The Account of Varno
Little is known about the life of the Saxon historiographer Varno [cf Warini], but his history of the Nierhingar dynasty is the oldest surviving account of pre-Roman Dania, or Danaland as it is known to the Danes. Varnos history survives only in the form of three Latin manuscripts dating from the *12th century. The original Saxon account written in the Gothic alphabet and dating to the late *8th century has been lost to time but the surviving manuscripts appear to be rather faithful translations as they even preserve the introductory devotion to “Eelandsmund, pious lord of the Saxons,” and the derogatory references to Roman Christianity, which is remarkable as the manuscripts certainly were produced in an Imperial Trinitarian environment. The anonymous translator has in most cases furthermore preserved the original Danish suffixes, most notably “-ur”, which are conjugated in the same manner as Latin words ending in “-us”. A minor loss of information has occurred due to the imperfect match the Latin script and the Danish language. Sometime before the beginning of the *9th century the /h/-phoneme disappeared from the languages of the British sprachbund, leaving the letter “h” without a practical function before being revived to represent the phoneme /þ/. The later reintroduction of /h/ has resulted in the doubling of vocals to represent /h/ as in word like “Aaraldsei”.
Varno’s sources are unknown but he seems to draw from a variety of different traditions to construct a history of the Danish. His account is divided into two parts: a supposedly euhemerised version of a pagan theogony and the history of the Niehringar dynasty, which ends with the baptism of the first Christian Danish king: Uhirmir of Gefiunei.
The first part of his account has often been regarded as a rather fanciful invention by Varno. This part of his account has little in common with other surviving versions of pagan theogony or Danish origin myth and seems to be much closer linked to Biblical traditions and Christian narratives popular at Saxon court around that time. It consists mostly of an abridged retelling of Genesis and Exodus to which some names were added to explain the ethnogenesis of the different European nations and tribes. Here he asserts that Dania first was settled by descendants of Japheth, among them Gautur, Hiustur and Ranar from which the Danish tribes took their name. Varno connects the Nierhingar dynasty to a second wave of settlers, who were led by Dan, of the Israelite tribe of Dan. This Dan he also calls Ungdanur to distinguish him from the tribes original patriarch of the same name, to whom he refers as Gamaldanur. He ends this part with the assertion that the Danes settled all of today's Dania and that they were initially ruled by judges, but that their ancestral Israelite faith had been lost and replaced by the worship and divination of the dead.
According to Varno the Niehringar descended from Nierhur and his wife Nierha, who were last in line of several “heros of the Danish, who are venerated as gods by the simple minded”. Uhirmir stems from Gautur the only recorded son of the couple, who had according to Varno “lived twenty generations ago”.
Varno records the following lineage for Uhirmir:
- Gautur Nierhingur
- Guma Gamalfrair
- Iormun Ungfrair
- Gumaldur
- Nierhaldur
- Ragindomur
- Snaeragi
- Alahaar
- Tirredur
- Eiravan
- Gnir Blohbarn
- Domaldur
- Frairgestur
- Aardstein
- Arngeir
- Vifastur
- Valdaricur
- Tirulfur
- Iormunricur
- Uhirmir
Translation of the second part of Varnos account (also known as “The Nierhingar”)
Sprung from Nierhur and Nierha are the Nierhingar kings, ancestral lords of all Danes.
The first king of the Danes was Gautur Nierhingur, who lived twenty generations ago and whose domain was limited merely by the surrounding sea and the inhospitality of the far north. Believed to be a God by the idolatrous among the Danes, Gautur is said to have perished from the world of humankind and taken up his place among his forefathers in the realm of the Gods.
Gautur was succeeded by Guma, who ruled the longest of all kings and was henceforth called Gammalfrair. Gammalfrair warred against the Fenni and drove them from the Danish lands. Having reached the age of 144 years the king left the realm to his son, to wander the wilderness. The Danes belief him to still roam in the forests at night and that he turns to inanimate stone at the break of dawn.
In the third generation Iormun Ungfrair ruled the Danes, but his reign was mared by hunger and infighting. Iormun married Vi, daughter of Ingvi, father of skalds, to end the waring, but hunger would persist nevertheless. In the first year of hunger he sacrificed his right hand to the Gods, thus one third would have food. In the second year he sacrificed his right eye, thus two thirds would not starve. In the third he sacrificed himself and the Danes were awarded with plentitude.
