Stockland, 1899
Chas. W. Whistler
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 one in England has heard.
Havelok the Dane men call him here, and that is how
he will always be known, as I think.
He being so well known, it is likely that some will
write down his doings, and, not knowing them save
by hearsay, will write them wrongly and in different
ways, whereof will come confusion, and at last none
will be believed. Wherefore, as he will not set
them down himself, it is best that I do so. Not
that I would have anyone think that the penmanship
is mine. Well may I handle oar, and fairly well
axe and sword, as is fitting for a seaman, but the
pen made of goose feather is beyond my rough grip
in its littleness, though I may make shift to use a
sail-needle, for it is stiff and straightforward in
its ways, and no scrawling goeth therewith.
Therefore my friend Wislac, the English priest, will
be the penman, having skill thereto. I would
have it known that I can well trust him to write even
as I speak, though he has full leave to set aside all
hard words and unseemly, such as a sailor is apt to
use unawares; and where my Danish way of speaking
goeth not altogether with the English, he may alter
the wording as he will, so long as the sense is always
the same. Then, also, will he read over to me
what he has written, and therefore all may be sure
that this is indeed my true story.
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Now, as it is needful that one begins at the beginning,
it happens that the first thing to be told is how
I came to be Havelok’s foster-brother, and that
seems like beginning with myself after all. But
all the story hangs on this, and so there is no help
for it.
If it is asked when this beginning might be, I would
say, for an Englishman who knows not the names of
Danish kings, that it was before the first days of
the greatness of Ethelbert of Kent, the overlord of
all England, the Bretwalda, and therefore, as Father
Wislac counts, about the year of grace 580. But
King Ethelbert does not come into the story, nor does
the overlord of all Denmark; for the kings of whom
I must speak were under-kings, though none the less
kingly for all that. One must ever be the mightiest
of many; and, as in England, there were at that time
many kings in Denmark, some over wide lands and others
over but small realms, with that one who was strong
enough to make the rest pay tribute to him as overlord,
and only keeping that place by the power of the strong
hand, not for any greater worth.
