Scylding

The Scyldings (OE Scyldingas) or Skjǫldungs (ON Skjǫldungar), both meaning "descendants of Scyld/Skjǫldr", were, according to legends, a clan or dynasty of Danish kings, that in its time conquered and ruled Denmark and Sweden together with part of England, Ireland and North Germany.

[1] The name is explained in many texts, such as Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann's 'Research on the Field of History' (German: Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte),[2] 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.

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 wheat.

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.

Snorri Sturluson adopted this tradition in his Prologue to the Prose Edda, giving Old Norse forms for some of the names.

According to Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum (Book 1), Skjöld was succeeded by a son named Gram.