ancient family registers, in which the pedigrees of kings and
other personages of high birth are reckoned up, and part is
written down after old songs and ballads which our forefathers
had for their amusement. Now, although we cannot just say what
truth there may be in these, yet we have the certainty that old
and wise men held them to be true.

Thjodolf of Hvin was the skald of Harald Harfager, and he
composed a poem for King Rognvald the Mountain-high, which is
called "Ynglingatal." This Rognvald was a son of Olaf
Geirstadalf, 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 Fjolner, a son of
Yngvefrey, whom the Swedes, long after his time, worshipped and
sacrificed to, and from whom the race or family of the Ynglings
take their name.

Eyvind Skaldaspiller also reckoned up the ancestors of Earl Hakon
the Great in a poem called "Haleygjatal", composed about Hakon;
and therein he mentions Saeming, a son of Yngvefrey, and he
likewise tells of the death and funeral rites of each. The lives
and times of the Yngling race were written from Thjodolf'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 cairn at Upsala, many chiefs raised cairns, as
commonly as stones, to the memory of their relatives.