most commonly used approach. Traditionally, historians have attributed great source value to scaldic poems because of the tight form that made them easier to remember than narratives. If Ynglingatal is really from the late 800s, recent events would be relatively close in time to the scald, and there is a high likelihood the poem renders information about real people and events. Nevertheless, there is a distance of 500 years from Halfdan Hvitbeinn to Snorri, and 250 years from the poem's composition to the time Snorri wrote it down. Whether the original poem is preserved is uncertain. If Ynglingatal is younger, perhaps dating from the end of the 1100s as Krag says, its value as a source of real events shrinks further. According to Fidjestøl, the scald's main task was to express the Kingdom's official ideology, not necessarily render the facts. Archeologists, particularly Anton Wilhelm Brøgger in the early 1900s, have made many attempts to "place" the various youth kings and their wives in barrows in Vestfold. The most famous examples are the Queen Åsa in Oseberghaugen outside Tønsberg and Olaf Geirstad-Alf in Gokstadhaugen outside Sandefjord. In addition, archeologists have said the remains of Eystein Halfdansson, Halfdan the Mild, Gudrød the Hunter, and Halfdan the Black are located at Borrehaugene outside Horten. When the issue of Ynglingatals value as a source and recent archeological methods including C14 dating and dendrochronology are taken into account, finding out who was buried in the various barrows on the basis of information in this poem is at best educated guessing. Yngling as common European tradition In 1943, Danish historian Niels Lukmann said the Nordic folklore tradition, of which Yngling is a part, originated from the migration period and that people have historically not been Nordic figures. According to Lukmann, poems and legends about the Danish clans Scylding and Skilfings, which have much in common with the Ynglings, are part of a tradition from the migration period that really dealt with Huns and Heruli kings, and which has gradually evolved into legends known from the Norse period. Krag says this also fits with the Ynglings and he argues for many similarities in names, people and events. References Bibliography Bergsveinn Birgisson: Inn i skaldens sinn. Kognitive, estetiske og historiske skatter i den norrøne skaldediktningen. Doctoral thesis, Universitetet i Bergen 2008 Fidjestøl, Bjarne: Kongeskalden frå Kvinesdal og diktinga hans. In: Try, H. (red.): Rikssamling på Agder. Kristiansand 1976,