The argument is a strong one—if it really is the case that the dragon slain by Frothi was the same monster as that slain by Beowulf the Geat.
Unfortunately this parallel, which will be examined in the next section, is far from certain. We must be careful not to argue in a circle, identifying Beowulf and Frothi because they slew the same dragon, and then identifying the dragons because they were slain by the same hero.
Whilst, therefore, we admit that it is highly probable that Beow (grain) the descendant of Sceaf (sheaf) was originally a corn divinity or corn fetish, we cannot follow Müllenhoff in his bold attribution to this "culture hero" of Beowulf's adventures with the dragon or with Grendel.
Section VII. The house of Scyld and Danish parallels: Heremod-Lotherus and Beowulf-Frotho.
Scyld, although the source of that Scylding dynasty which our poem celebrates, is not apparently regarded in Beowulf as the earliest Danish king. He came to the throne after an interregnum; the people whom he grew up to rule had long endured cruel need, "being without a prince[[196]]." We hear in Beowulf of one Danish king only whom we can place chronologically before Scyld—viz. Heremod[[197]]. The way in which Heremod is referred to would fit in very well with the supposition[[198]] that he was the last of a dynasty; the immediate predecessor of Scyld; and that it was the death or exile of Heremod which ushered in the time when the Danes were without a prince.
Now there is a natural tendency in genealogies for each king to be represented as the descendant of his predecessor, whether he really was so or no; so that in the course of time, and sometimes of a very short time, the first king of a new dynasty may come to be reckoned as son of a king of the preceding line[[199]]. Consequently, there would be nothing surprising if, in another account, we find Scyld represented as a son of Heremod. And we do find the matter represented thus in the West Saxon genealogy, where Sceldwa or Scyld is son of Heremod. Turning to the Danish accounts, however, we do not find any Hermóðr (which is the form we should expect corresponding to Heremōd) as father to Skjold (Scyld). Either no father of Skjold is known, or else (in Saxo Grammaticus) he has a father Lotherus. But, although the names are different, there is some correspondence between what we are told of Lother and what we are told of Heremod. A close parallel has indeed been drawn by Sievers between the whole dynasty: on the one hand Lotherus, his son Skioldus, and his descendant Frotho,
as given in Saxo: and on the other hand the corresponding figures in Beowulf, Heremod, Scyld, and Scyld's son, Beowulf the Dane.
The fixed and certain point here is the identity of the central figure, Skioldus-Scyld. All the rest is very doubtful; not that there are not many parallel features, but because the parallels are of a commonplace type which might so easily recur accidentally.