Havelok the Unlikely Hero

So, we left our hero a mere child at the mercy of the fisher-thrall Grim and his wife Leve.  Things were not looking good for him; he was bound and gagged (so he couldn't even try to save himself by appealing to their better natures, if any) and the couple were gloating over the bounty that was to come their way after killing him off.  Indeed, Leve handled him with particular roughness, throwing him on the floor, where his head hit a rock.  But Havelok started shining in the darkness, and the couple saw a sign on his shoulder, so they figured he was the Rightful Heir and threw their lot in with him.  Eventually, the family fled with Havelok when the usurper Godard feigned ignorance and disapproval of his prior instructions and promises to Grim.

Grim founds Grimsby and provides quite well for the family and Havelok; he is a good fisher of fish, as it were.  But after 12 years, it occurs to Havelok that maybe it's time for him to pitch and start contributing to the household:

Hauelok was war þat grim swank sore

For his mete, and he lay at hom:

Thouthe, “ich am nou no grom;

Ich am wel waxen, and wel may eten

More þan euere Grim may geten.

Ich ete more, bi god on liue,

Þan grim an hise children fiue!

It ne may nouth ben þus longe,

Goddot! y wile with þe gange,

For to leren sum god to gete;

Swinken ich wolde for mi mete.

It is no shame forto swinken;

Þe man þat may wel eten and drinken,

Þat nouth ne haue but on swink long,

To liggen at hom it is ful strong.

God yelde him þer i ne may,

Þat haueth me fed to þis day!

Gladlike i wile þe paniers bere;

Ich woth, ne shal it me nouth dere,

Þey þer be inne a birþene gret,

Al so heui als a neth.

Shal ich neuere lengere dwelle,

To morwen shal ich forth pelle.”

(ll. 788-810)

I'm not quite sure how old Havelok is at this time.  Godard confines him and his sisters in a tower for three years; when Godard criticizes their wailing, Havelok is the one who speaks for the group. Godard then slits the girls' throats while the brother stands watching; he kneels and begs for his life and promises to flee Denmark and give up all rights to the throne.   (Not very heroic, but he's a small child.)  Godard spares him for the moment, apparently briefly moved by pity, but then reaches out to Grim to kill the boy for him.

The roughly contemporareous French lay says Havelok is seven years old when Grim sees the boy's miraculous flame and flees with him.

Developmentally, I suppose a child younger than seven (possibly even a very mature four-year old) might have the ability to beg for his life and make suitable promises, but remember that Havelok has been imprisoned for three years.  Given the overall neglect and cruelty of their incarceration, it seems unlikely that he'd have had much opportunity to improve his vocabulary, rhetoric, etc.  So seven is probably Havelok's youngest plausible age in the poem at the time he's transfered to Grim's custody, because he could have mastered the necessary language skill basics by age four when he was imprisoned.

If so, he'd be 19 now at the time when his work ethic kicks in.

+++

Not long afterward, there's a famine in the land.  He goes off to Lincoln, clad in an old sail cloth (!), to survive.  After 2 days' involvuntary fasting, he answers a call for porters:

Hauelok shof dun nyne or ten,

Rith amidewarde þe fen,

And stirte forth to þe kok,

[Þer the herles mete he tok,]

Þat he bouthe at þe brigge:

Þe bermen let he alle ligge,

And bar þe mete to þe castel,

And gat him þere a ferþing wastel.

(ll. 871-78)

If I'm understanding this correctly, our hero gets the gig by shoving 9 or 10 of his rivals down into the mud and leaving them there.