Fjölnir, Fjölner or Fjolner was a Swedish king of the House of Yngling, at Gamla Uppsala. He was the son of Freyr himself and the giantess Gerd. He was the first of his house who was not to be deified. Grottisöng relates that he was the contemporary of Caesar Augustus.

Fjölnir was a mighty king and the crops were bountiful and peace was maintained. At his time, the Danish king Fródi ruled in Lejre in Zealand. The two kings were great friends and they often visited each other, but their friendship was to cause them to inadvertently kill each other.

Grottisong relates that when Frodi once visited Uppsala he bought two giantesses, Fenja and Menja , but they were to be his undoing (see Grottisongr).

Heimskringla relates that once Fjölnir went to see Frodi in Zealand and a great feast had been prepared to which many people were invited. Frodi had a large house where he stored a huge vessel full of very strong mead. Above the vessel there was an opening in the ceiling from which mead was poured into it, by men standing in the loft above. After the banquet, Fjölnir was taken to stay the night in an adjoining loft. However, at night he felt that all the mead he had drunk forced him to leave his bed and to seek his way out into the bushes to relieve himself. Since he was very drunk and very tired he stumbled through the wrong door and staggered across the floor above the vessel. He slipped and fell through the opening into the vessel of mead where he drowned.

In Frode's hall the fearful word,

The death-foreboding sound was heard:

The cry of fey denouncing doom,

Was heard at night in Frode's home.

And when brave Frode came, he found

Swithiod's dark chief, Fjolne, drowned.

In Frode's mansion drowned was he,

Drowned in a waveless, windless sea.[1]

In Gesta Danorum, Book 1, Frodi corresponds to Hadding and Fjölnir to Hunding, but the story is a little different. It relates how King Hunding of Sweden believed a rumor that King Hadding of Denmark had died and held his obsequies with ceremony, including an enormous vat of ale. Hunding himself served the ale, but accidently stumbled and fell into the vat, choked, and drowned. When word of this came to King Hadding of this unfortunate death, King Hadding publicly hanged himself (see Freyr).

Sources

• Ynglingatal
• Ynglinga saga (part of the Heimskringla)
• Historia Norwegiae
• Grottisongr
• Gesta Danorum