HAVELOK THE DANE, an Anglo-Danish romance. The hero, under the name of CUHERAN or CUARAN, was a scullion jongleur at the court of Edelsi (Alsi) or Godric, king of Lincoln and Lindsey. At the same court was brought up Argentille or Goldborough, the orphan daughter of Adelbrict, the Danish king of Norfolk, and his wife Orwain, Edelsi's sister ; and Edelsi, to humiliate his ward, married her to the scullion Cuaran. But, inspired by a vision, Cuaran and Goldborough set out for Grimsby, where Cuaran learned that Grim, his supposed father, was dead. His foster-sister, moreover, told him that his real name was Havelok, that he was the son of Gunter (or Birkabeyn), king of Denmark, and had been rescued by Grim, who though a poor fisherman was a noble in his own country, when Gunter perished by treason. The hero then wins back his own and Goldborough's kingdoms, punishing traitors and rewarding the faithful. The story exists in two French versions : as an interpolation between Geffrei Gaimar's Brut and his Estorie des Engles (c. 115o) and in the Anglo-Norman Lai d'Havelok (12th century). The English Havelok (c. 1300) is written in a Lincolnshire dialect and em bodies abundant local tradition. The name of Havelok (Habloc, Abloec, Abloyc) is said to correspond in Welsh to Anlaf or Olaf. The close similarity between the Havelok saga and the story of Hamlet (Amlethus), as told by Saxo Grammaticus, was pointed out long ago by Scandinavian scholars (see HAMLET). Part of the Havelok legend lingers in local tradition. Havelok destroyed his enemies in Denmark by casting down great stones upon them from the top of a tower, and Grim is said to have kicked three of the turrets from the church tower in his efforts to destroy the enemy's ships. John Weever (Ancient Funerall Monuments, p. 749, says that Grimsby merchants were free from toll in Elsinore through the interest of Havelok, the Danish prince ; and the com mon seal of the town of Grimsby represents Grim, with "Habloc" on his right hand and Goldborough on his left.
The unique English ms. of Havelok (Mss. Laud Misc. 108) in the Bodleian was edited for the Roxburghe club by Sir F. Madden in 1828. This edition contains the two French versions. There are subsequent editions by W. W. Skeat 0868) for the E. E. Text Society, by F. Holthausen (i 9oi) , and by W. W. Skeat and K. Sisam (1915) ; and a modern English version by Miss E. Hickey (1902) . Gaimar's text and the French lai are edited by Sir T. D. Hardy and C. F. Martin in Rerum Brit. med. aev. scriptores, vol. i. (1888) . See also the account of the saga by H. L. Ward (Cat. of Romances, i. ; for the identification of Havelok with Anlaf Curan see G. Storm, Englische Studien, iii. 533 (188o), a reprint of an earlier article; E. K. Putnam, The Lambeth Version of Havelok (Baltimore, 1900) .