Snorri's Óðin

Snorri's  Óðin

What we read in Snorri's prologus to his Edda is nothing more than the borrowing of these flawed English kingly genealogies and  misreading them as being about the kings of the Old Saxons in Germany (notwithstanding that the Old Saxons didn't have kings, see Bede H. E. Bk.5, ch.10).  Also we should know that Snorri  wrongfully tacks on the kings of the Danes, Swedes and Northmen, as these, outake the Hlaðajarlir (see Háleygjatal made by Eyvindr skáldaspillir for the  Hlaðajarl Hákon Sigurðarson who died 995, but its authenticity is questionable as Adam of Bremen writeth of the Hlaðajarl Hákon Sigurðarson that he was “ex genere Inguar et giganteo sanguine descendens”, “of the stock of Ivar (the Boneless?) and sprung from the bloodline of giants”), and maybe the Goths (see Jordanes Hist. 13. 78), do not seem to have traced their lines to Wōden at all.  The Merewīoingas and Scyldingas are the offspring of a “wunderkind” but not needfully of Wōden. Snorri also has muddled Wōden with Antenor the father of Dacus to be found in Ordericus Vitalis' work as the forefather of the Danes (Daci) from Troy, the Northern spelling of Wōden's name, namely Óðinn(u)r, leading him astray and the seeming closeness of "Danir" "Danes" with the "-tenor" of Antenor.  Snorri's Vǫlsungar are a muddled understanding of the Merewīoingas.  The true Vǫlsungar end up at Walsingham in Norfolk.  The kings of the Swedes are not Ynglingar (a nonsense name no matter what the Ynglingatal of Þjóðólfr of Hvinir might say) but Scilfingas or Skilfingar. Skelfir (see Snorri's Skáldskaparmál 80) and Skjálf (Ynglinga saga 22) are no better than guesses.  The  Scilfingas or Skilfingar are also minned in the name of Schilbvnch or Scilbvnch found in der Nibelvnge <not>, otherwise "Nibelungenlied", as a giant and a brother of Nibelvnch or Nibelvngen.  This  last is taken from the name of the kings of the Burgunds of the line of Guntharius (the Gundaharius of Lex Burgundionum) who would seem to be called Nivilōnēs in the so-called Waltharius.  Nivilōnēs is the Northern Niflungar.  The Lombards, who might owe their folk name to Wōden, nevertheless had kings   “ex genere Gugingus” (Origo Gentis Langobardorum 2) which Paulus Diaconus later hath as “ex prosapia ducens originem Gungingorum” whatever that may mean.  Is Gog the son of Japhet maybe meant?  But they were also called “Lethinges” (Origo Gentis Langobardorum 4) or “Lithingi”  (Paulus Diaconus) seemingly from one Lethuc or Lethu an early king. However, their main kings, Audoin and Alboin were not of this stock! Cleph who followed these is of another stock again, the father of Authari.  Authari  by wedding "Theudelenda filia Garipald et Walderade de Baiuaria", Walderade being the daughter of Wacho the old blood line of the “Lethinges” made a come back.   Theudelenda’s brother’s son Aripert became king 652.   Grimald wed Aripert’s daughter.   But the kings from 712 all unsib again.  The kingly “duces” of Bavaria were “Aygolfingam”    the last of whom one Tassilo III, son of Odilo, was made to give up the title by Charlemagne. Their origin however, is unknown. 

That in “Bēowulf”    ‘*Ingwine’ is there brooked as another name for the ‘Scyldingas’ and ‘Dene’ “Danes”,  must be a dim minning of the forefather of the Ingævones understood as the Chauci, Cimbri and Teutones, who are to be found marked in Tacitus and Pliny.  It is the stubborn truth still abiding, so that this then is the true old tale:

"Celebrant carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est) Tuisconem deum terra editum, et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque. Manno tres filios assignant, e quorum nominibus proximi Oceano Ingaevones, medii Hermiones, ceteri Istaevones vocentur. Quidam autem, ut in licentia vetustatis, plures deo ortos pluresque gentis appellationes, Marsos, Gambrivios, Suevos, Vandalios, affirmant; eaque vera et antiqua nomina."  

 "In their ancient songs, their only way of remembering or recording the past, they celebrate an earth-born god, they celebrate an earth-born god, Tuisco, and his son Mannus, as the origin of their race, as their founders. To Mannus they assign three sons, from whose names, they say, the coast tribes are called Ingævones; those of the interior, Herminones; all the rest, Istævones. Some, with the freedom of conjecture permitted by antiquity, assert that the god had several descendants, and the nation several appellations, as Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi, Vandilii, and that these are genuine old names."

And from this we can see that what the Northmen wrote about Halfdan the Old (see Snorri's Skáldskaparmál 80), and who is the same as Mannus, is  much closer to the original tradition than anything Snorri ever wrote about Óðinnr as a forefather.  Furthermore, although the name Ing or Ingui, the nothern Yngvi, was brooked as referring to a god, namely Frēa, the Northern Freyr, it is maybe best avoided as by it a forefather and hero is rightly to be understood rather than the god.