Beowulf
Skjǫldr appears in the prologue of Beowulf, where he is referred to as Scyld Scefing, implying he is a descendant or son of a Scef (‘Sheaf’, usually identified with Sceafa), or, literally, 'of the sheaf'. According to Beowulf he was found in a boat as a child, possibly an orphan, but grew on to become a powerful warrior and king:
Scyld the Sheaf-Child from scourging foemen,
From raiders a-many their mead-halls wrested.
He lives to be feared, the first has a waif,
Puny and frail he was found on the shore.
He grew to be great, and was girt with power
Till the border-tribes all obeyed his rule,
And sea-folk hardy that sit by the whale-path
Gave him tribute, a good king was he.[1]
After relating in general terms the glories of Scyld's reign, the poet describes Scyld's funeral, his body was laid in a ship surrounded by treasures:
They decked his body no less bountifully
with offerings than those first ones did
who cast him away when he was a child
and launched him alone out over the waves.
In line 33 of Beowulf, Scyld's ship is called īsig, literally, ‘icy.’ The meaning of this epithet has been discussed many times. Anatoly Liberman gives a full survey of the literature and suggests that the word meant "shining."[2]
William of Malmesbury's 12th century Chronicle tells the story of Sceafa as a sleeping child in a boat without oars with a sheaf of corn at his head.[3]
Olrik (1910) suggested Peko, a parallel "barley-figure" in Finnish, in turn connected by Fulk (1989) with Eddaic Bergelmir.[4]