The Prelude would seem to be an attempt to link up the hero of the
poem with the mythological progenitors of the Teutonic nations. Thomas
Arnold says: 'That Sceaf, Scyld, and Beaw were among the legendary
ancestors of the West Saxon line of kings no one disputes. But this
does not mean much, for the poem itself shows that the same three were
also among the legendary ancestors of the Danish kings.' Ethelward,
who wrote early in the tenth century, gives the ancestry of Ethelwulf,
the father of Alfred. Ethelward says: 'The seventeenth ancestor from
Cerdic was Beo, the eighteenth Scyld, the nineteenth Scef.' Ethelward
also says: 'Scef himself, with one light vessel, arrived in the island
of the ocean which is called Scani, dressed in armour, and he was a
very young boy, and the inhabitants of that land knew nothing about
him; however, he was received by them, and kept with care and affection
as though he were of their own kin, and afterwards they chose him to be
king, from whose stock the King Athulf [Ethelwulf] derives his line.'
It may be noted that neither Scyld nor Scef is mentioned in the
A.S. Chronicle (A.D. 855). William of Malmesbury, in his Gesta Regum,
says that Scef was so called from the sheaf of wheat that lay at
his head, that he was asleep when he arrived, and that when he grew
up he became a king in the town then called Slaswic, now Haithebi
(Rolls Ed., 1. 121).
Müllenhoff says: 'If we look closely into the saga, the ship and
the sheaf clearly point to navigation and agriculture, the arms
and jewels to kingly rule--all four gifts, therefore, to the main
elements and foundations of the oldest state of culture among the
Germans [Teutons?] of the sea-board; and if the bearer of these
symbols became the first king of the country, the meaning can only
be this, that from his appearance the beginning of the oldest state
of culture dates, and that generally before him no orderly way of
leading a human life had existed.'
Scyld (meaning Shield) refers to the fact that the king was the
protector of the people in war, and is therefore symbolical, like Scef.
The ship and the sheaf, the arms and the jewels and the shield--these
are the symbols of that primitive civilization--the sheaf, the symbol
of agriculture and food, the ship of commerce, the arms of warfare,
the jewels of reward of bravery, and the shield of the protection of
the people by the king.
Arnold mentions the fact that no writer not English mentions the
saga of Scef and Scyld, and suggests that this is presumption for
the English origin of the legend. I do not, however, think it is
conclusive evidence. One is surprised that they are not mentioned
in Icelandic literature. Yet somehow the impression on my mind is
that these legends were probably brought by our Saxon and Danish
ancestors from the Continent, and are taken for granted as well known
to the hearers of the song. I think they probably formed part of the
legendary genealogy of our common Germanic (Teutonic) ancestors, and
happened to find their way into literature only among the English,
or have survived only in the English.