The proof of this, so far as Denmark is concerned, is that, according to the Beowulf poem, its first royal family was descended from Scef through his son Scyld (Skjold). In accordance herewith, Danish and Icelandic genealogies make Skjold the progenitor of the first dynasty in Denmark, and also make him the ruler of the land to which his father came, that is, Skane. His origin as a divinely-born patriarch, as a hero receiving divine worship, and as the ruler of the original Teutonic country, appears also in Fornmannasögur, v. 239, where he is styled Skáninga god, the god of the Scanians.
Matthæus Westmonast. informs us that Scef ruled in Angeln.
According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, the dynasty of Wessex came from Saxland, and its progenitor was Scef.
If we examine the northern sources we discover that the Scef myth still may be found in passages which have been unnoticed, and that the tribes of the far North saw in the boy who came with the sheaf and the tools the divine progenitor of their celebrated dynasty in Upsala. This can be found in spite of the younger saga-geological layer which the hypothesis of Odin's and his Trojan Asas' immigration has spread over it since the introduction of Christianity. Scef's personality comes to the surface, we shall see, as Skefill and Skelfir.
In the Fornalder-sagas, ii. 9, and in Flateyarbók, i. 24, Skelfir is mentioned as family patriarch and as Skjold's father, the progenitor of the Skjoldungs. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Scef, Scyld's father, and through him the progenitor of the Skjoldungs, originally is the same as Skelfir, Skjold's father, and progenitor of the Skjoldungs in these Icelandic works.
But he is not only the progenitor of the Skjoldungs, but also of the Ynglings. The genealogy beginning with him is called in the Flateryarbók, Skilfinga ætt edr skjoldunga ætt. The Younger Edda also (i. 522) knows Skelfir, and says he was a famous king whose genealogy er köllut skilvinga ætt. Now the Skilfing race in the oldest sources is precisely the same as the Yngling race both from an Anglo-Saxon and from a heathen Norse standpoint. The Beowulf poem calls the Swedish kings scilfingas, and according to Thjodulf, a kinsman of the Ynglings and a kinsman of the Skilfing, Skilfinga nidr, are identical (Ynglingatal, 30). Even the Younger Edda seems to be aware of this. It says in the passage quoted above that the Skilfing race er i Austrvegum. In the Thjodulf strophes Austrvegar means simply Svealand, and Austrkonungur means Swedish king.
Thus it follows that the Scef who is identical with Skelfir was in the heathen saga of the North the common progenitor of the Ynglinga and of the Skjoldunga race. From his dignity as original patriarch of the royal families of Sweden, Denmark, Angeln, Saxland, and England, he was displaced by the scholastic fiction of the middle ages concerning the immigration of Trojan Asiatics under the leadership of Odin, who as the leader of the immigration also had to be the progenitor of the most distinguished families of the immigrants. This view seems first to have been established in England after this country had been converted to Christianity and conquered by the Trojan immigration hypothesis. Wodan is there placed at the head of the royal genealogies of the chronicles, excepting in Wessex, where Scef is allowed to retain his old position, and where Odin must content himself with a secondary place in the genealogy. But in the Beowulf poem Scef still retains his dignity as ancient patriarch of the kings of Denmark.
From England this same distortion of the myth comes to the North in connection with the hypothesis concerning the immigration of the "Asiamen," and is there finally accepted in the most unconcerned manner, without the least regard to the mythic records which were still well known. Skjold, Scef's son, is without any hesitation changed into a son of Odin (Ynglingasaga, 5; Foreword to Gylfag., 11). Yngve, who as the progenitor of the Ynglings is identical with Scef, and whose very name, perhaps, is or has been conceived as an epithet indicating Scef's tender age when he came to the coast of Scandia—Yngve-Scef is confounded with Frey, is styled Yngve-Frey after the appellation of the Vana-god Ingunar Frey, and he, too, is called a son of Odin (Foreword to Gylfag., c. 13), although Frey in the myth is a son of Njord and belongs to another race of gods than Odin. The epithet with which Are Frode in his Schedæ characterises Yngve, viz., Tyrkiakonungr, Trojan king, proves that the lad who came with the sheaf of grain to Skane is already in Are changed into a Trojan.
