'Ye need na leave your bridal gown,
For I'll make ye ladie o many a town.'
The story of Horn, of which this ballad gives little more than the catastrophe, is related at full in
I. 'King Horn,' a gest in about 1550 short verses, preserved in three manuscripts: the oldest regarded as of the second half of the 13th century, or older; the others put at 1300 and a little later. All three have been printed: (1.) By Michel, Horn et Rimenhild, p. 259 ff, Bannatyne Club, 1845; J. R. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1866; and in editions founded on Lumby's text, by Mätzner, Altenglische Sprachproben, p. 270 ff, and later by Wissmann, Quellen u. Forschungen, No 45. (2.) By Horstmann, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, 1872, L, 39 ff. (3.) By Ritson, A.E. Metrical Romanceës, II, 91 ff.
II. 'Horn et Rymenhild,' a romance in about 5250 heroic verses, preserved likewise in three manuscripts; the best in the Public Library of the University of Cambridge, and of the 14th century.
III. 'Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild,' from a manuscript of the 14th century, in not quite 100 twelve-line stanzas: Ritson, Metrical Romanceës, III, 282 ff; Michel, p. 341 ff.
Horn, in the old English gest, is son of Murry [Allof], king of Suddenne. He is a youth of extraordinary beauty, and has twelve comrades, of whom Athulf and Fikenild are his favorites. One day, as Murry was out riding, he came upon fifteen ships of Saracens, just arrived. The pagans slew the king, and insured themselves, as they thought, against Horn's future revenge by putting him and his twelve aboard a vessel without sail or rudder; but "the children" drove to shore, unhurt, on the coast of Westerness. The king, Ailmar, gave them a kind reception, and committed them to Athelbrus, his steward, to be properly brought up. Rymenhild, the king's daughter, fell in love with Horn, and having, with some difficulty, prevailed upon Athelbrus to bring him to her bower, offered herself to him as his wife. It were no fair wedding, Horn told her, between a thrall and a king,—a speech which hurt Rymenhild greatly; and Horn was so moved by her grief that he promised to do all she required, if she would induce the king to knight him. This was done the next day, and Horn at once knighted all his comrades. Rymenhild again sent for Horn, and urged him now to make her his wife. But Horn said he must first prove his knighthood: if he came back alive, he would then marry her. Upon this Rymenhild gave him a ring, set with stones of such virtue that he could never be slain if he looked on it and thought of his leman. The young knight had the good fortune to fall in immediately with a ship full of heathen hounds, and by the aid of his ring killed a hundred of the best of them. The next day he paid Rymenhild a visit, and found her drowned in grief on account of a bad dream. She had cast her net in the sea, and a great fish had broken it: she weened she should lose the fish that she would choose. Horn strove to comfort her, but could not conceal his apprehension that trouble was brewing. The fish proved to be Fikenild, Horn's much cherished friend. He told Ailmar of the intimacy with Rymenhild, and asserted that Horn meant to kill the king as well as marry the princess. Ailmar was very angry (v. 724, Wissmann), and much grieved, too. He found the youth in his daughter's bower, and ordered him to quit the land anon. Horn saddled his horse and armed himself, then went back to Rymenhild, and told her that he was going to a strange land for seven years: if, after that, he neither came nor sent word, she might take a husband. He sailed a good way eastward (v. 799) to Ireland, and, landing, met two princes, who invited him to take service with their father. The king, Thurston, welcomed him, and had soon occasion to employ him; for at Christmas came into court a giant, with a message from pagans newly arrived. They proposed that one of them should fight three Christians:
'If your three slay our one.
Let all this land be your own;
If our one oercomes your three,
All this land then ours shall be.'
Horn scorned to fight on such terms; he alone would undertake three of the hounds; and so he did. In the course of a hard fight it came out that these were the very heathen that had slain King Murry. Horn looked on his ring and thought on Rymenhild, then fell on his foes. Not a man of them escaped; but King Thurston lost many men in the fight, among them his two sons. Having now no heir, he offered Horn his daughter Reynild and the succession. Horn replied that he had not earned such a reward yet. He would serve the king further; and when he asked for his daughter, he hoped the king would not refuse her.
Seven years Horn stayed with King Thurston, and to Rymenhild neither sent nor went. A sorry time it was for her, and worst at the end, for King Modi of Reynis asked her in marriage, and her father consented. The wedding was to be in a few days. Rymenhild despatched messengers to every land, but Horn heard nothing, till one day, when he was going out to shoot, he encountered one of these, and learned how things stood. He sent word to his love not to be troubled; he would be there betimes. But, alas, the messenger was drowned on his way back, and Rymenhild, peering out of her door for a ray of hope, saw his body washed up by the waves. Horn now made a clean breast to Thurston, and asked for help. This was generously accorded, and Horn set sail for Westerness. He arrived not too early on the day of the wedding,—"ne might he come no later!"—left his men in a wood, and set off for Ailmar's court alone. He met a palmer, and asked his news. The palmer had come from a bridal; a wedding of maid Rymenhild, who wept and would not be married, because she had a husband, though he was out of the land. Horn changed clothes with the palmer, put on the sclavin, took scrip and staff, blackened his skin and twisted his lip, and presented himself at the king's gate. The porter would not let him in; Horn kicked open the wicket, threw the porter over the bridge, made his way into the hall, and sat down in the beggars' row. Rymenhild was weeping as if she were out of her wits, but after meat she rose to give all the knights and squires drink from a horn which she bare: such was the custom. Horn called to her:
'Skink us with the first,
The beggars ben athirst.'