The Real Story of Hamlet, by Gråulf

I was poking around, looking for some information about the history of Roskilde, Denmark, and found some passages from Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish historian who wrote a history of Denmark at the time of Bishop Absalon. It all looked familiar, and I realized the old-fashioned history book I studied in school was Denmark’s history according to Saxo.

One of the stories I remember reading in that old history book is the real legend of Hamlet, which Shakespeare stole from Saxo, and made into his own sissy story about a nutty prince. According to Saxo, Geryendill was king of Jutland, and was succeeded by his sons Horvendill and Feng. Horvendill distinguished himself in battle, winning the enmity of his brother, who had Geryendill murdered. Feng then married his brother’s widow, whose name was Gerutha. Geryendill and Gerutha had a young son whose name was Amleth, who was old enough to figure out that his uncle had it in for him, and that he was likely to share his father’s fate. Amleth therefore pretended to be a harmless idiot, and sat all day in the ashes of the kitchen fire, muttering to himself while whittling wooden hooks and sharpened stakes, which he hardened in the fire. Uncle Feng was suspicious of the dirty little urchin, and Saxo delights in recounting all the sneaky tricks Feng tried to trip Amleth up, and get him to reveal that he was not as stupid as he let on. Amleth was to smart for him, but Feng was not assured, and eventually sent Amleth of to Britain in company of two trusted attendants, who bore a rune stick asking the king of that country to put him to death. Amleth knew that the king of Britain and Feng were old pals, and guessed that he was not being sent on this trip for his health, so he found the rune stick while the attendants slept, and altered the runes to read that he should marry the king’s daughter, and the two attendants should be put to death. Amleth returned to Denmark at the end of a year, and arrived in time for a funeral feast, held to celebrate his untimely death. Hamlet rolled in the ashes of the kitchen fire, and put his grubby clothes back on, and acted the total idiot while he encouraged his uncle’s retinue to drink a lot of mjød. When everyone was good and drunk he pulled the woolen tapestries off the wall, and fastened them together over the drunks with his wooden hooks, and then he pegged everything down with the sharpened pegs he had made as a child. That done, he said goodnight to his uncle by running a sword through his belly, and as he left the hall he threw a match over his shoulder setting fire to the alcohol drenched drunks. The next morning Amleth told the assembled multitude who he was, and why he had barbequed their king, and the people proclaimed him his uncle’s replacement.

As far as I am concerned, that is a much better story than Shakespeare’s version.

I did find the story I was looking for, about the origin of Roskilde. When I was very young, and we lived in Roskilde, we used to walk by a spring called Roars Kilde. My mother told me that Roskilde was named after the spring, and I have always been curious about the rest of the story. I found the answer in Lejrekroniken (the Chronicle of Lejre), which was written down about 1160. According to the chronicle, king Roar moved the town of Lejre to the present site of Roskilde because Lejre had become landlocked, and he wanted a place that would be better for trade. The site he chose was on a fjord, where a large spring came out of the hillside above the shore. Thus the name Roar’s Spring – Roskilde.

Gråulf.