21.
SCEF THE AUTHOR OF CULTURE IDENTICAL WITH HEIMDAL-RIG, THE ORIGINAL PATRIARCH.
But in one respect Are Frode or his authority has paid attention to the genuine mythic tradition, and that is by making the Vana-gods the kinsmen of the descendants of Yngve. This is correct in the sense that Scef-Yngve, the son of a deity transformed into a man, was in the myth a Vana-god. Accordingly every member of the Yngling race and every descendant of Scef may be styled a son of Frey (Freys áttungr), epithets applied by Thjodulf in Ynglingatal in regard to the Upsala kings. They are gifts from the Vana-gods—the implements which point to the opulent Njord, and the grain sheaf which is Frey's symbol—which Scef-Yngve brings with him to the ancient people of Scandia, and his rule is peaceful and rich in blessings.
Scef-Yngve comes across the ocean. Vanaheim was thought to be situated on the other side of it, in the same direction as Ægir's palace in the great western ocean and in the outermost domain of Jormumgrund (see 93). This is indicated in Lokasenna, 34, where Loke in Ægir's hall says to the Van Njord: "You were sent from here to the East as a hostage to the gods (thu vart austr hedan gisl um sendr at godum)". Thus Njord's castle Noatun is situated in the West, on a strand outside of which the swans sing (Gylfag., 23). In the faded memory of Scef, preserved in the saga of the Lower Rhine and of the Netherlands, there comes to a poverty-stricken people a boat in which there lies a sleeping youth. The boat is, like Scef's, without sails or oars, but is drawn over the billows by a swan. From Gylfaginning, 16, we learn that there are myths telling of the origin of the swans. They are all descended from that pair of swans which swim in the sacred waters of Urd's fountain. Thus the descendants of these swans that sing outside of the Vanapalace Noatun and their arrival to the shores of Midgard seems to have some connection with the coming of the Van Scef and of culture.
The Vans most prominent in the myths are Njord, Frey, and Heimdal. Though an Asa-god by adoption, Heimdal is like Njord and Frey a Vana-god by birth and birthplace, and is accordingly called both áss and vanr (Thrymskv., 15). Meanwhile these three divinities, definitely named Vans, are only a few out of many. The Vans have constituted a numerous clan, strong enough to wage a victorious war against the Asas (Völusp.). Who among them was Scef-Yngve? The question can be answered as follows:
(1) Of Heimdal, and of him alone among the gods, it is related that he lived for a time among men as a man, and that he performed that which is attributed to Scef—that is, organised and elevated human society and became the progenitor of sacred families in Midgard.
(2) Rigsthula relates that the god Heimdal, having assumed the name Rig, begot with an earthly woman the son Jarl-Rig, who in turn became the father of Konr-Rig. Konr-Rig is, as the very name indicates and as Vigfusson already has pointed out, the first who bore the kingly name. In Rigsthula the Jarl begets the king, as in Ynglingasaga the judge (Dómarr) begets the first king. Rig is, according to Ynglingasaga, ch. 20, grandfather to Dan, who is a Skjoldung. Heimdal-Rig is thus the father of the progenitor of the Skjoldungs, and it is the story of the divine origin of the Skjoldungs Rigsthula gives us when it sings of Heimdal as Jarl's father and the first king's grandfather. But the progenitor of the Skjoldungs is, according to both Anglo-Saxon and the northern sources above quoted, Scef. Thus Heimdal and Scef are identical.
These proofs are sufficient. More can be presented, and the identity will be established by the whole investigation.
As a tender boy, Heimdal was sent by the Vans to the southern shores of