‘Summer’s day on Roskilde Fjord’ by Laurits Andersen Ring (1854–1933), painted in 1900. In Anglo-Saxon times Roskilde (and not Copenhagen, a few miles to the east) was the capital city of the Danish kings, and the wide stretch of water that reaches north from the city, before curving round west and opening out into the North Sea, is the Roskilde Fjord. In after years many traced their heritage proudly to Skyld, and the Skyldings included (through the female line) Beowulf, fictional hero of the great Old English epic.
Part 1 of 2
AS for Scyld,* he departed, in the fulness of time, ripe in honours and years, to go into the Master’s keeping. His faithful comrades then carried him forth to the shore of the sea, as he himself had ordered. The black, heavy earth should have no part in him; the sea had brought him, the ever-moving, many-hued; the sea should bear him hence, after his long years of power.*
There at anchor rode the ship, glistening fresh, outward bound, fit for a prince. Down they laid their illustrious dead, the dear chief of the land, dispenser of bounties, on the lap of the ship, by the mast. There was great store of precious things ornaments from remote parts, weapons of rare worth, mail armour finely wrought, and harness glittering in silver and in gold; a multitude of treasures, which were to pass with him far away into the watery realm.
* ‘Scyld’ is the Old English word for a shield, and pronounced in much the same way.
* The tale of Scyld’s mysterious coming to the Danes was retold by William of Malmesbury (?1095-?1143) in his Deeds of the Kings of the English II.12. “Sceldi, son of Sceaf, as some affirm, was driven on a certain island in Germany, called Scandza, a little boy in a skiff, without any attendant, asleep, with a handful of corn at his head, whence he was called Sceaf [sheaf]; and, on account of his singular appearance, being well received by the men of that country, and carefully educated, in his riper age he reigned in a town which was called Slaswic, but at present Haitheby; which country, called old Anglia, whence the Angles came into Britain, is situated between the Saxons and the Goths.” ‘Scandza’ is the name from which we derive Scandinavia, and was imagined to be a large island; Slaswic is Schleswig (now part of Germany), and Hedeby or Haithebu lies less than two miles to the south.
Précis
The Old English epic ‘Beowulf’ opens with the passing of Skyld, King of the Danes, who had come to them from the sea as a mysterious foundling. At his death, Skyld asked his grieving people to return him to the sea, and so instead of burying him they laid his body in a ship heaped high with gems and weapons. (60 / 60 words)
Part Two
A Viking ship and her pilot, at the Slavic and Viking Festival in Wolin, Poland, in 2018. The story ran that Skyld appeared in the kingdom of the Danes in mysterious circumstances, washed ashore in a boat with only a sheaf of wheat for company. He was a young man when Heremod, the Danish king, was banished by his miserable and maltreated subjects, and Skyld was chosen to wear the crown in his stead. He wore it wisely, tempering justice with compassion, and was as loved as Heremod had been hated.
FURTHERMORE they set by him the royal banner, gold-broidered, high over his head. As its folds unfurled and glittered in the breeze, it told the skies, and the sun, and the stars of night, that a King went forth into the world, on his last voyage. They set the helm, and gave him over to the ocean, sad at heart, with tear-dimmed eyes, and silent in their mourning. And who received that burden no man under heaven, be it priest or chieftain or wise seer, can ever tell or know.*
Thus Scyld of the Sheaf was honoured in death after the manner of the mighty dead of oldest times among the strong-hearted sons of the North. From the Unknown he came and into the Unknown was borne away.*
* The author has already said that the soul of Scyld was returned into ‘his Master’s keeping’, that is, into the hands of the Christian God: he refers now to the body of the King and the treasure-laden ship, which are never found. There is something of Moses about Scyld: he is found as an infant floating in a kind of basket of rush; he supplants a tyrant ruler, and becomes a lawgiver to his people; and when he dies, he leaves no trace behind. See also King Arthur’s Last Request.
Précis
At last the Danes bade a traditional Viking farewell to their beloved lord, setting his funeral ship adrift upon the waters, its gleaming wood and proud sails proclaiming to the world that here lay a king worthy of his crown. Skyld the king thus passed into memory, and his final resting place was never known. (55 / 60 words)