Iormun was succeeded by his sons Hiohmundur and Gumaldur. In their search to reclaim the immortality their father had sacrificed, they ventured far north fighting the Fenni in many battles, but unable to reach the abode of the Gods, they returned empty handed to the land of the Danes. In their absence the realm had been governed by their mother’s father the nefarious Ingvi, who slew the returning Gumaldur with the help of the treacherous Svear and banished Hiohmundur to the wilderness. Under the rule of King Ingvi the sun lost its glow, nothing grew and the Danes suffered the longest winter known to mankind. First the return of the banished Hiohmundur, who had given, according to the idolatrous, his sight and his offspring to the Gods, brought spring. Known for his divine knowledge of the runes, which he spread to the Danes, Hiohmundur would henceforth be known as Runfrair.
The first king of the fifth generation of the Nierhingar was Nierhaldur, son of Gumaldur. He was drowned by his brother Eeihbalhur. Uugi The youngest son of Gumaldur married Sigurgisli of the Scaldingar, scion of Ingvi, and burned to death Eeihbalhur and his whole kin.
Uugis sons Leicur and Ingvaldur ruled the Danes together, but their vices would be their downfall, as Leicur drank himself to death and Ingvaldur enraged his fellow Svear who hung him from a tree. Upon their demise Ragindomur son of Nierhaldur became king. The Danes believe that he had escaped the bloodlust of his uncles and cousins by turning into a raven with the help of the giants and that he feasted on the corpses of Leicur and Ingvaldur before returning to his human form. He was murdered in his sleep by his wife, who dragged his corpse to the sea and watched him be swallowed by the waves.
Snaeragi followed his father as king. During his return from the lands of the Hiustar (cf. Tjust), where he had sacrificed to the idol Hor, he was ambushed and killed by the Fenni.
His son Alahaar became king after him but was poisoned by his daughter Alahiilda, who was the wife of Gnir Scaldingur of the line of the drunkard Leicur. They fled to the lands of the Marir (cr. mare) to escape revenge.
Tirredur, son of Snaeragi, the next king of the Danes ventured into the realms of the Marir to avenge the death of his father but was slain by Iorbalhur, his sister’s son. The Mara Frostauha allowed Iorbalhur and his father to rule over Danaland as long as Gnir spend a third of every year with her in the high mountains at the edge of the sea. Gnir obliged and ruled for twelve years, spending eight months of every year in the south and four in the north.
In the thirteenth year Gnir Scaldingur was murdered by Alahiilda who did not want to let her husband go. The furious Frostauha send their monstrous child Vintur-Ingvi to kill his father’s murderer and claim his patrimony. Vintur-Ingvi slew a thousand Danish warrior before tearing asunder King Iorbalhur and claiming Danaland as his birthright. Although of imposing stature and monstrous appearance he was dimwitted, gullible and followed his mother’s every word. Eiravan, son of the slain Tirredur, disguised himself as a wanderer and made the foolish Vintur-Ingvi believe that his mother had departed for the island of the Romans. He waded into the sea only to drown beneath the waves. After witnessing her son’s death Froustauha set her ship aflame and died amidst fire and smoke. Eiravan became king of the Danes but ruled less than a year before he was slain by the supporters of the late Iorbalhur.
Eiravan was survived by four daughters and his pregnant wife. His daughters were all married to wicked men; the first to a treacherous coward, the second to the a thief, the third to a poison maker and the fourth to an oathbreaker. All four desired to reign over the Danes but they were all judged unworthy. In their stead the unborn son of Eiravan was chosen. The boy was named Gnir and is to this day widely known as Blohbarn as the Danes believe that he had not be born, but ripped himself out of his mother’s womb, to depose the four usurpers. Gnir Blohbarn was raised by his mother’s father Eifari, who in order to establish peace within his kin and the realm of the Danes, gave each of Gnir’s sisters one tribe to preside over. Enraged by the wrongdoings of his kinsman the young king burned Eifari alive. King Gnir fought 48 years to depose the usurpers, slaying every twelfth year one of his sisters’ husbands, but peace would not be bestowed upon the Danes as Gnir had committed great crimes against his kin. Exhausted by war he married his only child Domaldur to one of his sisters’ daughters, Dirborg of the Aarhaingar. From this Persian marriage one girl was born, the frail Horborg, during whose birth the queen bled to death. Gnir than insisted that Domaldur wed another of his kinswomen, Sin of the Gautar. Sin gave birth to the hideous Niermundur, upon whose sight she killed herself. Domaldur, on his father’s insistence entered a third Persian marriage with Calda of the Svear. With her he fathered Ingnir the Blind, who killed his mother as he could not recognise her. Lastly Domaldur married Usnotra of the Gutar, with whom he had the cunning Ohni, who deceived her father and poisoned both her mother and king Gnir.
