from the year 821 to 860. The Icelander Snorre Sturlason, who, in
the twelfth century, wrote the _Heimskringla_, or Sagas of the Norse
Kings, gives a long line of preceding kings of the Yngling race, the
royal family to which Halfdan the Swarthy belonged; but that part of
the Saga belongs to mythology rather than to history.

According to tradition, the Yngling family were descendants of
Fiolner, the son of the god Frey. One of the surnames of the god was
Yngve, from which the family derived the name Ynglings. King Halfdan
was a wise man, a lover of truth and justice. He made good laws, which
he observed himself and compelled others to observe. He fixed certain
penalties for all crimes committed. His code of laws, called the
Eidsiva Law, was adopted at a common _Thing_ at Eidsvol, where about a
thousand years later the present constitution of Norway was adopted.

One day in the spring of 860, when Halfdan the Swarthy was driving
home from a feast across the Randsfjord, he broke through the ice and
was drowned. He was so popular that, when his body was found, the
leading men in each _Fylki_ demanded to have him buried with them,
believing that it would bring prosperity to the district. They at last
agreed to divide the body into four parts, which were buried in four
different districts. The trunk of the body was buried in a mound at
Stien, Ringerike, where a little hill is still called Halfdan's Mound.
And this Halfdan became the ancestor of the royal race of Norway.

Halfdan's son, Harald the Fairhaired, at the age of ten years
succeeded his father on the throne of Norway, or it afterward proved
to be the throne of United Norway. When he became old enough to marry,
he sent his men to a girl named Gyda, a daughter of King Erik of
Hordaland, who was brought up a foster-child in the house of a rich