THE FATE OF HAMLET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19460, 16 October 1926, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE FATE OF HAMLET.

DISCOVERY AND THEORY. BURIAL IN ENGLISH CHURCH. Wo have long known, says an English paper, that Hamlet was not buried at Elsmore, and that it is not oven certain that he ever lived; bat now a Herefordshire rector states that he did live and is buried in tho parish church of Canon Frome. The rector of the churclv the Rav. L. G. Hunt, -would apparently accept the story adopted by Shakespeare that Hamlet was sent to England, but he suggests that instead of either returning or being killed, as his uncle desired, he settled down, married the daughter of a British chief, and fell in defending his adopted country from, invaders. This theory is based on an old inscription, hardly readable, 011 a stone found in the church. Mr. Hunt and his friends believe they have deciphered it, and that it says, in the writing of those days:—" Hamlet Xhethi, 362." Xhethi, Mr. Hunt says, means Jute, an inhabitant of Jutland, the Danish mainland, and 362 is the date of the burial. It is known that if Hamlet ever did live it was on the mainland and not on the island on which Copenhagen and Elsinore now stand. Above the first letter of the inscription is what is believed to be the representation of a crown, showing the princely rank of the dead man. It is certainly, says the writer, a very interesting theory, even though the evidence does not go very far in snpport of it.