Abstract

The date of composition of King Horn has in recent years been moved from ca. 1225 to ca. 1250, or even as late as the 1270s, as more information about the three manuscripts of the poem has become available. Nevertheless, King Horn still seems to lie at, or at least very near, the beginning of the Middle English romance tradition, and it thus holds a special interest as a potential indicator of the way in which that tradition came into existence. This paper explores one key element in King Horn as a step towards a better understanding of both the poem itself and its literary context