The Lay of Havelok the Dane

"Now sailed for England, Denmark's King
And with a mighty following
They landed at Grimsby, on England's strand
To gain for Goldborough, her own dear land"

My overly loud and often excessively flamboyant rehearsals have meant that I've been banished to the far flung reaches of the kitchen this week and all because of a neighbours' request of me to read my favourite poem, out loud, to the townspeople of Caistor.

Caistors' 3rd 'Lyrical Affair' has been organised, once again by our neighbour Michael Galligan and is being held later on this evening at the local Sports and Social Club, so plenty of practice before the event is an essential prerequisite. I've really got into reading poetry over the last decade or so. It's just so easy to pick up a poetry book and dive straight in, whenever a spare moment arises in my busy schedule. With poetry, I'm not confronted by dozens of hard to believe characters or convoluted plot lines, nor do I run the risk of losing the thread of the story when I inevitably have to put the book down and get on with my work. But choosing a favourite poem from amongst the thousands available is not an easy task.

Poetry, for me, is a very personal adventure. Inward looking, quietly considered and often romantically inclined, it never really strikes me a being the theme for an evening of public performance art. If I'd wanted to entertain only myself, I would probably have chosen one of the 1st World War poets, maybe Siegfried Sassoon or Wilfred Owen, or I might have gone for the early 19C 'Peasant poet', John Clare, with his insightful, descriptive verses, bearing with them the transience of the English countryside, red sometimes in tooth and claw, right into the heart of my comfortable chair. But, would any of these great 'classics' really be suitable for a public performance in front of a hundred people on a Saturday night in Caistor?

I was also asked, last October, to participate in Caistors first ever 'Lyrical Affair', when this very same problem again raised its ugly head. As a little boy, going to Barcroft Street Junior School in Cleethorpes during the late 60's, early 70's, I clearly remember our year group being asked to write a poem to celebrate the installation of Sir John Betjeman as the nations Poet Laureate. It was one of the few times that I really enjoyed my junior school life. I'd been asked to use my imagination and play with words, what rebellious fun that was in those days.

My mother, really proud of my first steps into the world of poetry, bought me a copy of Edward Lear's' Complete Book Of Nonsense, by way of a reward for my bravery in reading out my poem to the whole school and that was when I discovered 'The Jumblies'.

Far and few, far and few are the lands where the Jumblies live
Their heads are green and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.

The daftness of the poem just enthralled me.The words made absolutely no sense at all, yet the musical rhythm of the stanza's were absolutely compelling to me as a child. As an adult, I recalled that childhood thrill of reading The Jumblies out loud when I began to read it with my own children. Even today, as our youngest child begins his departure from being a teenager to a young adult, it still manages to strike a chord with them all. I only have to enlarge my voice and release the first line and they all join in with the rest, automatically, from the heart, because they too, in their youth, experienced the joy that dwells within the heart of this poem. It has become part of their being, part of what they have become as adults.

It was the perfect poem to read out to the 100 people who packed their way into the Caistor Sports and Social Club late last year. First I read out the chorus... " Far and few, far and few......" then after asking my audience to join in after every verse, I began my recital.

" No, no, no" I said, as I stopped midway through the first line of the chorus. "You all need to join in, not just those of you over there at the back. Right, let's try again." This time about half the room joined in and by the end of my recital, everyone was taking part, enjoying themselves and feeling as though they too had played a part in this unusual, but well attended, community event. So, when Michael Galligan came to see if I would read out another poem at Caistor's 3rd Lyrical Affair event, I immediately said yes, but I didn't quite know at that moment, which poem I'd be reading.

It had been really heartening to see so many people enjoying the 'thrill' of public poetry reading and I didn't want to dampen anybody's fun night out with poems of bright yellow buttercups, unrequited love or moribund grief. I wanted them to be involved, excited and enthused by the event, not lulled into a somnolent torpor or worse still, get bored to tears and begin chattering amongst themselves.

I remember standing in the centre of the room during that last poetry reading 4 months ago. I couldn't move about very much as there were children sat all around my feet, their parents and older relatives behind them and the rest of the community fanned out, encircling me almost as though in a scene from the days of old when all the villagers would have sat around the communal fire, keeping warm during the long dark winters nights when tales of romance, death, greed and lust where told to entertain and educate.

During the Dark Ages, before history was written down to preserve its accuracy, communities told these campfire tales to preserve traditions and to pass on items of community history. A famous warrior would have had his tale retold around many a village fire, the story changing and adapting itself to the morals of the day, characters added and taken away and battle scenes reallocated to new venues until the early medieval age brought with it the gift of the written word.

One of these tales, first written down in the 13th Century during the time of King John, is 'The lay of Havelok the Dane'. It tells the tale of Grim the Fisherman and his flight from Denmark with the infant Havelok, heir to the Danish throne and their founding of the town of Great Grimsby on Lincolnshires' North Sea coast.

The 'Lay' is an early middle English version of the original spoken tale, written in rhyming couplets. In 1980 it was translated into modern English by Bill Baines, who was then Head of Whitgift School in Grimsby. It takes about 3 hours to read in full, a gargantuan event which would take up a whole evening.

But yes, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense and I resolved to read the final battle scene from the 'Lay', as abridged by Dr Alan Dowling in 2010. I'll begin my recital from the point where Havelok has been crowned as the King of Denmark and sails with his army, back across the North Sea to Grimsby to fight the evil Earl Godrich for the throne of England. It's a fierce and bloody battle scene and I'll tell it as though I'm recounting recent history to a community sat around the campfire on a long winters evening.

Anyway, back to the kitchen to rehearse my lines, Jacquie's getting fed up with my ferocious bellowing, I can see it in her face.

Now you've heard the tale right through
of Havelok and Goldborough too
how they were born and how they were taken
from their parents and forsaken

Plagued in youth with treachery
with treason and with felony
and how villains robbed them quite
of all truly theirs by right

And in the story I did tell
how Grim the fisherman served them well
and how they were avenged at last
as I've explained in hours past.