The Scyldings.
The poet introduces us first to a tribe of Gar-Danes and the clan or kindred of Scyldings. Scyld the son of Scef is the ancestor of the Scyldings. He is an Adeling who has torn their meadthrones from many tribes (mægdum) and in true tribal fashion compelled them to pay tribute. Surrounded in his old age by numerous descendants and other gesiths who have resorted to him, the chieftain has become a great hero in his tribe (mægdh).
The burial of Scyld by his ‘gesiths.’
A graphic description of the burial of Scyld in his ships by his gesiths is a fitting introduction to the poem. Let us mark in passing that the word mægd evidently may mean a much wider kindred than the near family of a great-grandfather’s descendants (the Welsh gwely). One mægd conquers another and makes it pay tribute.
Again the word gesith evidently includes, with members of the near kin, such others, not necessarily blood relations, as may have joined the warrior band of the hero. They may or may not have been adopted into his kindred in becoming his men, but this extension of comradeship or kinship, as the case may be, to these gesiths adds to the greatness and power of his mægd.
Scyld | Beowulf | Healfdene | Heorogar { Heoroweard The great- | (not of | The father | (61 and { (2162) grandfather | the story) | | 467) { | The great- | | | grandfather | +-Hrothgar { Hrethric | The { (1190, | Scylding { 1837) | m. { | Wealtheow { Hrothmund | (61 and { | 613) { Freaware | { (2023) +-Halga | (youngest { Hrodulf | son) (61) { (1018, 1165, | { 1182) | +-Elan { Onela | daughter { | presumably { | married to { | Ongentheow { Othere | the { ‘sister’s { Eanmund | Scylfing { sons’ to { 2929 | (62-63) { Hrothgar { | { 2929 { Eadgil | { { 239
Hrothgar the great-grandson of Scyld.
The opening episode of the burial of Scyld is followed by a few lines which reveal something of the pedigree of his descendant Hrothgar the Scylding. The pedigree of Hrothgar, in true tribal fashion, makes Scyld his great-grandfather. He is ‘Hrothgar the Scylding,’ may we not say, because Scyld was his great-grandfather, just as Hengist and Horsa were Oiscings according to Bede, who in stating their pedigree makes Oisc their great-grandfather, and just as in the Welsh surveys the gwelys still bear the great-grandfather’s name though he be long dead, because the gwely hangs together till the fourth generation.