Scyldings

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The legendary royal line of Danish kings, the descendants of Scyld, celebrated in the Old English epic Beowulf
2. The mythical House of Danish rulers who trace their ancestry back to Scyld Scefing in early Germanic heroic verse
3. A semi-legendary dynasty of Danes, the kin of Scyld, who appear as a noble ruling family in the poem Beowulf

Etymology: Scyldings is the name the Old English poem Beowulf gives to the Danish royal house, the "descendants of Scyld." Scyld Scefing, the poem's founder-king, arrives as a foundling in a boat and is sent back out to sea as a funeral ship, which is why the name is tied to a figure whose own origin is mythic. The word is formed from "Scyld," a personal name, plus the Old English suffix "-ing," meaning "son of" or "people of," so it literally means something like "sons of Scyld." The name survives almost only in that poem and a few related Old English and Old Norse-derived traditions. Scyld's name itself is commonly linked to the Old English word "scild," meaning "shield," though the connection is a matter of interpretation rather than certainty. Because the form is preserved in a single major text, its wider history in English is thin, and most of what readers meet today is the poem's own usage.