1794 AD., England, Hampshire, Gosport, Halfpenny Token, D&H 40.

England, Hampshire, Gosport, 1794 AD.,
Æ Halfpenny Token (29-30 mm / 10,28 g),
Obv.: PROMISSORY - HALFPENNY , helmeted bust of Sir Bevois left.
Rev.: PRO BONO PUBLICO / 1794 , a large ship, sailing right, top of Mainmast beside second O in BONO.
Edge: PAYABLE AT I. IORDANS DRAPER GOSPORT X X X
D&H 40 .

The fictional legend of Sir Bevois, the legend of Bevis of Hampton, who was said to have thrown up the mound of dirt that became Bevois Mount to obstruct the Danes in their endeavours to cross the River Itchen..
There was no real Sir Bevois (or Bevis). He was a mythical character emanating from the Anglo-Norman poetic romance dating back to the 12th century.
According to the embellished stories, Sir Bevois was son of Sir Guy, The Earl of Hampton. Sold into slavery by his mother, he was passed onto Ermyn, King of Armenia.
While under his patronage most of the stories of Bevois' exploits occurred.
Bevois had a magic sword; Mortglay, and a magical horse; Hirondelle. Ascupart, his treacherous giant page and squire, was also at his service.
Returning to England to reclaim his father's land, Sir Bevois founded Southampton and performed heroic deeds. It is believed he built Arundel Tower - part of the fortified, medieval Southampton Castle - and named it after his horse.
The two lions that guard the city's historic Bargate commemorate when Bevois slayed them to protect his true love, Princess Josian.
Near to death, Bevois stood at the top of Arundel tower and made a wish to be buried in the place his sword landed after throwing it.
That spot is marked a little distance away by a now-famous steelmesh artwork at the entrance to Bevois Valley, near Portswood, which is meant to symbolise Sir Bevois's magic sword.
There are many references to the knight in Southampton, including the Bevois Castle pub, Josian Walk, Bevois Mount, Bevois Town and Ascupart Street.

Bevis of Hampton (Old French: Beuve(s) or Bueve or Beufves de Hanton(n)e; Anglo-Norman: Boeve de Haumtone; Italian: Buovo d'Antona) is a legendary English hero and the subject of Anglo-Norman, French, English, Venetian and other medieval metrical romances that bear his name. The tale also exists in medieval prose versions, was transmitted and adapted many times.

Bevis is the son of Guy, count of Hampton (Southampton) and his young wife, a daughter of the king of Scotland. The countess asks a former suitor, Doon or Devoun, emperor of Almaine (Germany), to send an army to murder Guy in the forest. The plot is successful, and she marries Doon. When threatened with future vengeance by her ten-year-old son, she determines to do away with him also, but he is saved from death by a faithful tutor, is sold to heathen pirates, and reaches the court of King Hermin, whose realm is variously placed in Egypt and Armenia (Armorica). The exploits of Bevis, his defeat of Ascapart, his love for the king's daughter Josiane, his mission to King Bradmond of Damascus with a sealed letter demanding his own death, his imprisonment, his final vengeance on his stepfather are related in detail. After succeeding to his inheritance he is, however, driven into exile and separated from Josiane, to whom he is reunited only after each of them has contracted, in form only, a second union. The story also relates the hero's death and the fortunes of his two sons.

The oldest extant version appears to be Boeve de Haumtone, an Anglo-Norman text which dates from the first half of the 13th century. It comprises 3,850 verses written in alexandrines.
Three continental French chansons de geste of Beuve d'Hanstone, all in decasyllables, were written in the 13th century. They comprise from 10,000 to 20,000 verses. A French prose version was made before 1469.
The English metrical romance, Sir Beues of Hamtoun, is founded on some French original varying slightly from those which have been preserved. The oldest manuscript dates from the beginning of the 14th century.
The printed editions of the story were most numerous in Italy, where Bovo or Buovo d'Antona was the subject of more than one poem, and the tale was interpolated in the Reali di Francia, the Italian compilation of Carolingian legend.
From Italian, it passed into Yiddish, where the Bovo-Bukh became the most popular and most critically honored Yiddish-language chivalric romance.
In Russia, the romance attained an unparalleled popularity and became a part of Russian folklore. The Russian rendition of the romance appeared in mid-XVI century, translated from a Polish or Old Byelorussian version, which were, in turn, translated from a Serbocroatian rendition of the Italian romance, made in Ragusa. The resulting narrative, called Повесть о Бове-королевиче (Povest' o Bove-koroleviche, lit. The Story of Prince Bova), gradually merged with Russian folktales, and the principal character attained many features of a Russian folk hero (bogatyr). Since the 1700s until 1918, various versions of the Povest' had been widely circulated (particularly among the lower classes) as a lubok. Such writers as Derzhavin and Pushkin praised Bova's literary value; the latter used some elements of the Povest' in his fairy tales and attempted to write a fantasy poem based on the romance.

Although the English version that we possess is based on a French original, it seems probable that the legend took shape on English soil in the tenth century (this is unlikely - current consensus points towards a twelfth-century point of origin as an ancestral romance closely linked with the Arundel family), and that it originated with the Danish invaders. Doon may be identified with the emperor Otto the Great, who was the contemporary of Edgar Atheling, the English king Edgar of the story. R. Zenker (Boeve-Amlethus, Berlin and Leipzig, 1904) establishes a close parallel between Bevis and the Hamlet legend as related by Saxo Grammaticus in the Historia Danica.

Among the more obvious coincidences which point to a common source are the vengeance taken on a stepfather for a father's death, the letter bearing his own death-warrant which is entrusted to the hero, and his double marriage. The motive of the feigned madness is, however, lacking in Bevis. The princess who is Josiane's rival is less ferocious than the Hermuthruda of the Hamlet legend, but she threatens Bevis with death if he refuses her. Both seem to be modelled on the type of Thyrdo of the Beowulf legend. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica characterizes the mooted etymology connecting Bevis (Boeve) with Béowa (Beowulf), on the ground that both were dragon slayers, as "fanciful" and "inadmissible".