King Horn

(ca. 1250–1300)

   King Horn is probably the earliest surviving verse ROMANCE in MIDDLE ENGLISH. It consists of 1,544 very short, mainly three-stress lines in the form of couplets. Scholars in the past have dated the poem to about 1225, but more recent scholarship has suggested that more likely the poem was produced in the later 13th century, somewhere in the southern West Midlands. It is possible that the poem is based on an Anglo-Norman source: The rhymes suggest the influence of Norman French BALLAD meter, and there is an Anglo-Norman poem called Horn et Rimenhild that follows roughly the same plot as King Horn. Most scholars, however, believe that King Horn is based on a source that predates the Norman text. It has also been suggested that the meter of King Horn, which depends on strong stresses rather than measured syllables, is more closely related to English ALLITERATIVE VERSE. As with other early Middle English romances such as HAVELOK and BEVIS OF HAMPTON, King Horn derives from the folk traditions of the English people who survived the Norman Conquest, and therefore is part of what is called the “matter of England.” The story of King Horn is essentially same as that of the later—and generally inferior—romance HORN CHILDE. Here, Horn, son of the King of Suddene, is set adrift as a child by the Saracens who killed his father. He ends up in the kingdom of Westernesse (in northern England), where he is raised in the household of King Aylmer and where the king’s daughter, Rymenhild, falls in love with him. The lovers are betrayed by Horn’s friend Fikenhild, who reveals their affair to the king and claims that Horn is plotting to murder Aylmer. In consequence, Horn is exiled to Ireland. Here, he accomplishes marvelous feats of arms against invading Saracens, and is offered the hand of Reynild, daughter of King Thurston of Ireland— but Horn cannot forget Rymenhild. After seven years he returns to Westernesse, where Rymenhild is about to be forced to marry King Mody. Horn, in disguise, makes himself known to Rymenhild and then kills the would-be husband, and confronts King Aylmer, announcing that he will be back to claim Rymenhild after he has won back his own kingdom of Suddene. Horn goes off and defeats the Saracens, who killed his father, thus winning back his kingdom. When he returns to Westernesse for Rymenhild, he finds that once again she is about to be married, this time to the treasonous Fikenhild. Horn kills the traitor and marries his faithful love, Rymenhild. Meanwhile Reynild, the Irish princess, marries Horn’s faithful companion Athulf, and the romance ends on a happy note.

   As in many romances, the chief theme of the poem seems to be the development and maturity of Horn himself, his quest being essentially a quest for his own identity, established when at last he reclaims his birthright. The poem is told in a direct manner with a straightforward and symmetrical structure and a number of parallel episodes, without the digressions that often characterized earlier French romances that may have served as models for the poem. Nor does the poet make use of the conventions of COURTLY LOVE so common in French poetry, choosing instead to depict his heroine as a flesh-and-blood woman with natural desires. The Saracen villains no doubt are inspired by the crusading milieu of the 13th century, but their piracy in Ireland and England suggest that in the original tradition the villains may have been Vikings.

   King Horn is significant in its preservation of native English literary traditions as it introduces the newer continental genre into English letters. It seems a poem to appeal to popular rather than courtly tastes, and thus seems an ancestor of the rhymed romances of the 14th century.

   Bibliography

   ■ Allen, Rosamund S. “The Date and Provenance of King Horn: Some Interim Reassessments,” in Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane. Edited by Edward Donald Kennedy, Ronald Waldron, and Joseph S.Wittig. Suffolk, U.K.: St. Edmundsburg Press, 1988, 99–126.

   ■ ———, ed. King Horn. New York: Garland Medieval Texts, 1984.

   ■ French,Walter H. Essays on King Horn. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1940.

   ■ Hearn, Matthew. “Twins of Infidelity: The Double Antagonists of King Horn,”Medieval Perspectives 8 (1993): 78–86.

   ■ Hynes-Berry, Mary. “Cohesion in King Horn and Sir Orfeo,” Speculum 50 (1975): 652–670.

   ■ Scott, Anne. “Plans, Predictions, and Promises: Traditional Story Techniques and the Configuration of Word and Deed in King Horn.” In Studies in Medieval English Romances: Some New Approaches, 37–68. Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 1988.

   ■ Speed,Diane.“The Saracens of King Horn,” Speculum 65 (1990): 564–595.