Gorm the Old
Danish king invoked as the standard of royal unification.
Gorm the Old was a Danish king who "ruled over the Danish dominions" (Heimskringla, 5. Halfdan's Marriage With Hjort's Daughter). He served as a byword for royal unification: Gyda, daughter of Eirie, invoked Gorm the Old of Denmark alongside Eirik of Uppsala as examples of kings who had unified entire countries, challenging Norwegian rulers who had not done the same (Heimskringla, 3. Of Gyda, Daughter Of Eirie).
The Heimskringla uses Gorm the Old primarily as a rhetorical reference point rather than a subject of narrative. The comparison Gyda draws -- that "no king here in Norway will make the whole country subject to him, in the same way as Gorm the Old did in Denmark" -- positions Gorm as the standard against which Norwegian ambition is measured (Heimskringla, 3. Of Gyda, Daughter Of Eirie). His role in the text is to embody successful consolidation of power, a foil for the fractured Norwegian kingship that the Heimskringla's protagonists will later attempt to overcome.
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Heimskringla, Norse Tradition
On trail: Genealogies