Editing Sceafa (section)

===A rite involving ''scyld'' and ''sceaf''===
A connection between sheaf and shield appears in the 13th century ''Chronicon de Abingdon'' which relates a dispute over ownership of a river meadow named Beri between the Abbot of [[Abingdon, England|Abingdon]] and the men of [[Oxfordshire]]. The dispute was decided by a ritual in which the monks placed a sheaf (''sceaf'') of wheat on a [[Targe|round shield]] (''scyld'') and a wax candle upon the sheaf which they lit. They then floated the shield with sheaf and candle on the [[Thames]] river to see where it would go. The shield purportedly kept to the middle of the Thames until it arrived at the disputed field, which was then an island because of flooding, whereupon it changed its course and entirely circled the meadow between the Thames and the [[Iffley]].