The Scylding or Skjǫldung, meaning in both dasess "children of Scyld/Skjǫldr", in legends, were are a royal clan and dynasty of Danes, that in its time conquered and ruled Denmark and Sweden together with part of England, Ireland and North Germany. The name is explained in many texts, such as Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann's 'Research on the Field of History' (), by the descent of this family from an eponymous king Scyld, but the title is sometimes applied to rulers who purportedly reigned before him, and the supposed king may be an invention to explain the name. There was once a Norse saga on the dynasty, the Skjöldunga saga, but it survives only in a Latin summary by Arngrímur Jónsson. Descent from Sceaf According to Anglo-Saxon legends recounted in Widsith and other sources such as Æthelweard (Chronicon), the earliest ancestor of Scyld was a culture-hero named Sceaf, who was washed ashore as a child in an empty boat, bearing a sheaf of corn. This is said to have occurred on an island named Scani or Scandza (Scania), and according to William of Malmesbury (Gesta regum Anglorum) he was later chosen as King of the Angles, reigning from Schleswig. His descendants became known as Scefings, or more usually Scyldings (after Sceldwea). Snorri Sturluson adopted this tradition in his Prologue to the Prose Edda, giving Old Norse forms for some of the names. The following list gives the supposed pedigree. From Skjöld to Halfdan The number, names, and order of the Skjöldung kings vary greatly in different texts until one comes to Halfdan/Healfdene. 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/Healfdene seems to be the direct son of Beaw in the poem. But all Scandinavian sources that mention both Skjöld and Halfdan put Halfdan some generations after Skjöld and make no mention of King Beaw (save for a genealogy in the Prologue to Snorri Sturluson's Edda which is taken from English traditions). According to Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum (Book 1), Skjöld was succeeded by a son named Gram. Since gram is also a simple adjective meaning "fierce" and a common kenning for "king", it might be that Saxo or a source