The first information of the religion practiced by the inhabitants of Scandinavia is given by Prokopios, who says that they worshipped many gods and spirits of the sky, air, earth, sea, and also some who were supposed to dwell in springs and rivers. Offerings were constantly made, the chief ones being of human beings, for which the first prisoner made in a war was destined. This sacrifice was made to “Mars,” who was the highest god. The statements of Prokopios without doubt are correct. The Scandinavian war-god who corresponds to the Mars of classical mythology was Tyr. Odin, originally the ruler of the wind, became the highest god during the Viking Age. He is an aristocratic god, the god of the select few, whose cult succeeded that of Tyr as the cult of the latter had succeeded that of Thor, the thunderer, as the highest god. The idea of a supreme God was probably unknown until the contact with Christianity, or at least not common. Thor, the peasant god, is probably the oldest of the gods of Teutonic mythology, the representative of stern power and law-bound order. Thor was the most popular god of the Swedes, to judge from the great number of ancient Swedish proper names of which his forms a part. Besides Thor, Odin and Frey were the most honored. All the other gods and goddesses mentioned in Old Norse literature were probably known, but few of them much worshipped in Sweden. CHAPTER II _Dawn of Swedish History--Heimskringla and Ynglingatal_ Snorre Sturleson, the great historian and poet of Iceland, of the earlier half of the thirteenth century, is considered to be the author of the history of the kings of Norway which, after the first words of the first chapter, has been called Heimskringla. As an introduction to the work he has put the saga of the Yngling kings of Sweden, of whom many of the Norwegian kings were supposed to be descendants. The Ynglinga Saga is a paraphrase to the much older song of Ynglingatal, a poem composed by the Norwegian poet Thiodulf of Hvin (who lived in the latter part of the ninth century) in praise of the supposed Swedish ancestors of the Norwegian king Ragnvald. The Ynglings were probably not identical with the kings of Upsala, who were of the race of the Skilfings, but of South Swedish or Danish origin. It is either out of ignorance, or out of sagacity, that the poet selected the Upsala rulers as originators of the Norwegian line of kings, but he has been unfortunate in the choice of a name for the dynasty. The poem itself is a trustworthy historical document, at least as far as the times are concerned which come comparatively close to the time of its own composition, the first part containing many traits of a mythical character. The saga spun around it is far from trustworthy. Of the poem evidently the first, or first few, strophes are missing, but the “historian” supplies the vacuum with stories of the gods Odin, Niord and Frey, whom he, according to the ideas of his time, changes