^{Note 1 in page 1} The present paper has grown out of a report made by the writer to the course on Early English Metrical Romances, given at Harvard University in the spring of 1899 by Professor George Lyman Kittredge, to whom thanks are due for valuable suggestions and advice.

^{Note 2 in page 1} The Lambeth version, frequently referred to as the Interpolation, is printed by Madden in his edition of Havelok for the Roxburghe Club, London, 1828, pp. xvii-xix, and again by Skeat in his reprint for the Early English Text Society, London, 1868, pp. xi-xiii. In neither case are the lines numbered, but the passage is so short that the references to lines need cause no trouble. A description of the rather interesting variations in the allusions to Havelok contained in Langtoft and Mannyng will be found in Madden, pp. xi-xix, and in Skeat, pp. v, ix-xiii. See also H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances, Vol. i, London, 1883, pp. 442-443.

^{Note 1 in page 1} Max Kupferschmidt: “Die Haveloksage bei Gaimar und ihr Verhältniss zum Lai d'Havelok,” in Böhmer's Romanische Studien, Vol. iv, pp. 411-430 (1880). On page 430, he says: “Dass die Interpolation in der Lambeth copy der Uebersetzung von Peter von Langtofts Chronik durch Robert of Brunne aus Gaimars Darstellung der Haveloksage geschöpft ist, hat schon Sir Fr. Madden gezeigt.”

^{Note 1 in page 3} There is a slight confusion here, there being no antecedent for the pronoun “they.” A comparison with the other versions shows that Aunger and his wife are probably meant.

^{Note 1 in page 5} References to the French versions of Havelok are to the edition of Gaimar in the Rolls Series, London, 1888.

^{Note 1 in page 6} “Pescher aloit si com il soloit.”—Lay, 135.

^{Note 2 in page 6} Lamb. 30, Gaimar 51.

^{Note 3 in page 6} Lamb. 34, Gaimar 75.

^{Note 4 in page 6} Lay 198, 201.

^{Note 5 in page 6} Gaimar 359-454, 575-628. Lines 505-528 are related by the author, but merely as an incidental explanation.

^{Note 1 in page 9} An example of such confusion occurs in the abridgment of Havelok in Thomas Gray's Scala Cronica, the passage being reprinted in Madden, pp. xxxiv-xxxv. Gray failed to recognize that Havelok and Cuaran were the same person.

^{Note 1 in page 9} Kupferschmidt's investigation, already referred to, must be regarded as settling the fact that Gaimar and the Lay had a common source written in French octosyllabic rimed couplets. Ward appears not to have read Kupferschmidt. His attempt to derive the Lay directly from Gaimar cannot be accepted. Every one of his six arguments can be used with equal force in favor of a common source for Gaimar and the Lay. Ward, Catalogue of Romances, Vol. i, 437-440. With the exception of Madden, who thought Gaimar had merely abridged the Lay, and of Ward, practically every investigator has concluded that the two extant French versions had a common source. The early writers assumed this to have been a “Breton lay;” but the later ones have realized that this source must have been a lost French version.

It would be very hard to defend the possibility that the lost French version was derived from Gaimar, and became in turn the source of both the Lay and the Interpolation. There are too many points in which the Lay and the Interpolation, one or both, point back to a form of the story earlier than Gaimar. Kupferschmidt has mentioned some of these and might have added the narration of the early events in Denmark and Grimsby, the marriage of Cuaran and Argentine, and the opposition thereto, and Havelok's finding Grim and his wife dead when he returns with his bride. Gaimar constantly gives the impression of having been condensed from an original, and in one instance at least this seems to have resulted in confusion. Sigar, in reassuring Havelok the morning after the attack by the six youths, says:

Kore vus aim plus ke ne fis hier

Quant vus asis a mon manger.

Gaimar, 669-670.

“I love you now more than I did yesterday when I placed you at my table.” But Gaimar makes no mention whatever of Sigar's placing Havelok at his table the preceding day and the allusion cannot well be explained unless it is assumed that Gaimar had an original in which there was some such mention. The Lay (lines 675-694) does tell about the entertainment of Havelok at dinner on the preceding day, an incident also found in the English romance (lines 1660-1745). This is additional evidence for the lost original of Gaimar and the Lay, and for a relationship between this lost version and the English romance.

Dr. W. H. Schofield suggests that the probable date of this lost version seems to be established by the references to Arthur in Gaimar, the Lay and the Interpolation. In each case the reference stands in connection with an invasion of Denmark to demand or collect tribute. This must have been in the lost version, which therefore could not have been written before Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, and which must have been written before Gaimar. This leaves 1136 and 1150 as the outside dates, with the probabilities in favor of a middle point, somewhere between 1140 and 1145. This mention of Arthur furnishes new evidence for the immediate popularity of Geoffrey.

^{Note 1 in page 12} There are also two minor points in which the Interpolation agrees with the English romance. (1) It is said in the Interpolation that while Havelok is at the court all the folk love him (line 44). The English writer says that knights, children, young and old, all love him (lines 955-958). (2) According to the Lambeth version Edelsi hears that Havelok has come to the coast (line 75). In the English, Godrich. hears that Havelok has come into England (lines 2531-2547). In the French versions nothing is said about the usurper's hearing of the return of Havelok before he sends his defiance.

^{Note 1 in page 13} This duplication of events was suggested by G. Wittenbrinck, in a dissertation, Zur Kritik und Rhythmik des altenglischen Lais von Havelok dem Dänem, Burgsteinfurt, 1891, p. 5.

^{Note 1 in page 14} As Kupferschmidt has suggested, additional light may be thrown on the lost version, by the Havelok episode in the Brute, but in view of the possible contamination with the English version, indicated by the name Birkabeyn, it is not here considered.

^{Note 1 in page 15} The tradition that the English version is derived from the Lay goes back to Madden, but even Madden seems to admit the possibility that an earlier form of the story was used as a source by both the Lay and the English romance.—Madden, p. viii. Ward (Catalogue of Romances, p. 440) says the English romance represents a popular development of the legend, but that its writer must have been acquainted with the Lay. This last statement is made neeessary by Ward's unsatisfactory attempt to prove that the Lay is nothing but an expansion of Gaimar. See also ten Brink, History of English Literature, to Wyclif, translated by Kennedy, New York, 1883, pp. 150, 181, 232-234; Kupferschmidt, Romanische Studien, Vol. iv, 430; Gaston Paris, Romania, ix, 480; Körting, Grundriss der Geschichte der Eng. Lit., 2nd edition, pp. 98-99; Wohlfeil, The Lay of Havelok the Dane, a dissertation, Leipsic, 1890, p. 12.