Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Alexander Bell

Critical Essay by Alexander Bell

SOURCE: "The Single Combat in the L 'ai d'Havelok," in Modern Language Review, Vol. XIII, No. 1, January, 1923, pp. 22-8.

In the following essay, Bell discusses the relationship of the L'ai d'Haveloc to Gaimar's account of the story, particularly concerning the battle between Haveloc and Odulf.

The suggestion has been made in a recent number of this Review¹ that the account of the meeting of Canute and Edmund Ironside at Olney, given by Henry of Huntingdon and others, is not due primarily to a simple misunderstanding of the phrase 'comon togædere' of the A.S. Chr. s.a. 1016; that a tradition of an earlier and equally decisive single combat was a predisposing factor in the choice of the hostile rather than the friendly sense of the phrase; and that this tradition is to be sought amongst those which had gathered round the historical and romantic figure of Anlaf-Haveloc. Though the...
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