Romance of Horn
12th-century Anglo-Norman romance
Romance of Horn is an Anglo-Norman literature romans d'aventure ("adventure story") tale written around 1170 by an author apparently named "Thomas". The story became the basis for one of the earliest Middle English romances, King Horn, written around 1225.
Summary
The hero, named Horn, is the son of the king Aälof of Suddene (probably somewhere near Devon). Horn is orphaned after the Saracens kill his parents. He and twelve companions then set sail in a boat only to end up on the shores of Brittany, where he grows to manhood and falls in love with the king's daughter Rigmel. There he defends the kingdom from invading Saracens, but the king banishes him to Ireland after he is wrongfully accused of trying to usurp the throne. In Ireland, Horn again proves his heroism and is offered the hand of the king's daughter. Horn refuses it and after some time returns to Brittany to rescue and marry Rigmel.
Translations
The Birth of Romance: An Anthology. Four Twelfth-century Anglo-Norman Romances, trans.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Romance of Horn” as 12th-century Anglo-Norman romance. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q2063098. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1170 and 1225.
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This entry incorporates text from “Romance of Horn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.