Ingeld or Ingjaldr (Old Norse: [ˈiŋɡjɑldz̠]) was a legendary warrior who appears in early English and Norse legends. 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?' - What has Ingeld to do with Christ?[1]
The legends that survive tell of Ingeld as an enemy of Hroðgar, Halga and Hroðulf. The conflict between the Scyldings Hroðgar and Hroðulf on one side, and the Heaðobards Froda and Ingeld on the other, appears both in Beowulf and in Widsith. Scholars generally agree that these characters appear in both Anglo-Saxon (Beowulf) and Scandinavian tradition (Norse sagas and Danish chronicles).[2] However, in the Norse tradition the Heaðobards had apparently been forgotten and the conflict is instead rendered as a family feud,[3] or as a conflict with the Saxons, where the Danes take the place of the Heaðobards.[4]
- ^ Mitchell, Bruce, et al. Beowulf: An Edition with Relevant Shorter Texts. Oxford, UK: Malden Ma., 1998. p. 225
- ^ Shippey, T. A.: Wicked Queens and Cousin Strategies in Beowulf and Elsewhere, Notes and Bibliography. In The Heroic Age Issue 5 Summer 2001. Archived 2014-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf by Olson, 1916, at Project Gutenberg
- ^ The article Starkad in Nordisk familjebok (1909).