Sagas w/Shawn - Gods and Kings

E5: The Legacy of the All-Father IV - The House of Skjoldung and the Legendary Kings of Denmark

Shawn Season 1 Episode 5

The Legacy of the All-Father (Part 4): The House of Skjoldung

In this episode, Shawn heads back to Denmark to discuss the legendary Kings of Denmark all the way back to its supposed founding, with the House of Skjoldung. Since the completed Skjoldung Saga isn't available, we need to look at 7 different sources to track its family line, with roughly half of them showing Skjold, the family's namesake, as being the son of Odin.

We focus a bit on the last king of the Skjoldungs, Hrolf Kraki, his supposed timeline on this world, and use expert level math to show when the Norse gods themselves walked among us on Midgard. We also discuss Beowulf and how he and Bodvar (the son of an actual bear) need to keep bailing out the Skjoldungs from fighting with monsters. 

Sources Used:

  • The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (Penguin Classics) - translations by Jesse Byock
  • Beowulf - Translated by Seamus Heaney
  • The Saga of Hrolf Kraki - (Hacket Publishing) - Translations by Jackson Craword
  • The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Pantianos Classics) - Translated by Rev. James Ingram and Dr. J.A. Giles
  • Heimskringla or The Lives of the Norse Kings (Dover Publications)
  • Gesta Danorum - Translated by Oliver Elton


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