wo oldest, as regards the actual
forms in which we have them, are capital examples of the more and less
original handling of "common-form" stories or motives. They were not
then, be it remembered, quite such common-form as now--the rightful heir
kept out of his rights, the usurper of them, the princess gracious or
scornful or both by turns, the quest, the adventure, the revolutions and
discoveries and fights, the wedding bells and the poetical justice on
the villain. Let it be remembered, too, if anybody is scornful of these
as _vieux jeu_, that they have never been really improved upon except by
the very obvious and unoriginal method common in clever-silly days, of
simply reversing some of them, of "turning platitudes topsy-turvy," as
not the least gifted, or most old-fashioned, of novelists, Tourguenief,
has it. Perhaps the oldest of all, _Havelok the Dane_--a story the age
of which from evidence both internal and external, is so great that
people have not quite gratuitously imagined a still older Danish or even
Anglo-Saxon original for the French romance from which our existing one
is undoubtedly taken--is one of the most spirited of all. Both hero and
heroine--Havelok, who should be King of Denmark and Goldborough, who
should be Queen of England--are ousted by their treacherous
guardian-viceroys as infants; and Havelok is doomed to drowning by his
tutor, the greater or at least bolder villain of the two. But the
fisherman Grim, who is chosen as his murderer, discovers that the child
has, at night, a _nimbus_ of flame round his head; renounces his crime
and escapes by sea with the child and his own family to Grimsby.
Havelok, growing up undistinguished from his foster-brethren, takes
service as a scullion with the English usurper. This usurper is seeking
how to rid himself of the princess without violence, but in some way
that will make her succession to the crown impossible, and Havelok
having shown prowess in sports is selected as the maiden's husband. She,
too, discovers his royalty at night by the same token; and the pair
regain their respective inheritances and take vengeance on their
respective traitors, in a lively and adventurous fashion. There are all
the elements of a good story in this: and they are by no means wasted or
spoilt in the actual handling. It is not a mere sequence of incident;
from the mixture of generosity and canniness in the fisherman who
ascertains that he is to have traitor's wages before h