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