Scyld and Scef is the first comprehensive study of these heroic figures of Germanic legend, featured in much of the literature of the Middle Ages, including Beowulf, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Edda. The authors argue that this duo represent a way that medieval Germanic peoples defined themselves in their literature. Divided into two sections, this volume explores the specific cultures from which Scyld and Scef rose and the forty-one manuscripts in which they appear.