Long before Shakespeare, there was a Danish prince whose uncle killed his father and married his mother. His name was Amleth, and the story is in a Latin book of the 13th century.

The author and the work

Saxo Grammaticus was a Danish cleric. He wrote the Gesta Danorum, or Deeds of the Danes, around 1200, at the request of Archbishop Absalon. The first books mix legend and oral tradition, and should not be read as an exact record. The story of Amleth fills books III and IV.

The revenge

According to Saxo, the brothers Horvendil and Feng governed Jutland. Horvendil married Gerutha, but Feng killed him and took the widow. Amleth, the son, understood that he would live only if he seemed harmless, and feigned madness: he sat among the ashes and spoke nonsense that, deep down, hid the truth.

Feng put him to the test. He left a young woman in his path to see whether he would react like a sane man, and Amleth, warned by a friend, escaped the test. Later, a counsellor hid under the straw of the queen’s chamber to overhear a conversation. Amleth jumped on the straw, found the spy, killed him and threw the pieces to the pigs.

Exile and return

Feng sent him to England with two companions, carrying a message that asked for the prince’s death. Amleth changed the text and, in England, it was the two men who were executed. He married the English king’s daughter.

He came home in the middle of the funeral ceremony the courtiers were holding for him, believing him dead. He waited until they had all drunk too much, pinned the hall’s hanging cloth over them, set it on fire and killed Feng. He then reigned, and Saxo says he later died in battle.

From Saxo to Shakespeare

The story passed through several texts. Saxo was printed in Paris in 1514. In 1570, the Frenchman François de Belleforest adapted it in the Histoires tragiques. After that, an English play now lost, the Ur-Hamlet, seems to have served as a bridge. Around 1600, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, and made the avenger a man who hesitates.

The differences are large. In Saxo, Amleth acts without delay and ends victorious. Shakespeare added Ophelia, the father’s ghost and the famous doubt. Saxo’s action is set in Jutland, and the castle of Elsinore, in Helsingør, enters only through the play. A similar name, Amlóði, appears in later Icelandic texts, and scholars discuss how these names relate.

What Saxo blends

Saxo wrote in learned Latin, with verses and echoes of classical authors, and adapted the Nordic material to the taste of a cleric of medieval Denmark. For that reason the story of Amleth carries traits of tales found in other cultures, such as that of the hero who plays the fool to survive. Scholars compare him to the Roman Brutus, who, according to Livy, also feigned stupidity. They debate how much comes from Danish oral tradition and how much was composed or reshaped by Saxo himself. No independent source confirms the existence of Amleth or Feng, and the story should be read as legend.

To try to follow with your eyes the letter that Amleth swaps, play The swapped letter.

Sources.

• Saxo Grammaticus, *Gesta Danorum*, books III and IV (around 1200)
• François de Belleforest, *Histoires tragiques* (1570)
• William Shakespeare, *Hamlet* (around 1600)