Editing Sif (section)

=== ''Beowulf'' ===

In [[Old English]], ''sib'' ("family") is cognate with Old Norse ''Sif'' and ''sif''. In the Old English poem ''[[Beowulf]]'' (lines 2016 to 2018), [[Hroðgar]]'s wife, [[Wealhþeow]], moves through the hall serving mead to the warriors and defusing conflict. Various scholars beginning with [[Magnus Olsen]] have pointed to the similarity with what Sif does at the feast described in ''[[Lokasenna]]''.<ref name="BAKER153">{{harvcoltxt|Baker|1994|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vvsnR9yba7gC&dq=Sif+Beowulf&pg=PA153 153, n. 72]}}</ref><ref name="ENRIGHT15">{{harvcoltxt|Enright|1996|p=15}}</ref> [[Richard S. North|Richard North]] further notes that unusually, ''sib'' is personified here and in lines 2599 to 2661, and suggests they may be references to Sif in Danish religion: "Both instances may indicate that the poet of ''Beowulf'' was in a position to imagine a sixth-century Scandinavia on the basis of his knowledge of contemporary Danish legends."<ref name="NORTH235-236">North (1998:235–236, n. 126).</ref>