the most
British in tone of all the divisions of that Legend. _Havelok_ and
_Horn_ have yet further interest because of the curious contrast
between their oldest forms in more ways than one. _Havelok_ is an
English equivalent, with extremely strong local connections and
identifications, of the homelier passages of the French _chansons de
geste_. The hero, born in Denmark, and orphan heir to a kingdom, is to
be put away by his treacherous guardian, who commits him to Grim the
fisherman to be drowned. Havelok's treatment is hard enough even on
his way to the drowning; but as supernatural signs show his kingship
to Grim's wife, and as the fisherman, feigning to have performed his
task, meets with very scant gratitude from his employer, he resolves
to escape from the latter's power, puts to sea, and lands in England
at the place afterwards to be called from him Grimsby. Havelok is
brought up simply as a rough fisher-boy; but he obtains employment in
Lincoln Castle as porter to the kitchen, and much rough horse-play of
the _chanson_ kind occurs. Now it so happens that the heiress of
England, Goldborough, has been treated by her guardian with as much
injustice though with less ferocity; and the traitor seeks to crown
his exclusion of her from her rights by marrying her to the sturdy
scullion. When the two rights are thus joined, they of course prevail,
and the two traitors, after a due amount of hard fighting, receive
their doom, Godard the Dane being hanged, and Godric the Englishman
burnt at the stake. This rough and vigorous story is told in rough and
vigorous verse--octosyllabic couplets, with full licence in
shortening, but with no additional syllables except an occasional
double rhyme--in very sterling English, and with some, though slight,
traces of alliteration.

[Sidenote: King Horn.]

_Horn_ (_King Horn_, _Horn-Child and Maiden Rimnilde_, &c.) is
somewhat more courtly in its general outlines, and has less of the
folk-tale about it; but it also has connections with Denmark, and it
turns upon treachery, as indeed do nearly all the romances. Horn, son
of a certain King Murray, is, in consequence of a raid of heathen in
ships, orphaned and exiled in his childhood across the sea, where he
finds an asylum in the house of King Aylmer of Westerness. His love
for Aylmer's daughter Rimenhild and hers for him (he is the most
beautiful of men), the faithfulness of his friend Athulf (who has to
undergo the very trying experi