Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln

by Charles W. Whistler

“Call the place a town at once,” answered my father, laughing also. “Grimsby has a good sound to a homeless man.”

So Grimsby the place has been from that day forward, and, as I suppose, will be now to the end of time. But for a while there was only the one house that we built of the timbers and planks of our ship by the side of the haven—a good house enough for a fisher and his family, but not what one would look for from the name.

By the time that was built Havelok was himself again, though he had been near to his death. Soon he waxed strong and rosy in the sea winds, and out-went Withelm both in stature and strength. But it seemed that of all that had happened he remembered naught, either of the storm, or of his mother’s death, or of the time of Hodulf. My mother thought that the sickness had taken away his memory, and that it might come back in time. But from the day we came to the house on the shore he was content to call Grim and Leva father and mother, and ourselves were his brothers, even as he will hold us even now. Yet my father would never take him with us to the fishing, as was right, seeing who he was and what might lie before him. Nor did he ever ask to go, as we had asked since we were able to climb into the boat as she lay on the shore; and we who knew not who he was, and almost forgot how he came to us, ceased to wonder at this after a while; and it seemed right that he should be the home-stayer, as if there must needs be one in every household.

Nevertheless he was always the foremost in all our sports, loving the weapon play best of all, so that it was no softness that kept him from the sea. I hold that the old saw that says, “What is bred in the bone cometh out in the flesh,” is true, and never truer than in the ways of Havelok.

For it is not to be thought that because my father went back perforce to the fisher’s calling he forgot that the son of Gunnar Kirkeban should be brought up always in such wise that when the time came he should be ready to go to the slayer of his father, sword in hand, and knowing how to use it. Therefore both Havelok and we were trained always in the craft of the warrior.

Witlaf the thane was right when he said that men would draw to the place if we prospered, and it was not so long before the name that had been a jest at first was so no longer. Truly we had hard times at first, for our one ship’s boat was all unfitted for the fishing; but the Humber teemed with fish, and there were stake nets to be set that need no boat. None seemed to care for taking the fish but ourselves, for the English folk had no knowledge of the riches to be won from the sea, and the eels of the river were the best that they ever saw. So they were very ready to buy, and soon the name of Grim the fisher was known far and wide in Lindsey, for my father made great baskets of the willows of the marsh, and carried his burden of fish through the land, alone at first, until we were able to help him, while Arngeir and we minded the nets.

Only two of our men stayed here with us, being fishers and old comrades of my father. The rest he bade find their way home to Denmark to their wives and children, from the Northumbrian coast, or else take service with the king, Ethelwald, who ruled in East Anglia, beyond the Wash, who, being a Dane by descent from the Jutes who took part with Angles and Saxons in winning this new land, was glad to have Danish men for his housecarls. Some went to him, and were well received there, as we knew long afterwards.

The man who had been washed overboard and hauled back at risk of his neck was one of these. His name was Mord, and he would have stayed with us; but my father thought it hard that he should not have some better chance than we could give him here, for it was not easy to live at first. Somewhat of the same kind he said to Arngeir, for he had heard of this king when he had been in the king’s new haven in the Wash some time ago. But Arngeir would by no means leave the uncle who had been as a father to him.

Now when we marked out the land that Witlaf gave us, there was a good omen. My father set the four blue altar stones at each corner of the land as the boundaries, saying that thus they would hallow all the place, rather than make an altar again of them here where there was no grove to shelter them, or, indeed, any other spot that was not open, where a holy place might be. And when we measured the distances between them a second time they were greater than at first, which betokens the best of luck to him whose house is to be there. I suppose that they will bide in these places now while Grimsby is a town, for, as every one knows, it is unlucky to move a boundary stone.

Soon my father found a man who had some skill in the shipwright’s craft, and brought him to our place from Saltfleet. Then we built as good a boat as one could wish, and, not long after that, another. But my father was careful that none of the Lindsey folk whom he had known should think that this fisher was the Grim whom they had once traded with, lest word should go to Hodulf in any way.