Heimskringla ('the circle of the world,' from its opening words) is Snorri's other masterpiece: sixteen sagas tracing the kings of Norway from legendary prehistory to 1177. For mythology, its treasure is the first saga, Ynglinga saga, where Snorri retells the gods as history: Odin is a conquering chieftain from Asia ('Ásaland'), a master of seiðr and shapeshifting who ruled by awe, taught cremation and ring-giving, and 'died in his bed in Sweden' after marking himself with a spear-point to claim the battle-dead.
This euhemerist frame — gods as remembered kings — was the medieval Christian's licence to preserve pagan lore, and Snorri used it to record details found nowhere else: the Æsir–Vanir war and hostage exchange, Mímir's beheading, Freyr's temple-founding at Uppsala, sacrificial kingship among the Swedes, kings burned in mounds for good seasons. Later sagas in the collection document the conversion era's collision of faiths — missionary kings axing idols that peasants still fed.
Its account of cult practice, however filtered, is among the best written evidence for how the gods were actually worshipped, not just narrated.
What is Heimskringla?
Heimskringla is the grandest of the Old Norse kings' sagas: a connected history of Norway's rulers written in Iceland around 1230 by Snorri Sturluson, the same chieftain-scholar who wrote the Prose Edda. Its sixteen sagas run from the mists of legend down to the year 1177, where the contemporary saga Sverris saga takes over. The conventional title comes from the work's opening words, kringla heimsins, "the circle of the world" — a fittingly global beginning for a book that starts its history of Norway in Asia.
Snorri wrote as a critical historian by medieval standards. In his prologue he explains his method: he builds on the poems of the skalds, composed in the presence of the very kings they praise, reasoning that no court poet would dare recite outright lies about deeds the king and his men had witnessed. That use of contemporary verse as a control on oral tradition is why Heimskringla, for all its saga-teller's drama, is taken seriously as a source — and why it preserves so much invaluable skaldic poetry in quotation, including Ynglingatal, the ancient genealogical poem by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir on which Ynglinga saga's king-list rests.
Ynglinga saga: the gods as history
For mythology, everything hinges on the first saga. Ynglinga saga traces the ancestry of the Norwegian kings back through the Swedish Yngling dynasty to its divine founders — except that in Snorri's telling, the founders are not divine. Odin is a historical chieftain ruling at Ásgarðr in "Ásaland," east beyond the Don, who leads his people, the Æsir, north into Scandinavia. He is irresistibly gifted: a shapeshifter whose body lies as if asleep while he travels as bird, beast, fish, or serpent; a master of seiðr, the shameful-but-potent magic he learned from Freyja of the Vanir; a speaker whose words all men believed; a lawgiver who taught cremation, mound-burial, and the great sacrifices. Dying in his bed in Sweden — a straw-death, the very thing the mythological Odin's warriors dread — he has himself marked with a spear-point, claiming as his own all men slain by weapons, and his people believe he has gone home to old Ásgarðr to receive them.
Around this euhemerized Odin, Snorri records traditions found nowhere else in such form: the war between Æsir and Vanir ended by exchanging hostages — Njörðr and Freyr going to the Æsir, Hœnir and the wise Mímir to the Vanir; the Vanir, feeling cheated, beheading Mímir, whose head Odin preserves with herbs and spells so that it speaks and tells him hidden things; Freyr establishing the great temple at Uppsala and presiding over an age of peace and good harvests so beloved that when he died, his people hid his death and kept paying tribute into his mound. The succeeding Yngling kings die strange, ritual-scented deaths that scholars have mined for evidence of sacral kingship: King Dómaldi is sacrificed by his own Swedes for better harvests; others are burned in their halls or drowned in mead-vats, each death anchored by a stanza of Ynglingatal.
Why the euhemerism matters
Snorri's frame — gods as extraordinary ancient kings, later worshipped in error — was the standard medieval Christian device for handling pagan material, and in Heimskringla he commits to it more fully than in the Edda. The payoff for us is double. First, it licensed preservation: under cover of writing history, Snorri could describe pagan religion in functional detail — what was sacrificed, when, by whom, and for what — without appearing to endorse it. Second, it accidentally recorded how the cult may actually have worked from the worshipper's side: gods of victory, weather, and harvest, approached through seasonal blót, mound-burial, and royal mediation. His famous account (in Hákonar saga góða) of the sacrificial feasts at Lade — the blood of slaughtered animals sprinkled on altars and walls, the toasts drunk to Odin for victory and to Njörðr and Freyr for peace and good seasons — remains one of the most circumstantial written descriptions of Norse ritual anywhere, even though it was written three centuries after the fact.
The later sagas carry the story into the collision of faiths: the missionary kings Óláfr Tryggvason and St. Óláfr Haraldsson smashing idols, burning temples, and offering chieftains a choice between baptism and worse — while farmers go on quietly feeding the old gods. Whatever its accuracy in detail, Heimskringla is the fullest narrative we have of how the North's conversion was remembered.
How reliable is it?
Stratified, is the fair answer. For the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Heimskringla is genuine history built on verifiable verse and living tradition, though shaped by Snorri's political intelligence and dramatic instincts. For the legendary Yngling prehistory, it is myth in historical costume: Snorri is interpreting an ancient poem (Ynglingatal) through a euhemerist theory, filling gaps with inference, and rationalizing gods into kings. Scholars therefore read Ynglinga saga not as a record of events but as a thirteenth-century window onto older beliefs — invaluable precisely where it can be checked against the Poetic Edda, skaldic verse, Saxo Grammaticus, and archaeology (the great mounds at Gamla Uppsala really exist). One more filter deserves mention: the primary manuscript, Kringla, was destroyed in the Copenhagen fire of 1728, surviving only in earlier copies and a single leaf — so even the text itself reaches us at one remove.
Reading it today
Complete English translations are readily available: Lee M. Hollander's remains the classic single-volume version, and the three-volume translation by Alison Finlay and Anthony Faulkes is the current scholarly standard. Readers interested mainly in mythology can go straight to Ynglinga saga, which occupies only the opening chapters; those who continue will find some of the best narrative prose of the Middle Ages, including the sagas of the two Óláfrs, told by the same hand that gave the gods their book.
Frequently asked questions
What does "Heimskringla" mean?
"The circle of the world" — taken from the work's opening words, kringla heimsins. Like many medieval works, it had no formal title; the incipit became the name.
Is Heimskringla mythology or history?
Both, in layers. Its first saga retells Norse gods and legendary kings as euhemerized history, while the later sagas are genuine (if literary) medieval historiography of Norway's kings down to 1177, controlled by quoted skaldic verse.
Why does Snorri say Odin was a man from Asia?
It is euhemerism — the medieval Christian explanation that pagan gods were remarkable ancient rulers whom later generations wrongly deified. The frame let Snorri preserve detailed pagan lore without endorsing it, and the "Æsir from Asia" etymology gave it a learned veneer.
What is Ynglinga saga?
The first saga of Heimskringla, tracing the Swedish and Norwegian royal line back to Odin, Njörðr, and Freyr as ancient kings. It preserves unique traditions — the Æsir–Vanir hostage exchange, Mímir's speaking head, Freyr at Uppsala, kings sacrificed for harvests — and rests on the ninth-century poem Ynglingatal.
Did Snorri Sturluson write both Heimskringla and the Prose Edda?
Yes — Snorri (1179–1241) is credited with both, making him the single most important author for our knowledge of Norse myth and early Scandinavian history. Heimskringla treats the gods as ancient kings; the Prose Edda retells them as mythology.