§ 4. NOTICES OF THE STORY OF HAVELOK BY EARLY WRITERS. There can be little doubt that the tradition must have existed from Anglo-Saxon times, but the earliest mention of it is presented to us in the full account furnished by the French version of the Romance. Of this there are two copies, one of which belongs to Sir T. Phillipps; the other is known as the Arundel or Norfolk MS., and is preserved in the Heralds’ College, where it is marked E. D. N. No. 14; the various editions of the latter have been already enumerated in § 3. This version was certainly composed within the first half of the twelfth century. From the fact that it is entitled a _Lai_, and from the assertion of the poet--“Qe vn _lai_ en firent li Breton”--“whereof the Britons made a lay”--we easily conclude that it was drawn from a British source. From the evident connection of the story with the Chronicle called the _Brut_, we may further conclude that by _Breton_ is not meant Armorican, but belonging to _Britain_. The story is in no way connected with France; the tradition is British or Welsh, and the French version was doubtless written in England by a subject of an English king. That the language is French is due merely to the accident that the Norman conquerors of England had acquired that language during their temporary sojourn in France. From every point of view, whether we regard the British tradition, the Anglo-Norman version, or the version printed in the present volume, the story is wholly English. It is not to be connected too closely with the Armorican lays of Marie _de France_.[5] [Footnote 5: “The word Breton, which some critics refer to Armorica, is here applied to a story of mere English birth.” Hallam; Lit. of Europe, 6th ed. 1860; vol. i. p. 36. See the whole passage.]