Ingeld

Ingeld was so well known that, in 797, Alcuin wrote a letter to Bishop Higbald of Lindisfarne questioning the monks' interest in heroic legends with: 'Quid enim Hinieldus cum Christo?'

Scholars generally agree that these characters appear in both Anglo-Saxon (Beowulf) and Scandinavian tradition (Norse sagas and Danish chronicles).

[8] In a version given in the Danish chronicle Gesta Danorum (see below), the old warrior appears as Starkad, and he succeeded in making Ingeld divorce his bride and in turning him against her family.

[4] Earlier in the Beowulf poem, the poet tells us that the hall Heorot was eventually destroyed by fire[9] (Gummere's translation[10]): It is tempting to interpret the new war with Ingeld as leading to the burning of the hall of Heorot, but the poem separates the two events (by a ne wæs hit lenge þā meaning "nor far way was that day when", in Gummere's translation).

Haldan has a queen named Sigrith with whom he has three children: the sons Roas (Hroðgar) and Helgo (Halga) and the daughter Signy.

Ingjaldus, who is worried that his nephews would want revenge, tries to find them and kill them, but Roas and Helgo survive by hiding on an island near Skåne.

In this version, Ingeld's son is about to marry Hroðulf's sister Rute, but a fight starts and Agnar dies in a duel with Böðvarr Bjarki (called Biarco).

The second version in Gesta Danorum (book 6), concerns the adventures of Starkad, and which is based on the old warrior who restarted the conflict.

Name spellings are derived from Oliver Elton's 1905 translation, The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, via Wikisource.