A story of this kind necessarily involves a certain amount of violent action, and in the original poem this violence is described fairly graphically.

Serraillier reduces the violence but without sapping the narrative of its necessary vigor. The most violent scene occurs when Havelok and his companions, spending the night at the home of Bernard Brun, must fend off the attack of a large band of ruffians. In the original version this gory scene is described in some detail, but in Serraillier's version the description is limited to little more than cracked skulls and broken ribs.