The romance in which the incident is found is a literary version of the local tradition of Grimsby, still commemorated in the seal of the corporation. The poem dates from the end of the thirteenth century. There are two French versions which I have not seen. Professor Skeat has epitomized the longer in the preface to his edition of the English romance. In it a flame issues from Havelok’s mouth when he sleeps. This is {325} a personal peculiarity, also found in the English lay. His heirship to the throne of Denmark is determined by his ability to blow a horn which none but the true heir could sound. Thus we are brought back to the succession by divination from which we started, and of which the simple diagnosis of royal descent is a corruption and a weakening. It is preserved here, we know not by what cause, after its true meaning had been forgotten. Adopted first of all into tradition from living custom, when the custom was superseded by other means of determining the succession it survived as a tradition until, its true intent being gradually lost, while the hereditary principle was strengthened and fenced about with sanctity, the incident faded into a merely picturesque presentation, in some places of prophecy, in other places of the claims of birth. The study of folk-tales is often despised as mere trifling. But traditional narratives must always occupy an important place in the study of the past. Rightly used they have much to tell us of human history, of human thought and the evolution of human institutions. It may safely be said that of all the incidents that compose them there is none which is not a concrete presentation either of human institutions or of human belief. They are all thus in a sense the outcome of actual human experiences. The stories of election by augury are not wilder than the authentic facts. The telescopic mountain of Karagwe, which Rumanika averred himself to have experienced, is at least as wonderful as the groaning of the _Lia Fáil_, or the lighting of a dry twig. Even if we may be allowed to rationalize it in the manner suggested by the ordeal required of the chosen candidate for the throne of the neighbouring Bakerewe, it remains evidence of the belief imposed by the power of imagination in a moment {326} of excitement. Analogous performances are averred by the votaries of what is called spiritualism to have been exhibited in our own day by mediums, and were solemnly recorded long ago in the witch-trials of various European countries. In one of the stories I have cited we found the dying monarch laying down among the conditions to be fulfilled by his successor, that the women of the royal household should recognize him. Secret intrigues of the harem are believed to determine the devolution of many an Eastern crown. But that the formal and ceremonial choice of the heir should be made by the wives of the deceased ruler seems too grotesque to be known outside a fairy tale.