fairly have been expected. For there are extant a very early Norse poem, the Ynglinga tal, and a much later prose account, the Ynglinga saga, enumerating the kings of Sweden. The Ynglinga tal traces back these kings of Sweden for some thirty reigns. Therefore, though it was not composed till some four centuries after the date to which we must assign Ongentheow, it should deal with events even earlier than the reign of that king: for, unless the rate of mortality among early Swedish kings was abnormally high, thirty reigns should occupy a period of more than 400 years. Nothing is, however, told us in the Ynglinga tal concerning the deeds of any king Angantyr—which is the name we might expect to correspond to Ongentheow[[9]].
But on the other hand, the son and grandson of Ongentheow, as recorded in Beowulf, do meet us both in the Ynglinga tal and in the Ynglinga saga.
According to Beowulf, Ongentheow had two sons, Onela and Ohthere: Onela became king of Sweden and is spoken of in terms of highest praise[[10]]. Yet to judge from the account given in Beowulf, the Geatas had little reason to love him. He had followed up the defeat of Hygelac by dealing their nation a second deadly blow. For Onela's nephews, Eadgils and Eanmund (the sons of Ohthere), had rebelled against him, and had taken refuge at the court of the Geatas, where Heardred, son of Hygelac, was now reigning, supported by Beowulf. Thither Onela pursued them, and slew the young king Heardred. Eanmund also was slain[[11]], then or later, but Eadgils escaped.
It is not clear from the poem what part Beowulf is supposed to have taken in this struggle, or why he failed to ward off disaster from his lord and his country. It is not even made clear whether or no he had to make formal submission to the hated Swede: but we are told that when Onela withdrew he succeeded to the vacant throne. In later days he took his revenge upon Onela. "He became a friend to Eadgils in his distress; he supported the son of Ohthere across the broad water with men, with warriors and arms: he wreaked his
vengeance in a chill journey fraught with woe: he deprived the king [Onela] of his life."
This story bears in its general outline every impression of true history: the struggle for the throne between the nephew and the uncle, the support given to the unsuccessful candidate by a rival state, these are events which recur frequently in the wild history of the Germanic tribes during the dark ages, following inevitably from the looseness of the law of succession to the throne.
Now the Ynglinga tal contains allusions to these events, and the Ynglinga saga a brief account of them, though dim and distorted[[12]]. We are told how Athils (=Eadgils) king of Sweden, son of Ottar (=Ohthere), made war upon Ali (=Onela). By the time the Ynglinga tal was written it had been forgotten that Ali was Athils' uncle, and that the war was a civil war. But the issue, as reported in the Ynglinga tal and Ynglinga saga, is the same as in Beowulf:
"King Athils had great quarrels with the king called Ali of Uppland; he was from Norway. They had a battle on the ice of Lake Wener; there King Ali fell, and Athils had the victory. Concerning this battle there is much said in the Skjoldunga saga."
From the Ynglinga saga we learn more concerning King Athils: not always to his credit. He was, as the Swedes had been from of old, a great horse-breeder. Authorities differed as to whether horses or drink were the death of him[[13]]. According to one account he brought on his end by celebrating, with immoderate drinking, the death of his enemy Rolf (the Hrothulf of Beowulf). According to another:
"King Athils was at a sacrifice of the goddesses, and rode his horse through the hall of the goddesses: the horse tripped under him and fell and threw the king; and his head smote a stone so that the skull broke and the brains lay on the stones, and that was his death. He died at Uppsala, and there was laid in mound, and the Swedes called him a mighty king."