f an old one, which
was more likely to make popular appeal when connected with his name.
The references to the goddess Ishtar, and Sargon's early life as a
gardener, suggest that the king desired to be remembered as an
agricultural Patriarch, if not of divine, at any rate of semi-divine
origin.

What appears to be an early form of the widespread Tammuz myth is the
Teutonic legend regarding the mysterious child who came over the sea
to inaugurate a new era of civilization and instruct the people how to
grow corn and become great warriors. The Northern peoples, as
archaeological evidence suggests, derived their knowledge of
agriculture, and therefore their agricultural myths, from the
Neolithic representatives of the Mediterranean race with whom they
came into contact. There can be no doubt but that the Teutonic legend
refers to the introduction of agriculture. The child is called "Scef"
or "Sceaf", which signifies "Sheaf", or "Scyld, the son of Sceaf".
Scyld is the patriarch of the Scyldings, the Danes, a people of mixed
origin. In the Anglo-Saxon _Beowulf_ poem, the reference is to
"Scyld", but Ethelweard, William of Malmesbury, and others adhered to
"Sceaf" as the name of the Patriarch of the Western Saxons.

The legend runs that one day a boat was seen approaching the shore; it
was not propelled by oars or sail. In it lay a child fast asleep, his
head pillowed upon a sheaf of grain. He was surrounded by armour,
treasure, and various implements, including the fire-borer. The child
was reared by the people who found him, and he became a great
instructor and warrior and ruled over the tribe as king. In _Beowulf_
Scyld is the father of the elder Beowulf, whose grandson Hrothgar
built the famous Hall. The poem opens with a reference to the
patriarch "Scyld of the Sheaf". When he died, his body, according to
the request he had made, was laid in a ship which was set adrift:

Upon his breast lay many treasures which were to travel with him
into the power of the flood. Certainly they (the mourners)
furnished him with no less of gifts, of tribal treasures, than
those had done who, in his early days, started him over the sea
alone, child as he was. Moreover, they set besides a
gold-embroidered standard high above his head, and let the flood
bear him--gave him to the sea. Their soul was sad, their spirit
sorrowful. Who received that load, men, chiefs of council, heroes
under heaven, cannot