Some of these tales came to us, no doubt, from the Danes.  They were brought from over the sea by the fierce Northmen, who were, after all, akin to the Normans.  The Normans made them into French stories, and the English turned them back into English.

Perhaps one of the most interesting of these Metrical Romances is that of Havelok the Dane.

The poem begins with a few lines which seem meant to call the people together to listen:—­

    “Hearken to me, good men,
    Wives, maidens, and all men,
    To a tale that I will tell to
    Who so will hear and list thereto.”

We can imagine the minstrel as he stands in some market-place, or in some firelit hall, touching his harp lightly as he sings the words.  With a quick movement he throws back his long green cloak, and shows his gay dress beneath.  Upon his head he wears a jaunty cap, and his hair is long and curled.  He sings the opening lines perhaps more than once, in order to gather the people round him.  Then, when the eager crowd sit or stand about him, he begins his lay.  It is most probably in a market-place that the minstrel stands and sings.  For Havelok the Dane was written for the people and not for the great folk, who still spoke only French.

    “There was a king in byegone days
    That in his time wrought good laws,
    He did them make and full well hold,
    Him loved young, him loved old,
    Earl and baron, strong man and thane,
    Knight, bondman and swain,
    Widows, maidens, priests and clerks
    And all for his good works.”

If you will compare this poetry with that of Layamon, you will see that there is something in it quite different from his.  This no longer rests, as that does, upon accent and alliteration, but upon rhyme.  The English, too, in which it is written, is much more like the English of to-day.  For Havelok was written perhaps a hundred years after Layamon’s Brut.  These are the first lines as they are in the MS.:—­

    “Herknet to me gode men
    Wiues maydnes and alle men
    Of a tale pat ich you wile telle
    Wo so it wile here and yerto dwelle.”

That, you see, except for curious spelling, is not very unlike our English of to-day, although it is fair to tell you that all the lines are not so easy to understand as these are.

Chapter XVII THE STORY OF HAVELOK THE DANE

THE good king of whom we read in the last chapter was called Athelwold, and the poet tells us that there were happy days in England while he reigned.  But at length he became sick unto death.  Then was he sore grieved, because he had no child to sit upon the throne after him save a maiden very fair.  But so young was she that she could neither “go on foot nor speak with mouth.”  So, in this grief and trouble, the King wrote to all his nobles, “from Roxburgh all unto Dover,” bidding them come to him.