Amleth (; Latinized as Amlethus) is a figure in a medieval Scandinavian legend, the direct inspiration of the character of Prince Hamlet, the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The chief authority for the legend of Amleth is Saxo Grammaticus, who devotes to it parts of the third and fourth books of his Gesta Danorum, completed at the beginning of the 13th century. Saxo's version is similar to the one in the 12th-century Chronicon Lethrense. In both versions, prince Amleth (Amblothæ) is the son of Horvendill (Orwendel), king of the Jutes. It has often been assumed that the story is ultimately derived from an Old Icelandic poem, but no such poem has been found; the extant Icelandic versions, known as the Ambales-saga, or Amloda-saga are considerably later than Saxo.
Name
The Old Icelandic form Amlóði is recorded once in the Prose Edda. The 12th-century Amlethus, Amblothæ may easily be latinizations of the Old Norse name. The etymology of the name is unknown, but there are various suggestions.
Icelandic Amlóði is recorded as a term for a fool or simpleton in reference to the character of the early modern Icelandic romance or folk tale. One suggestion is based on the "fool" or "trickster" interpretation of the name, composing the name from Old Norse ama "to vex, annoy, molest" and óðr "fierceness, madness" (also in the theonym Odin). The Irish and Scottish word amhlair, which in contemporary vernacular denotes a dull, stupid person, is handed down from the ancient name for a court jester or fool, who entertained the king but also surreptitiously advised him through riddles and antics.
A more recent suggestion is based on the Eddaic kenning associating Amlóði with the mythological mill grótti, and derives it from the Old Irish name Admlithi "great-grinding", attested in Togail Bruidne Dá Derga. Amlóða kvern ("Amlodi's quern" or "Hamlet's mill") is a kenning for the sea in the Skáldskaparmál section of the Prose Edda, attributed to a skald named Snæbjörn.
Attention has also been drawn to the similarity of Amleth to the Irish name Amhladh (variously Amhlaidh, Amhlaigh, Amhlaide), itself a Gaelic adaptation of the Norse name Olaf.
In a controversial suggestion going back to 1937, the sequence æmluþ contained in the 8th-century Old Frisian runic inscription on the Westeremden yew-stick has been interpreted as a reference to "Amleth". Contemporary runic research does not support this conclusion.
Scandinavian legend
It has frequently been assumed that the Scandinavian legend ultimately goes back to an Old Norse (Old Icelandic) poem of about the 10th century. Nevertheless, no such poem has survived, and the two 12th-century Latin versions of the story are the oldest source. There was in addition an early modern (17th century) Icelandic version of the tale. Historian Thormodus Torfæus had asserted that a story of Amlodi was part of popular folklore in the mid-17th century, but it is unclear whether the early modern Icelandic tale is substantially influenced by Saxo's account, or if it represents an independent tradition derived from the unattested Old Icelandic source.
Saxo's version
Gervendill, governor of Jutland, was succeeded by his sons Horvendill and Feng. Horvendill, on his return from a Viking expedition in which he had slain Koll, king of Norway, married Gerutha, daughter of Rørik Slyngebond, king of Denmark; they had a son, Amleth. However, Feng murdered Horvendill out of jealousy and persuaded Gerutha to become his wife on the plea that he had committed the crime for no other reason than to avenge her of a husband who had hated her. Amleth, afraid of sharing his father's fate, pretended to be an imbecile. However, Feng's suspicions put him to various tests related in detail. Among other things, they sought to entangle him with a young girl, his foster-sister (the prototype of Ophelia), but his cunning saved him. However, when Amleth slew the eavesdropper hidden, like Polonius in Shakespeare's play, in his mother's room, and destroyed all trace of the deed, Feng was assured that the young man's madness was feigned. Accordingly, he dispatched him to Britain in company with two attendants, who bore a letter urging the country's king to put him to death. Amleth surmised the purport of their instructions and secretly altered the message on their wooden tablets to instead direct the king to kill the attendants and give Amleth his daughter in marriage.