Title: Heimskringla

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Description:

Heimskringla ("Circle of the World") is a compilation of konungasögur, or kings' sagas, dated to the first half of the 13th century AD. It comprises a prologue and sixteen sagas about the lives of Norwegian kings of varying length and detail. It is attributed to the Icelandic chieftain and poet Snorri Sturluson (LINK) (1179–1241), who is also often credited with overseeing the compilation of the Prose Edda. Heimskringla is considered to be the longest and finest of the kings' sagas, written in the heyday of the genre alongside two other compilations known as Fagrskinna and Morkinskinna, which Heimskringla used as sources and expanded upon. It chronicles the lives of early kings of Norway and Sweden who trace their genealogies to Norse gods, mainly Óðinn, Þórr, and Freyr (LINKS), up to the reign of King Magnús Erlingsson in 1177 AD. 

Heimskringla shares stylistic and structural similarities with the Prose Edda, and both works explain that the Æsir (LINK) were not gods, but gifted human kings from Troy, a technique called euhemerism.¹ Ásgarðr, the abode of the Æsir, or Ásaheimr, as it is also called in Heimskringla, is interpreted by Snorri through folk etymology to be a name for Asia, and that Æsir are Asian kings from Troy. The likely motivation here is twofold: 1) the gods and events of Norse pagan religion and mythology are able to be discussed within a Christian framework (as well that the royal lineages which Heimskringla narrates are descended from these gods, so to allow this prestige to remain in a "safe" way); and 2) Norse culture, especially poetry, in which Snorri was extremely knowledgable and skilled and which is a central topic of the Prose Edda, is given an origin in Troy, placing it thus on equal footing with the Classical roots of Latin poetry and continental European culture (see Virgil's Aeneid). 

1. Euhemerism is a historical reading or rationalization of mythology, in which myths and gods are made to be historical events and people that have become exaggerated in their retelling over time. It thus a kind of inverse process to apotheosis, where a mortal figure is elevated into godhood, and instead a deity is made to be a mortal.