But later writers have made sad work with this list. They contend that some of the names are altogether fabulous; that Skiold reigned only forty years before Christ; Frode I., thirty-five years after Christ; Wermund, one hundred and fifty; Roe and Helge, in the fifth century of our era. The truth, however, is, that while no dependence is to be placed on the genealogical series of the former, very little is due to the latter. The whole, prior to the eighth century, is one mass of confusion. If the names of many princes are to be found, not merely in the earliest writers of the north, but on Runic inscriptions, no power of criticism can fix the period in which they reigned. All is pure conjecture; and one system is preferable to another, only so far as it is more reconcilable to common sense. Yet, while we thus reject some of the ancient sovereigns whom Saxo and the elder chroniclers have handed down to us, we are not so sceptical as to reject the majority. If, prior to Odin’s arrival, the north had no monarchs, it had kings, or, if the reader pleases, chiefs, whose office was sometimes hereditary, sometimes elective. It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that, while they succeeded by hereditary right to the domains of their predecessors, as _generals_ and _judges_, they were elected by the free-born warriors. Of these some were, beyond all doubt, elevated into monarchs by tradition; from tradition they passed into the songs of the Scalds; and from these songs their memory was perpetuated by the old chroniclers. For this reason we have not consigned them to total oblivion. Nothing is more easy than scepticism; but if scepticism be, as it assuredly is, allowable in regard to many details, it is no less blameable than credulity, when it rejects the whole substance of history. On the whole, the safest conclusion is, that, while some of Saxo’s kings are imaginary—while many which he places before, doubtless reigned after, our Saviour—while he has confounded the whole order of succession, so as hopelessly to perplex the reader—a few, probably, lived and reigned before the establishment of the Gothic dynasty.[60] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BOOK I. THE PAGAN AGE. HALF FABULOUS, HALF HISTORIC. ------------------ CHAPTER I. DENMARK. B.C. 40—A. D. 1014. ANCIENT KINGS OF DENMARK.—THEY WERE NUMEROUS.—FRODE I.—LEGEND OF SWAFURLAMI AND THE SWORD TYRFING.—INCANTATION OF HERVOR.—THE BERSERKS.—STERKODDER, THE HERCULES OF THE NORTH.—HIS ROMANTIC ADVENTURES.—WONDERFUL VOYAGE OF GORM I.—ONE EQUALLY WONDERFUL OF THORKIL.—KINGS OF DENMARK, CONTINUED: GUDRIC AND GODFREY.—RAGNAR LODBROG.—SIGURD RING.—HEMMING.—GORM THE OLD.—HARALD BLAATAND.—SWEYN.—INVASION OF ENGLAND.