Our king on the west coast of Denmark, where the story of Havelok the
Dane must needs begin, was Gunnar Kirkeban--so called because, being a
heathen altogether, as were we all in Denmark at that time, he had been
the bane of many churches in the western isles of Scotland, and in Wales
and Ireland, and made a boast thereof. However, that cruelty of his was
his own bane in the end, as will be seen. Otherwise he was a well-loved
king and a great warrior, tall, and stronger than any man in Denmark, as
was said. His wife, the queen, was a foreigner, but the fairest of
women. Her name was Eleyn, and from this it was thought that she came
from the far south. Certainly Gunnar had brought her back from
Gardariki,[2] whither he had gone on a trading journey
one year. Gunnar and she had two daughters and but one son, and that son
was Havelok, at this time seven years old.
Next to the king came our own lord, Jarl Sigurd, older than Gunnar, and
his best counsellor, though in the matter of sparing harmless and
helpless church folk his advice was never listened to. His hall was many
miles from the king's place, southward down the coast.
Here, too, lived my father, Grim, with us in a good house which had been
his father's before him. Well loved by Jarl Sigurd was Grim, who had
ever been his faithful follower, and was the best seaman in all the
town.
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