Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/226

 Harald Haarfager, and lie composed a poem for King Ragnvald the Mountain-high, which is called "Ynglingatal." This Ragnvald was a son of Olaf Geirstad-Alf, the brother of King Halfdan the Black. In this poem thirty of his forefathers are reckoned up, and the death and burial-place of each are given. He begins with Fiolner, a son of Ingvifrey, whom the Swedes, long after his time, worshipped and sacrificed to, and from whom the race or family of the Ynglingers take their name.

Eyvind Skaldaspiller also reckoned up the ancestors of Earl Hakon the Great in a poem called "Haleigiatal," composed about Hakon; and therein he mentions Saiming, a son of Ingvifrey, and he likewise tells of the death and funeral rites of each. The lives and times of the Yngling race were written from Thiodolf's relation enlarged afterwards by the accounts of intelligent people.

As to funeral rites, the earliest age is called the Age of Burning; because all the dead were consumed by fire, and over their ashes were raised standing stones. But after Frey was buried under a mound at Upsal, many chiefs raised mounds, as commonly as stones, to the memory of their relatives.

The Age of Mounds began properly in Denmark after Dan Mikillati had raised for himself a burialmound, and ordered that he should be buried in it on his death, with his royal ornaments and armour, his horse and saddle-furniture, and other valuable goods;