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Turning back to the Saga of Rolf Kraki, we do find against that Danish setting a figure, that of the hero Bothvar Bjarki, bearing a very remarkable resemblance to Beowulf.

The equation of the modern Leire with the Leire of Rolf Kraki we may then accept.

This brings us to the second, serious difficulty: that, when we turn from the Saga of Rolf Kraki—belonging in its present form perhaps to the early fifteenth century—to the pages of Saxo Grammaticus, who tells the same tale more than two centuries earlier, the resemblance, instead of becoming stronger, almost vanishes.

Neither Saxo nor the Saga thinks of Hiarwarus as the cousin of Rolf Kraki: they do not make it really clear what the cause of his enmity was.

For none of the Scandinavian sources attribute any act of injustice or usurpation to Rolf Kraki.