The problems to which this pedigree gives rise are very numerous, and some have been discussed above. There are four which seem to need further discussion.
(I) A "Sceafa" occurs in Widsith as ruling over the Longobards. Of course we cannot be certain that this hero is identical with the Sceaf of the genealogy. Now there is no one in the long list of historic or semi-historic Longobard kings, ruling after the tribe had left Scandinavia, who bears a name at all similar. It seems therefore reasonable to suppose that Sceafa, if he is a genuine Longobard king at all, belongs to the primitive times when the Longobardi or Winnili dwelt in "Scadan," before the historic or semi-historic times with which our extant list deals. And Old English accounts, although making Sceaf an ancestor of the Saxon kings, are unanimous in connecting him with Scani or Scandza.
Some scholars[[600]] have seen a serious difficulty in the weak form "Sceafa," as compared with "Sceaf." But we have the exactly parallel cases of Horsa[[601]] compared with Hors[[602]], and Hrǣdla[[603]] compared with Hrǣdel[[604]], Hrēðel. Parallel, but not quite so certain, are Sceldwa[[605]] and Scyld[[606]], Gēata[[607]] and Gēat[[608]], Bēowa[[609]] and Bēaw, Bēo(w)[[610]].
I do not think it has ever been doubted that the forms Hors and Horsa, or Hrēðel and Hrǣdla, relate to one and the same person. Prof. Chadwick seems to have little or no doubt as to the identity of Scyld and Sceldwa[[611]], or Bēo and Bēowa[[612]]. Why then should the identity of Scēaf and Scēafa be denied because one form is strong and the other weak[[613]]? We cannot demonstrate the identity of the figure in the genealogies with the figure in Widsith; but little difficulty is occasioned by the weak form.
(II) Secondly, the absence of the name Scēaf from the oldest MS of the Chronicle (the Parker MS, C.C.C.C. 173) has been made the ground for suggesting that when that MS was written (c. 892) Sceaf had not yet been invented (Möller, Volksepos, 43; Symons in Pauls Grdr. (2), III, 645; Napier, as quoted by Clarke, Sidelights, 125). But Sceaf, and the other names which are omitted from the Parker MS, are found in the other MSS of the Chronicle and the allied pedigrees, which are known to be derived independently from one and the same original. Now, unless the names were older than the Parker MS, they could not appear in so many independent transcripts. For, even though these transcripts are individually later, their agreement takes us back to a period earlier than that of the Parker MS itself[[614]].
An examination of the different versions of the genealogy, given on pp. [202]-3, above, and of the tree showing the connection between them, on p. [315], will, I think, make this clear.
The versions of the pedigree given in the Parker MS of the Chronicle, in Asser and in Textus Roffensis I, all contain the stages Friþuwald and Friþuwulf. Asser and Roff. I are connected by the note about Gēata: but Roff. I is not derived from that text of Asser which has come down to us, as that
text has corrupted Fin and Godwulf into one name and has substituted Seth for Scēaf ["Seth, Saxonice Sceaf": Florence of Worcester]. Roff. I is free from both these corruptions.
Ethelwerd is obviously connected with a type of genealogy giving the stages Friþuwald and Friþuwulf, but differs from all the others in giving no stages between Scyld and Scēf.