Wermund, one hundred and fifty; Roe and Helge, in the fifth century of our era. The truth, however, is, that while no dependence is to be placed on the genealogical series of the former, very little is due to the latter. The whole, prior to the eighth century, is one mass of confusion. If the names of many princes are to be found, not merely in the earliest writers of the north, but on Runic inscriptions, no power of criticism can fix the period in which they reigned. All is pure conjecture; and one system is preferable to another, only so far as it is more reconcilable to common sense. Yet, while we thus reject some of the ancient sovereigns whom Saxo and the elder chroniclers have handed down to us, we are not so sceptical as to reject the majority. If, prior to Odin’s arrival, the north had no monarchs, it had kings, or, if the reader pleases, chiefs, whose office was sometimes hereditary, sometimes elective. It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that, while they succeeded by hereditary right to the domains of their predecessors, as generals and judges, they were elected by the free-born warriors. Of these some were, beyond all doubt, elevated into monarchs by tradition; from tradition they passed into the songs of the Scalds; and from these songs their memory was perpetuated by the old chroniclers. For this reason we have not consigned them to total oblivion. Nothing is more easy than scepticism; but if scepticism be, as it assuredly is, allowable in regard to many details, it is no less blameable than credulity, when it rejects the whole substance of history. On the whole, the safest conclusion is, that, while some of Saxo’s kings are imaginary—while many which he places before, doubtless reigned after, our Saviour—while he has confounded the whole order of succession, so as hopelessly to perplex the reader—a few, probably, lived and reigned before the establishment of the Gothic dynasty.[60]
BOOK I.
THE PAGAN AGE.
HALF FABULOUS, HALF HISTORIC.
CHAP. I.
DENMARK.
B.C. 40—A. D. 1014.
ANCIENT KINGS OF DENMARK.—THEY WERE NUMEROUS.—FRODE I.—LEGEND OF SWAFURLAMI AND THE SWORD TYRFING.—INCANTATION OF HERVOR.—THE BERSERKS.—STERKODDER, THE HERCULES OF THE NORTH.—HIS ROMANTIC ADVENTURES.—WONDERFUL VOYAGE OF GORM I.—ONE EQUALLY WONDERFUL OF THORKIL.—KINGS OF DENMARK, CONTINUED: GUDRIC AND GODFREY.—RAGNAR LODBROG.—SIGURD RING.—HEMMING.—GORM THE OLD.—HARALD BLAATAND.—SWEYN.—INVASION OF ENGLAND.
If, in regard to the kings who reigned prior to the Christian era, we have witnessed so much confusion, we shall not witness less in the series which followed that event. No two chroniclers, unless the one be immediately derived from the other, agree in this respect. Strange to say, this discrepancy as to names and dates is observable in regard to comparatively recent kings; to those, for instance, of the eighth and ninth centuries—Snorro, Saxo, Sweyn, Aggesen, Torfœus, Suhm—all differ, not only as to the order of succession, but as to the names themselves.[61] Whence this difference? Doubtless from a variety of causes. In the first place, the title of Rex Danorum, or king of the Danes, was applied to the governors of Jutland, no less than to those whose seat was in Zealand and Scania. As either became the more powerful, he claimed a place among the descendants, or, at least, the successors, of Skiold. In the second place, it frequently happened that Jutland, or Zealand, or Scania was subdued by the neighbouring kings of Norway and Sweden, and they were, without hesitation, admitted as kings of Denmark. Add the number of revolutions inseparable from such a lawless state of society—where king after king was driven into exile, or put to death, or forced to bend, for a while, before the torrent of invasion—and we can scarcely be surprised at the difference, extreme as it is, between the lists of Scandinavian kings. Where, however, accuracy is not to be attained, or even an approximation to it, conjecture is useless. The personages whose names and presumed dates are to be found in the note below[62], and who are received by modern historians, certainly ruled over some part of Denmark; but whether they were all that ruled in that country—whether some of them did not reign in the more northern provinces—whether they reigned in the order assigned to them—may well be doubted.[63] It would be easy to construct a new list, as probable, at least, as any of those which we have transcribed in the notes; but where Torfœus, and Suhm, and other recent writers have failed, there would be something like presumption in the attempt. We are bound to declare that little dependence is to be placed on any one that northern erudition has yet formed; nearly as little on Suhm’s as on any that preceded it. For this reason we have inserted the three most common lists, leaving the reader to admit or reject whatever names he pleases. Again, however, we must caution him not to reject any merely on the ground of their having been omitted by more recent writers. Denmark had, sometimes—indeed, we might say frequently—three or four sovereigns at the same time; and when their power was nearly balanced, nothing could be more difficult than to say which of them was the legitimate Rex Danorum. Nor can this confusion, at the present day, be surprising, when we find Adam of Bremen complaining of it. “Tanti autem reges, immo tyranni Danorum, utrum simul aliqui regnaverunt, an alter post alterum brevi tempore vixit, incertum est.”[64]
Of these kings, down to the ninth century, very little is known. The truth is, most of them were petty feudal chiefs, inconsiderable as those of the Scottish Highlands, during the middle ages. It is acknowledged by the most critical of the Danes themselves, that even the islands which now constitute so small a portion of the monarchy were not united under one sceptre until the middle of the fourth century. This honour is ascribed to Dan,