The weak Domaldur became the Danish king of the twelfth generation, who was blinded by the machinations of his four incesteous children. His offspring believed themselves divine and build great temples for their idolatrous cults. Niermundur begat the abominable Surtur with his sister Horborg and Ingnir the Blind was lured by Ohni to father the monstrous Hiostdis. Praised as gods incarnate, the most idolatrous of the Danes traveled to the royal halls to worship the children, but who ever made sacrifice to them would see their lineage fall to ruin in due time. As Domaldur grew to old age his impure children died one after another. Freed from their malicious influence Domaldur took himself a fifth and last wife, Lofn who was of pure flesh and spirit, and with whom he fathered Frairgestur, who settled beyond the sea in the lands of the Romans.
After his father’s death Frairgestur returned to the lands of the Danes together with his wife Trudur, daughter of Ullur of the glistening sky, and their son Aardstein, to claim the kingship. They were hosted by Biorn of Vandillsoolmur (Sword Isle) in whose hall they feasted. Frairgestur slew the monstrous Surtur but was blinded by the bright fire of the monster’s club. Stumbling around without sight he was betrayed and murdered by his host Biorn who wedded Hiostdis and claimed kingship over the Danes.
The infant Aardstein and his mother escaped from the halls of Vandillsoolmur hidden in an ale barrel, floating down the river and along the coast to the homestead of the smith Aagvin, who took them in and lived with them as if they were his own kin. Trudur died as she attempted to retrieve the remnants of the late Frairgestur, whose corpse laid bare without burial, and so Aardstein was raised by Aagvin, whom he believed to be his father, and was called Vatnar (water+army) to conceal his true identity. In the 24th year of his reign king Biorn commissioned Aagvin, foremost of all Danish smiths, to forge a new chain to bind Dolgur, the progeny of Queen Hiostdis and the late Surtur, who had grown to enormous proportion. Dolgur was without eyes, mouth, limbs or mind. His body was like that of a serpent covered with wolf-like fur and his hideous head was covered with a fine veil of silk and silver who Hiostdis had made for him. Neither chains nor ropes had been able to bind the monster, which tore apart every rope layed around his neck and on whose armless and legless body no chain could remain. Aagvin conferred with the Mari, who were in his debt, and received from them the bones and hair of Vintur-Ingvi, from which he forged an ever tightening chain, which he then presented to Biorn. Aagvin declined the reward Biorn had offered him and claimed the chain to be a gift to celebrate the king’s hospitality. To the shock of Biorn and Hiostdis the chain did not merely restrain Dolgur but slowly strangled the monster. In its mortal agony the beast shook the foundation of the earth and caused the island of Vandillsoolmur to sink beneath the waves. Only Aagvin survived and revealed to the Danes that his foster son Vatnar was Aardstein, son of the Frairgestur. Aardstein ruled as king for 60 years and build the royal halls of Grein (branch) from which the Nierhingar would rule.
Biartur succeeded his father as king in Grein but his reign was cut short by the rebellious Gautar who ambushed him and carried his corpse to Ruhmarc (clearing+march). Biartur was survived by his son Qedulfur, as king in Grein, and his brothers Arngeir and Stein, as kings on Gefiunei (Gefion+island) and Scanei. Together they fought king Ingar (Ingvi + army) of the Gautar, who claimed dominion over all Danes. The Gautar were beaten in the battle of Ruhmarc and and Ingar was killed by the spear of Arngeir, which pierced the Gaut’s skull. Arngeir, the hero of Ruhmarc, was ambushed and killed by the Ranar (of Ranrike). The bodies of Biartur and Arngeir were buried at Grein.
