Material is lacking to prove the historical truth of the Teutonic traditions which point to Scandinavia as the cradle of the Teutonic tribes. But Jordanes, the first historian of Teutonic birth who speaks of Scandinavia, stands at the cradle of Swedish history, and, as a modern historian has expressed it, his shadow throws an umbrage across the whole field of Swedish historical research. The mistake, based upon Jordanes’ history, of identifying the Swedish Gauts with the Goths has caused a great deal of mischief and ridiculous chauvinism, Gothic and Swedish history and royal lines being mixed up or put in connection with each other. In leaving aside the Teutonic traditions of the island of Scandza, or Scania, as the cradle of the race, let us quote a remark by Tacitus which seems to point to the conclusion that such traditions were current already in the first century of the Christian era: “I should think that the Teutons themselves are aborigines, and not at all mixed through immigrations or connections with non-Teutonic tribes. For those desiring to change homes did not in early times come by land, but in ships across the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean--a sea seldom visited by ships from the Roman world.” The Old English poem of Beowulf must also be mentioned among the sources which throw light on early Swedish history. Whether the Geátas of Beowulf are identical with the Jutes of Denmark, or with the Gauts of Sweden, is a much disputed question. Although, phonetically, the Old English name Geátas corresponds to the Old Swedish _Gautar_, it seems most plausible to suppose that by this term is meant the Jutes, and not the inhabitants of Swedish West or East Gothland. This accepted, the poem does not contain much about the Swedes. But the information, therein given, of the Swedish kings is of great value, because it renders the service of a firm chronological support to the facts gathered from another source. This source, of vastly greater importance, is the Ynglinga Saga, or rather the poem around which it is spun, in Heimskringla, of which more in the next chapter.