Visbur or Wisbur (

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

"Certain/Undoubted Son"McKinnell (2005:70).) was a legendary Swedish king of the

House of Yngling The Ynglings were a dynasty of kings, first in Sweden and later in Norway, primarily attested through the poem '' Ynglingatal''. The dynasty also appears as Scylfings (, ) in ''Beowulf''. When ''Beowulf'' and ''Ynglingatal'' were composed sometim ...

s and the son of Vanlandi. He was burned to death inside his

hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...

by the

arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...

of two of his own sons in revenge for rejecting their mother and denying them their heritage. He was succeeded by his son Dómaldi.

Attestations

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

wrote of Visbur in his ''

Ynglinga saga ''Ynglinga saga'' ( ) is a Kings' sagas, Kings' saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelanders, Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his ''Heimskringla''. It was first translated into Engl ...

'' (1225):
Snorri included a piece from ''

Ynglingatal ''Ynglingatal'' or ''Ynglinga tal'' (Old Norse: 'Enumeration of the Ynglingar') is a Skaldic poem cited by Snorri Sturluson in the ''Ynglinga saga'', the first saga of Snorri's ''Heimskringla''. Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (Thjodolf), who was a poet ...

'' (9th century) in his account in the ''

Heimskringla () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland. While authorship of ''Heimskringla'' is nowhere attributed, some scholars assume it is written by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (117 ...

'': The ''

Historia Norwegiæ ''Historia Norwegiæ'' is a short history of Norway written in Latin by an anonymous monk. The only extant manuscript is in the private possession of the Earl of Dalhousie, and is now kept in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. The manu ...

'' presents a Latin summary of ''Ynglingatal'', older than Snorri's quotation: The even earlier source ''

Íslendingabók (, , ; ) is a historical work dealing with early history of Iceland, Icelandic history. The author was an Icelandic priest, Ari Þorgilsson, working in the early 12th century. The work originally existed in two different versions but only the y ...

'' cites the line of descent in ''Ynglingatal'' and also gives Visburr as the successor of Vanlandi and the predecessor of Dómaldr: ''vi Vanlandi. vii Visburr. viii Dómaldr''.Guðni Jónsson's edition of Íslendingabók
/ref>

Notes

References

*McKinnell, John (2005). ''Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend''. DS Brewer.

Sources

(part of the

) * Historia Norwegiae {{Norse mythology Semi-legendary kings of Sweden