On Gefiunei Arngeir was succeeded by his son Vifastur, who also claimed Grein after the death of Qedulfur, who had neither wife nor child nor brothers. Even Stein traveled to Grein to claim it as his but the Danes elected Vifastur as their king and old Stein returned to Scanei, where his kin still rules. A faithful of the Biorningar murdered king Vifastur at a feast.
Vifastur’s was succeeded by his son Valdaricur as fifth king in Grein. Under his rule Qanbrandur (woman+fire/swordblade; from latinised brytonic Gvenabram [white/blessed+Abraham]) of the Romans arrived and preached of his three-faced idol. Valdaricus allowed him to build a church close to the temple of Nierhur and Nierha in the forest of the Aarhaingar (Harudes) but the pagans burned it to the ground when the misguided Cvanbrandur wanted them to bow to the emperor and his idol. Cvanbrandur continued to Scanei and the Svear, where he was not welcome before traveling to the Ranar where the Biorningar hosted him and let him build a new church. King Valdaricur married Scongifu, queen of the Anglacin (Angles+kin), and fathered with her Tirulfur and Iiortvardur. King Valdaricur died fighting the Poieserians (from slavic po+jezera [by+lakes]; Ratzeburger See), who burned Grein and took with them Tirulfur and Iiortvardur as hostages. Queen Scongifu ruled Danaland in her sons’ stead and let the town of Grein be rebuild in Saxon fashion. Under her rule the Saxon Lord Ufrestadi (Unfrestand [the Untempted], from Germanic *fraistona [to try] cf. Gothic fraistubni [temptation]) worked miracles among the Danes and asked for the queen’s hand in marriage. He converted a great number of Danes and his church still remains to this day in Grein, albeit he himself moved on to the Poieserians, where he was forcefully drowned in the Slaesaer (Schlei+see). Upon the murder of the pious Ufrestadi the sea rose and swallowed his murderers and their kin. To atone for the sins of his brothers’ the king of the Poieserians released the sons of Valdaricur and sent them home to Danaland.
Tirulfur ruled as the sixth king in Grein, whereas his brother visited Stein of Scanei and Ohmundur and Hormundur, hiustarkings (Tjost+kings) of Hingdalur [thing+dale], who had him murdered on the orders of the Gautish Biorningar king Starci (strong), who had laid claim to all of Danaland and had even conspired to kill his Ranish kinsmen. From among those Ranar Tirulfur took his queen, Biiildur. Hormundur was slain by Tirulfur in the halls of Nes (cape) on Gefionei, for his betrayal of Iiortvardur. The enraged Ohmundur blamed his brother’s death on Starci and clubbed him to death, before he himself was killed by the Gautar. Queen Biiildur surrounded herself with Roman advisors and let them build churches throughout Danaland but all of them were ruined by deluge or by fire.
When Tirulfur died he was succeeded as seventh king in Grein by his son Iormunricur, who unlike his mother was not deluded by Roman idolatry. He married Velirada (very+happy, slavic) of the Poieserians, who saw Christ in her dream and let herself be baptized in the Saxon fashion, being henceforth known as Bersaba after the wife of King David and mother of wise King Solomon. Iormunricur years were short and he died before his son Uhirmir was of age.
Bersaba’s sister-in-law Iildis expelled young Uhirmir and his god-fearing mother from Grein and ruled with her idolatrous husband Mangnir, son of Manvin Scaldingur. Iildis and Mangnir ruled over the Aarhingar Danes until they were both killed by Mangnir’s brother Usirgur. Usirgur sent as a token of goodwill the royal stone of Grein to Queen Bersaba in Nes but was unwilling to cede what his brother had stolen: Uhirmir’s birthright to reign in Grein. Queen Bersaba sent henceforth a request to the great Eelandsmund (from saxon, saviour+protection) of the Saxons that her son might be baptized and raised in the fashion of his people. Eelandsmund honoured her wish and sent forth his servants to baptize and anoint Uhirmir as the rightful eight king in Grein and of all the Danes.