at
forgotten fight remain in the Tetford valley, and Havelok is said to
have come to "Carleflure," which, being near Saltfleet, and on the road
to Tetford, may be Canton, where there is a strong camp of what is
apparently Danish type.

Those who can read with any comfort the crabbed Norman-French and Early
English poetic versions will see at once where I have added incidents
that may bring the story into a connected whole, as nearly as possible
on the old Saga lines; and those readers to whom the old romance is new
will hardly wish that I should pull the story to pieces again, to no
purpose so far as they are concerned. And, at least, for a fairly free
treatment of the subject, I have the authority of those previous authors
whom I have mentioned.

In the different versions, the founder of Grimsby is variously described
as a steward of the Danish king's castle, a merchant, a fisher, and in
the English poem---probably because it was felt that none other would
have undertaken the drowning of the prince---as a thrall. Another
version gives no account of the sack episode, but says that Grim finds
both queen and prince wandering on the shore. Grim the fisher is
certainly a historic character in his own town, and it has not been hard
to combine the various callings of the worthy foster-father of Havelok
and the troubles of both mother and son. A third local variant tells
that Havelok was found at Grimsby by the fisher adrift in an open boat;
and I have given that boat also a place in the story, in a different way.

The names of the kings are too far lost to be set back in their place in
history, but Professor Skeet gives the probable date of Havelok and Grim
as at the end of the sixth century, with a possible identification of
the former with the "governor of Lincoln" baptized by Paulinus. I have,
therefore, assumed this period where required. But a legend of this kind
is a romance of all time, and needs no confinement to date and place.
Briton and Saxon, Norman and Englishman, and maybe Norseman and Dane,
have loved the old story, and with its tale of right and love triumphant
it still has its own power.

Stockland, 1899

Chas. W. Whistler

CHAPTER I. GRIM THE FISHER AND HIS SONS.

This story is not about myself, though, because I tell of things that I
have seen, my name must needs come into it now and then. The man whose
deeds I would not have forgotten is my foster-brother, Havelok, of whom
I suppose every on