Amleth

thumb|Amblett in a 17th-century Danish manuscript illustration 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 supplemented by Latin and vernacular compilations from a much later date. In all 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. Amleth's name is not mentioned in Old-Icelandic regnal lists before Saxo. Only the 15th-century Sagnkrønike from Stockholm may contain some older elements.

==Name== The Old Icelandic form Amlóði is recorded twice in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. According to the section Skaldskaparmal, the expression Amlóða mólu ('Amlóði's quern-stone') is a kenning for the sea, grinding the skerries to sand. In a poem by the 10th-century skald Snæbjörn the name of the legendary hero Amlóði is intrinsically connected to the word líðmeldr ('ale-flower'), leading to the conclusion that the nine mermaids, who operated the "hand-mill of the sea", "long ago ground the ale-flour of Amlóði". The association with flour milling and beer brewing, the gold carried around, the net used to catch people and the association with the nine female waves place Amleth on a par with the deity Aegir and his wife Rán.