Dan (king)

Dan is the name of one or more legendary kings of the Danes, mentioned in medieval Scandinavian texts.

The Chronicle of Lejre (Chronicon Lethrense) written about 1170 introduces a primeval King Ypper of Uppsala whose three sons were Dan, who afterwards ruled Denmark, Nori, who afterwards ruled Norway, and Østen, who afterwards ruled the Swedes. Dan apparently first ruled in Zealand for the Chronicle states that it was when Dan had saved his people from an attack by the Emperor Augustus that the Jutes and the men of Fyn and Scania also accepted him as king, whence the resultant expanded country of Denmark was named after him. Dan's wife was named Dana and his son was named Ro.

The Eddic poem Rígsthula, tells how the god Ríg' (said to be Heimdall), fathered a mortal son named Jarl 'noble' later known as Ríg-Jarl. Ríg-Jarl had eleven sons, the youngest of which bore the name Kon the Young (Old Norse Konr Ungr), this name understood to be the origin of the title konungr 'king', though the etymology is in fact untenable. One day, as he was hunting and snaring birds in the forest, a crow spoke to him and suggested he would gain more by going after men, and praised the wealth of "Dan and Danp". The poem breaks off incomplete at that point.

According to Arngrímur Jónsson's Latin epitome of the lost Skjöldungasaga made in 1597:

Ríg (Rigus) was a man not the least among the great ones of his time. He married the daughter of a certain Danp [Old Norse Danpr], lord of Danpsted, whose name was Dana; and later, having won the royal title for his province, left as his heir his son by Dana, called Dan or Danum, all of whose subjects were called Danes.

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