‘And what is the law of England respecting a traitor?’ asked Havelok, when Goldborough had been proclaimed queen with trumpets and shouting.
‘That he be laid on an ass and burned at the stake,’ cried they. And this was done also.
After this, Havelok gave his two foster-sisters in marriage to great lords, and made the cook to whom he had owed his good fortune earl of Cornwall in place of the wicked Godrich. He left Ubbe to rule in Denmark, while he and Goldborough remained in England, but every two years he sailed across the sea to be sure that all went well in the country of his birth.
And for sixty years Havelok and Goldborough lived happily together and had many children, and wherever Havelok went, Goldborough went too.
[The Lay of Havelok the Dane. Early English Text Society.]
CUPID AND PSYCHE
Once upon a time there lived a king who had three daughters. The two elder girls were very fair, and many were their suitors, but the youngest was so beautiful that it was whispered in the city that the goddess Aphrodite was not her equal in loveliness, and as she walked through the streets men touched their foreheads, and bowed low to the ground, as if Aphrodite herself had passed by.
Now it was not long since the shepherd Paris had given the goddess the golden apple, in token that neither on the earth nor even on Olympus was a woman to be found as fair as she. And when she heard of the honours paid to Psyche, she rose up in her wrath and sent a winged messenger for Cupid, her son.