Harald Fairhair was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from c. 872 to 930 and was the first King of Norway. Supposedly, two of his sons, Eric Bloodaxe and Haakon the Good, succeeded Harald to become kings after his death.
Hrothgar was a semi-legendary Danish king living around the early sixth century AD.
Fróði is the name of a number of legendary Danish kings in various texts including Beowulf, Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and his Ynglinga saga, Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, and the Grottasöngr. A Danish king by this name also appears as a minor character in the Middle High German epic Rabenschlacht. The name is possibly an eponym for the god Freyr.
The Ynglings were a dynasty of kings, first in Sweden and later in Norway, primarily attested through the poem Ynglingatal. The dynasty also appears as Scylfings in Beowulf. When Beowulf and Ynglingatal were composed sometime in the eighth to tenth centuries, the respective scop and skald (poet) expected his audience to have a great deal of background information about these kings, which is shown in the allusiveness of the references.
The Scyldings or Skjǫldungs, both meaning "descendants of Scyld/Skjǫldr", were, according to legends, a clan or dynasty of Danish kings, that in its time conquered and ruled Denmark and Sweden together with part of England, Ireland and North Germany. The name is explained in many texts, such as Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann's 'Research on the Field of History', by the descent of this family from an eponymous king Scyld, but the title is sometimes applied to rulers who purportedly reigned before him, and the supposed king may be an invention to explain the name. There was once a Norse saga on the dynasty, the Skjöldunga saga, but it survives only in a Latin summary by Arngrímur Jónsson.
Halfdan was a late 5th and early 6th century legendary Danish king of the Scylding (Skjöldung) lineage, the son of king named Fróði in many accounts, noted mainly as the father to the two kings who succeeded him in the rule of Denmark, kings named Hroðgar and Halga in the Old English poem Beowulf and named Hróar and Helgi in Old Norse accounts.
Gudrød the Hunter, also known as Gudrød the Magnificent, is a legendary character portrayed in the Norse sagas as a Norwegian petty king in the early 9th century. According to the sagas, he was the father of Halfdan the Black, and thus the grandfather of Harald Fairhair, the first king of unified Norway. He is considered by modern historians to be of a more mythical nature than other ancestors of Harald and Halfdan, and he can not be identified historically. Historians have in turn made a number of proposals seeking to identify him with various would-be contemporary historical figures.
A legendary saga or fornaldarsaga is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the settlement of Iceland. There are some exceptions, such as Yngvars saga víðförla, which takes place in the 11th century. The sagas were probably all written in Iceland, from about the middle of the 13th century to about 1400, although it is possible that some may be of a later date, such as Hrólfs saga kraka.
Geatish kings, ruling over the provinces of Götaland (Gautland/Geatland), appear in several sources for early Swedish history. Today, most of them are not considered historical.
Romerike is a traditional district located north-east of Oslo, in what is today south-eastern Norway. It consists of the Viken municipalities Lillestrøm, Lørenskog, Nittedal, Rælingen and Aurskog-Høland in the southern end, and Ullensaker, Gjerdrum, Nannestad, Nes, Eidsvoll and Hurdal in the northern end .
Vingulmark is the old name for the area in Norway which today makes up the counties of Østfold, western parts of Akershus, and eastern parts of Buskerud, and includes the site of Norway's capital, Oslo. During the Middle Ages, Vingulmark was an administrative unit limited to Oslo, Bærum and Asker.
Gandalf Alfgeirsson was a legendary king of the petty kingdom Alfheim, in south-eastern Norway and south-western Sweden He is portrayed in Snorri Sturluson's saga Heimskringla.
Frithiof's Saga is a legendary saga from Iceland which in its present form is from ca. 1300. It is a continuation from The Saga of Thorstein Víkingsson. It takes place principally in Norway during the 8th century.
Hálfdanar saga Eysteinssonar is a legendary saga from early 14th century Iceland about Halfdan Eysteinsson. The main events appear to take place in the 9th century.
The petty kingdoms of Norway were the entities from which the later Kingdom of Norway was founded. Before the unification of Norway in 872 and during the period of fragmentation after King Harald Fairhair's death, Norway was divided in several small kingdoms. Some could have been as small as a cluster of villages, and others comprised several of today's counties.
Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra c. 1300 is a legendary saga about Halfdan the son of the legendary king Hringr of Denmark.
Eysteinsson is a Scandinavian surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Sigurd or Sigur is a Scandinavian male name used in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland derived from the Old Norse Sigurðr. Other forms of this name are Sigvard and Siward. A short form of the name is Sjur.
