Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln.

By Charles W. Whistler



PREFACE.

If any excuse is needed for recasting the ancient legend of Grim the
fisher and his foster-son Havelok the Dane, it may be found in the
fascination of the story itself, which made it one of the most popular
legends in England from the time of the Norman conquest, at least, to
that of Elizabeth. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries it
seems to have been almost classic; and during that period two full
metrical versions---one in Norman-French and the other in English---
were written, besides many other short versions and abridgments, which
still exist. These are given exhaustively by Professor Skeat in his
edition of the English poem for the Early English Text Society, and it
is needless to do more than refer to them here as the sources from which
this story is gathered.

These versions differ most materially from one another in names and
incidents, while yet preserving the main outlines of the whole history.
It is evident that there has been a far more ancient, orally-preserved
tradition, which has been the original of the freely-treated poems and
concise prose statements of the legend which we have. And it seems
possible, from among the many variations, and from under the disguise of
the mediaeval forms in which it has been hidden, to piece together what
this original may have been, at least with some probability.