William of Malmesbury was, of course, aware of Ethelwerd's account, and may have been influenced by it. Some of his variations may be his own invention. The substitution of the classical form Scandza for Ethelwerd's Scani is simply a change from popular to learned nomenclature, and enables the historian to show that he has read something of Jordanes. The alteration by which Malmesbury makes Sceaf, when grown up, rule at Schleswig in ancient Angel, may again be his own work—a variant added in order to make Sceaf look more at home in an Anglo-Saxon pedigree.

But William of Malmesbury was, as we shall see later, prone to incorporate current ballads into his history, and after allowing for what he may have derived from Ethelwerd, and what he may have invented, there can be no doubt that many of the additional details which he gives are genuine popular poetry. Indeed, whilst the story of Scyld's funeral is very impressive in Beowulf, it is in William's narrative that the story of the child coming over the sea first becomes poetic.

Now since even the English historians connected this tale with the Danish territory of Scani, Scandza, we should expect to find it again on turning to the records of the Danish royal house. And we do find there, generally at the head of the pedigree[[148]], a hero—Skjold—whose name corresponds, and whose relationship to the later Danish kings shows him to be the same as the Scyld Scefing of Beowulf. But neither Saxo Grammaticus, nor any other Danish historian, knows anything of

Skjold having come in his youth or returned in his death over the ocean.

How are we to harmonize these accounts?

Beowulf and Ethelwerd agree in representing the hero as "surrounded by arms"; William of Malmesbury mentions only the sheaf; the difference is weighty, for presumably the spoils which the hero brings with him from the unknown, or takes back thither, are in harmony with his career. Beowulf and Ethelwerd seem to show the warrior king, William of Malmesbury seems rather to be telling the story of a semi-divine foundling, who introduces the tillage of the earth[[149]].

In Beowulf the child is Scyld Scefing, in Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury he is Sceaf, father of Scyld.

Beowulf, Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury agree in connecting the story with Scedenig, Scani or Scandza, yet the two historians and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle all make Sceaf the ancestor of the West Saxon house. Yet we have no evidence that the English were regarded as having come from Scandinavia.

The last problem admits of easy solution. In heathen times the English traced the pedigree of most of their kings to Woden, and stopped there. For higher than that they could not go. But a Christian poet or genealogist, who had no belief in Woden as a god, would regard the All Father as a man—a mere man who, by magic powers, had made the heathen believe he was a god. To such a Christian pedigree-maker Woden would convey no idea of finality; he would feel no difficulty in giving this human Woden any number of ancestors. Wishing to glorify the pedigree of his king, he would add any other distinguished and authentic genealogies, and the obvious place for these would be at the end of the line, i.e., above Woden. Hence we have in some quite early (not West Saxon) pedigrees, five names given as ancestors of Woden. These five names end in Geat or Geata, who was apparently regarded as a god, and was possibly Woden under another name[[150]]. Somewhat later, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under

the year 855, we have a long version of the West Saxon pedigree with yet nine further names above Geat, ending in Sceaf. Sceaf is described as a son of Noah, and so the pedigree is carried back to Adam, 25 generations in all beyond Woden[[151]]. But it is rash to assume with Müllenhoff that, because Sceaf comes at the head[[152]] of this English pedigree, Sceaf was therefore essentially an English hero. All these later stages above Woden look like the ornate additions of a later compiler. Some of the figures, Finn, Sceldwa, Heremod, Sceaf himself, we have reason to identify with the primitive heroes of other nations.