Onela was, according to Beowulf, a Swedish king, the son of Ongentheow and the brother of Ohthere. He usurped the Swedish throne, but was killed by his nephew Eadgils, who won by hiring foreign assistance.
In Scandinavian sagas a Norwegian king by the same name exists, Áli (the Old Norse form of Onela, also rendered as Ole, Åle or Ale), who had the cognomen hinn Upplenzki ("from Oppland").
Wiglaf (Proto-Norse: *Wīgalaibaz, meaning "battle remainder"; Old English: Wīġlāf [ˈwiːjlɑːf]) is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. He is the son of Weohstan, a Swede of the Wægmunding clan who had entered the service of Beowulf, king of the Geats. Wiglaf is called Scylfing as a metonym for Swede, as the Scylfings were the ruling Swedish clan. While in the service of the Scylfing Onela, king of the Swedes, Weohstan killed the rebel prince Eanmund and took his sword as a trophy; Wiglaf later inherited it. Weohstan belonged to the clan of the Wægmundings, the same clan Beowulf's father Ecgþeow belonged to; so Wiglaf is Beowulf's distant cousin, and his only living relative at the time of Beowulf's death.
Scholars have proposed various interpretations of Wiglaf's role in the poem, but agree that he is important, and that he was Beowulf's nephew, a key relationship in heroic tales of the period.
Eadgils, Adils, Aðils, Adillus, Aðísl at Uppsölum, Athisl, Athislus or Adhel was a semi-legendary king of Sweden, who is estimated to have lived during the 6th century.
Beowulf and Old Norse sources present him as the son of Ohthere and as belonging to the ruling Yngling (Scylfing) dynasty. These sources also deal with his war against Onela, which he won with foreign assistance: in Beowulf he gained the throne of Sweden by defeating his uncle Onela with Geatish help, and in two Scandinavian sources (Skáldskaparmál and Skjöldunga saga), he is also helped to defeat Onela in the Battle on the Ice of Lake Vänern, but with Danish help. However, Scandinavian sources mostly deal with his interaction with the legendary Danish king Hrólfr Kraki (Hroðulf), and Eadgils is mostly presented in a negative light as a rich and greedy king. Snorri Sturluson, who documented many of the Scandinavian traditions, reported that the Swedes called him a "great king".