The genealogist who finally made Sceaf into a son born to Noah in the ark, and then carried the pedigree nine stages further back through Noah to Adam, merely made the last of a series of accretions. It does not follow that, because he made them ancestors of the English king, this compiler regarded Noah, Enoch and Adam as Englishmen. Neither need he have so regarded Sceaf or Scyld[[153]] or Beaw. In fact—and this has constantly been overlooked—the authority for Sceaf, Scyld and Beaw as Anglo-Saxon heroes is but little stronger than the authority for Noah and Adam in that capacity. No manuscript exists which stops at Scyld or Sceaf. There is no version which goes beyond Geat except that which goes up to Adam. Scyld, Beaw, Sceaf, Noah and Adam as heroes of English mythology are all alike doubtful.
We must be careful, however, to define what we mean when we regard these stages of the pedigree as doubtful. They are doubtful in so far as they are represented as standing above Woden in the Anglo-Saxon pedigree, because it is incredible that, in primitive and heathen times, Woden was credited with a dozen or more forefathers. The position of these names in the pedigree is therefore doubtful. But it is only their connection with the West Saxon house that is unauthentic. It does not follow that the names are, per se, unauthentic. On the contrary, it is because the genealogist had such implicit belief in the authenticity of the generations
from Noah to Adam that he could not rest satisfied with his West Saxon pedigree till he had incorporated these names. They are not West Saxon, but they are part of a tradition much more ancient than any pedigree of the West Saxon kings. And the argument which applies to the layer of Hebrew names between Noah and Adam applies equally to the layer of Germanic names between Woden and Sceaf. From whatever branch of the Germanic race the genealogist may have taken them, the fact that he placed them where he did in the pedigree is a proof of his veneration for them. But we must not without evidence claim them as West Saxon or Anglo-Saxon: we must not be surprised if evidence points to some of them being connected with other nations—as Heremod, for example, with the Danes[[154]].
More difficult are the other problems. William of Malmesbury tells the story of Sceaf, with the attributes of a culture-hero: Beowulf, four centuries earlier, tells it of Scyld, a warrior hero: Ethelwerd tells it of Sceaf, but gives him the warrior attributes of Scyld[[155]] instead of the sheaf of corn.
The earlier scholars mostly agreed[[156]] in regarding Malmesbury's attribution of the story to Sceaf as the original and correct version of the story, in spite of its late date. As a representative of these early scholars we may take Müllenhoff[[157]]. Müllenhoff's love of mythological interpretation found ample scope in the story of the child with the sheaf, which he, with considerable reason, regarded as a "culture-myth." Müllenhoff believed the carrying over of the attributes of a god to a line of his supposed descendants to be a common feature of myth—the descendants representing the god under another name. In accordance with this view, Scyld could be explained as an "hypostasis" of his father or forefather Sceaf, as a figure further explaining him and representing him, so that in the end the tale of the boat arrival came to be told, in Beowulf, of Scyld instead of Sceaf.
Recent years have seen a revolt against most of Müllenhoff's theories. The view that the story originally belonged to Sceaf has come to be regarded with a certain amount of impatience as "out of date." Even so fine a scholar as Dr Lawrence has expressed this impatience:
"That the graceful story of the boy sailing in an open boat to the land of his future people was told originally of Sceaf ... needs no detailed refutation at the present day.
"The attachment of the motive to Sceaf must be, as an examination of the sources shows, a later development[[158]]."
Accordingly the view of recent scholars has been this: That the story belongs essentially to Scyld. That, as the hero of the boat story is obviously of unknown parentage, we must interpret Scefing not as "son of Sceaf" but as "with the sheaf" (in itself a quite possible explanation). That this stage of the story is preserved in Beowulf. That subsequently Scyld Scefing, standing at the head of the pedigree, came to be misunderstood as "Scyld, son of Sceaf". That consequently the story, which must be told of the earlier ancestor, was thus transferred from Scyld to his supposed father Sceaf—the version which is found in Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury.
One apparent advantage of this theory is that the oldest version, that of Beowulf, is accepted as the correct and original one, and the much later versions of the historians Ethelwerd and William of Malmesbury are regarded as subsequent corruptions. This on the surface seems eminently reasonable. But let us look closer. Scyld Scefing in Beowulf is to be interpreted "Scyld with the Sheaf." But Beowulf nowhere mentions the sheaf as part of Scyld's equipment. On the contrary, we gather that the hero is connected rather with prowess in war. It is the same in Ethelwerd. It is not till William of Malmesbury that the sheaf comes into the story. So that the interpretation of Scefing as "with the sheaf" assumes the accuracy of William of Malmesbury's story even in a point where it receives no support from the Beowulf version. In other words this theory does the very thing to avoid doing which it was called into being[[159]].