Sweyn was a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 king c. 1080, who replaced his Christian brother-in-law Inge

Inge I of Sweden

Inge the Elder was a King of Sweden.-Biography:Inge was the son of the former King Stenkil and a Swedish princess. Inge shared the rule of the kingdom with his probably elder brother Halsten Stenkilsson, but little is known with certainty of Inge's reign...

 as King of Sweden, when Inge had refused to administer the blót

Blót

The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...

s (pagan sacrifices) at the Temple at Uppsala

Temple at Uppsala

The Temple at Uppsala was a religious center in Norse paganism once located at what is now Gamla Uppsala , Sweden attested in Adam of Bremen's 11th century work Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and in Heimskringla, written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century...

. There is no mention of Sweyn in the regnal list of the Westrogothic law, which suggests that his rule did not reach Västergötland

Västergötland

', English exonym: West Gothland, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden , situated in the southwest of Sweden. In older English literature one may also encounter the Latinized version Westrogothia....

. According to Swedish historian Adolf Schück he was probably the same person as Håkan the Red and was called the Blót Swain (a swain who was willing to perform the blót

Blót

The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...

) as an epithet rather than a personal name.

Becoming king

The earliest source that deals with Blot-Sweyn's coming to power is the Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic legendary saga

Legendary saga

A Legendary saga or Fornaldarsaga is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the colonization of Iceland. There are some exceptions, such as Yngvars saga víðförla, which takes place in the 11th century...

 Hervarar saga

Hervarar saga

Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas. It is a valuable saga for several different reasons beside its literary qualities. It contains traditions of wars between Goths and Huns, from the 4th century, and the last part is used as...

:
However, Inge did not permit the people to follow the old ways, unlike his father Stenkil. The Swedes reacted strongly and asked Inge to either comply with the old traditions or abdicate. When Inge proclaimed that he would not abandon Christianity, the people pelted him with stones and chased him away. This was the opportunity for Sweyn to assume power, and the account provided by Hervarar saga concerning his inauguration contains a rare description of the ancient Indo-European ritual

Proto-Indo-European religion

Proto-Indo-European religion is the hypothesized religion of the Proto-Indo-European peoples based on the existence of similarities among the deities, religious practices and mythologies of the Indo-European peoples. Reconstruction of the hypotheses below is based on linguistic evidence using the...

 of horse sacrifice

Horse sacrifice

Many Indo-European religious branches show evidence for horse sacrifice, and comparative mythology suggests that they derive from a Proto-Indo-European ritual.-Context:...

:

Legend of Saint Eskil

The later Legend of Saint Eskil

Saint Eskil

Saint Eskil was an Anglo-Saxon monk particularly venerated during the end of the 11th century in the Province of Södermanland, Sweden. He was the founder of the first Diocese of the lands surrounding Lake Mälaren, today the Diocese of Strängnäs...

tells that Inge was chased away from the kingdom. They then elected an idolator for king by the name Sweyn, an unworthy man and with reason called Blood-Sweyn. He had this name because he made the people drink blood from bulls that had been sacrificed to the gods, and he ate the sacrificial meat. The infidels assembled around their king in Strängnäs

Strängnäs

Strängnäs is a locality and the seat of Strängnäs Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 12,296 inhabitants in 2005. It is located by Lake Mälaren and is the episcopal see of the Diocese of Strängnäs, a former Roman Catholic and present Lutheran Diocese, with the Strängnäs Cathedral, built...

, where they butchered oxen and sheep, and gave offerings to their gods. They had a great banquet in honour of the king and their gods. The English bishop Eskil then appeared and tried to convert the pagans to Christianity. They would not listen, however. Eskil prayed, and God sent thunder, hail, snow and rain destroying the sacrificial altar and beasts of sacrifice. Not a single drop fell on the bishop. The pagans were not impressed and furiously, they attacked Eskil. A diviner named Spåbodde hit him on the head with a stone, while another man crushed his head with an axe. Some chieftains dragged the dying martyr to the king saying that Eskil had used magic arts to control the weather. As soon as the unrightful king had sentenced Eskil to death, he was taken to the valley where the monastery later was founded, and he was stoned to death

This legend is, however, considered to be a later invention by the Church as more reliable sources date Eskil's death to c. 1016, several generations before Blot-Sweyn.

How Sweyn was killed

According to Hervarar saga, Sweyn's rule was not to last. Before long, the Christian Inge decided to kill the Pagan Sweyn in a less than honourable way:
A similar account also appears in the Orkneyinga saga

Orkneyinga saga

The Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...

, but in this account, Sweyn stays indoors and is burnt to death:

Succession

It is possible that Ingi was not immediately accepted by the stubbornly pagan Swedes of Uppland

Uppland

Uppland is a historical province or landskap on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea...

. The 13th century historian Snorri Sturlusson wrote in the Heimskringla

Heimskringla

Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca. 1230...

that Blót-Sweyn had a pagan successor who continued the sacrifices:
This "Eirik Arsale" (Erik Årsäll) is mentioned in other sources as being the son of Blot-Sweyn, but today is not considered a historical person by most historians.