All Old English texts call Scyld\'s son and successor Beaw or some similar name. (The name was expanded to Beowulf in the poem Beowulf, probably in error by a scribe who thought it was an abbreviation for the name of the poem\'s hero who is quite a different person.) Halfdan (Old Norse sources) or Healfdene (Beowulf) or Haldan (Danish Latin sources), meaning \"half dane\", seems to be the direct son of Beaw. However only Scyld/Skjöld, Beaw and Heremod are certainly known elsewhere, though Hwala or Gwala is possibly the Ecgwela who appears in connection with Heremod in Beowulf in the phrase \"offspring of Ecgwela\", apparently a kenning for Danes. Scandinavian sources that mention both Skjöld and Halfdan make no mention of Beaw (save, as we shall see, for a genealogy in the Prologue to Snorri Sturluson\'s Prose Edda which is taken from English traditions). There are other differing accounts. The names, number and order of legendary Danish kings are very inconsistent in extant texts and it would appear that different writers and story tellers differently arranged what tales of legendary Danish kings they knew in whatever order seemed best to them.

While some differences between the genealogies are obviously simple omissions, others are more complex. It is possible that the name of Beaw may be a variant of beow, “barley”, and that in part these figures derive from rustic folklore about King Sheaf and his son Barley into which the Shield element has intruded, like in the Abingdon chronicle. Perhaps a misunderstanding of Scyld Scefing as Scyld the Scefing instead of Scyld of the Sheaf led to the boat story being transferred to Scyld\'s supposed father Sceaf when he became misunderstood as the true first king in the dynasty. There may be confusion between Danish traditions about Scyld/Skjöld and Anglic traditions about Sceaf. There is the possibility that Bedwig son of Sceaf is a corruption of Beaw son of Scyld. Scholars disagree.

In all accounts, Halfdan is father of Helgi and Hróar (Halga and Hrothgar in Beowulf). Helgi is father of the famous Hrólf Kraki (called Hrothulf in Beowulf). In Beowulf, another son of Healfdene/Halfdan named Heorogar is father of Heoroweard, who corresponds to Hjörvard in the Old Norse accounts, where his parentage is not told. The Old Norse accounts make Hjörvard to be the husband of Hrólf\'s sister and tell how Hjörvard rebelled against King Hrólf and burned him in his hall. But Hjörvard was himself soon slain and with him the rule of the Skjöldung dynasty ended.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, furthermore, Sceaf was born in Noah\'s ark, a non-Biblical son of Noah, and the account continues with the ancestry of Noah up to Adam as found in Genesis. It may be that a Christian scribe misunderstood a variant account in which Sceaf floated to shore in a chest or ark. WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY in his Gesta Regum Anglorum (1125) combines both versions making Scyld son of Sceaf and Sceaf son of Heremod, but then traces Heremod\'s ancestry up to Strephius, son of Noah, born in the Ark, who is obviously Sceaf appearing a second time with corrupt name. Asser, a Welsh monk who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s, in his Life of Alfred (English - Latin) repeats the listing of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for this section of his genealogy except that he replaces Sceaf altogether with the name Seth and mentions nothing about him being born in the Ark. Some modern translations emend Seth to Shem who was son of Noah in the Genesis account. According to other theories, Scef/Sheaf is nothing else than another version of “Japhet”. See Bibliography for further reading.

Sceaf is unknown outside of English sources except for one mention in the Prologue to SNORRI STURLUSON\'S PROSE EDDA. (5) The Prose Edda, along with some other Old Norse texts (like the Grottisöng), makes Skjöld not only an ancestor of Odin but also a son of Odin and father of Fridleif, father of Fródi under whose reign the world was at peace. Snorri mentions this Fródi son of Fridleif also in the Ynglingasaga (6) but also introduces a second, later Fródi, said to be son of certain Dan Mikilláti. (Dan is the name of one or more legendary kings of the Danes in medieval Scandinavian texts.) The second Fródi is known both as Fródi Mikilláti and Fródi the Peace-lover, father of Halfdan (Beowulf’s Healfdene) and Fridleif. The Ynglingasaga makes only a passing mentions of Skjöld, son of Odin, husband of the brave explorer and settler Gefion.

According to SAXO GRAMMATICUS\' GESTA DANORUM Skjöld was succeeded by a son named Gram. Since gram is also an adjective meaning \"fierce\" and a common kenning for \"king\", it might be that Saxo or a source has misunderstood some account referring to Beaw as being gram or a gram and wrongly taken it here as a personal name. Long after the reign of Halfdan and the fall of the Skjöldung dynasty, Saxo too introduces a king named Dan, the third king with that name in his account, whose son is Fridleif whose son is Fródi under whose reign the world achieves peace.

Viktor Rydberg\'s Teutonic Mythology draws a parallel between the Scyldings as described by Saxo and the dynasties appearing in other Nordic and Germanic myths, identifying Hadding with the basis for the legendary characted of Dietrich von Bern and his adventures in the Thidrekssaga. (7)

In modern times, fantasy author and Old English scholar J. R. R. Tolkien treated Sceaf in a poem, King Sheave, which was published after his death in The Lost Road and Other Writings and very slightly revised and printed as prose in The Notion Club Papers (Part Two) in Sauron Defeated. In Tolkien\'s treatment, a ship drifts to the land of the Longobards in the north. It beaches itself and the folk of that country enter and found a young and handsome boy with dark hair asleep with a \"sheaf of corn\" as his pillow and a harp beside him. The boy awoke the following day and sang a song in an unknown tongue which drove away all terror from the hearts of those who heard. They made the boy their king, crowning him with a garland of golden wheat. Tolkien\'s Sheave fathers seven sons from whence came the Danes, Goths, Swedes, Northmen (i.e. Norwegians), Franks, Frisians, Swordmen (Brongdingas?), Saxons, Swabes, English and Langobards. The poem ends mentioning the Langobard king of Italy, Alboin son of Audoin or, as Tolkien calls him, Ælfwine son of Eadwine, in the same way that he is mentioned in Widsith along with Sceaf. Intriguing echoes...