According to the _Hrólfssaga_, Bjarki killed a dragon. As Beaw in one account occupies the same position in the royal line as Frothi in another and Beowulf, the Dane, in a third, Boer thinks that Bjarki's exploit and Frothi's exploit are the same one and that to Beowulf, the Dane, the same exploit was also once attributed. In Saxo's account, Bjarki is a king's retainer; and Boer thinks his exploit has been differentiated from that of Frothi, who is a king. In _Beowulf_, he thinks, the exploit has been transferred from Beowulf, the Danish king, to Beowulf, the Geat, and that the differentiation of the deed into two exploits has been retained--Beowulf, as a king's retainer, slaying Grendel, and later, as a king, killing a dragon. This identifies Bjarki's slaying of the winged monster with Beowulf's slaying of Grendel. In Saxo's account of Bjarki, Boer thinks that the dragon has been stripped of its wings and changed to a bear.[16] Finnur Jónsson regards the story in the _Hrólfssaga_ of Bjarki's slaying the winged monster as a reflection, though a feeble one, of the Grendel story in _Beowulf_.[17] Axel Olrik, who, more extensively than any other writer, has entered into the whole matter, of which the problems here under consideration form a part, does not think there is any connection between _Beowulf_ and the _Hrólfssaga_.[18] He regards the stories in the _Bjarkarímur_ of Bjarki's slaying the wolf and Hjalti's slaying the bear as earlier compositions than the corresponding story in the _Hrólfssaga._[19] The addition of "Bothvar" to Bjarki's name he thinks was acquired among the Scandinavians in the north of England,[20] where the Bjarki story, by contact with the story of Siward, Earl of Northumberland, acquired the further addition of Bjarki's reputed bear-ancestry.[21] The stories in the _Grettissaga_, _Flateyjarbók_, and _Egilssaga_ to which counterparts are found in _Beowulf_, he believes to have been acquired by contact either with the Beowulf legend or, perhaps, with the Anglo-Saxon epic itself.[22] Finnur Jónsson thinks that the stories in the _Bjarkarímur_ of Bjarki's slaying the wolf and Hjalti's slaying the bear are later compositions than the story in the _Hrólfssaga_ of Bjarki's slaying the winged monster, and supports this opinion by maintaining that the monster in the saga is a reminiscence, though altered and faded, of Grendel in _Beowulf_.[23] Sarrazin regards the cowardly, useless Hott, Bjarki's companion, as a personification of the sword Hrunting, which fails Beowulf in his fight with Grendel's mother. But Hjalti, as Hott is called after he has become brave and strong, he regards as a personification of the giant-sword with which Beowulf dispatches Grendel's mother. Sarrazin would also identify the giant-sword, which is said to have a golden hilt (gylden hilt), with the sword Gullinhjalti in the _Hrólfssaga_.[24]