Chapter 107

39. Major was in extreme old age in 1524: see Moir’s Wallace, I, iv. “Robertus Hudus Anglus et Paruus Ioannes, latrones famatissimi in nemoribus latuerunt, solum opulentorum virorum bona diripientes. Nullum nisi eos inuadentem, vel resistentem pro suarum rerum tuitione, occiderunt Centum sagittarios ad pugnam aptissimos Robertus latrociniis aluit, quos 400 viri fortissimi inuadere non audebant. Rebus huius Roberti gestis tota Britannia in cantibus utitur. Fœminam nullam opprimi permisit, nec pauperum bona surripuit, verum eos ex abbatum bonis ablatis opipare pauit.”Historia Maioris Britanniæ, fol. 55 b.It will be observed that Wyntoun, Bower, and Mair are Scots.

It will be observed that Wyntoun, Bower, and Mair are Scots.

40. Because comic and not heroic, and because Robin is put at a disadvantage. In the other ballads Robin Hood is “evermore the best.” Though there is humor in the Gest, it is kept well under, and never lowers Robin’s dignity.

41. The only one of these ballads entered in the Stationers’ Registers, or known to have been printed, at a date earlier than the seventeenth century is No 124, ‘Of Wakefylde and a Grene,’ 1557–58.The earliest known copy of Robin Hood’s Garland is one in the Bodleian Library, Wood, 79, printed for W. Gilbertson, 1663. This contains seventeen ballads. An edition of 1670, in the same library, Douce, H. 80, for Coles, Vere and Wright, omits the first of these, a version of Robin Hood and Queen Katherine which is found nowhere else. There is an edition, printed by J. M. for J. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passinger, among Pepys’s Penny Merriments, vol. iii, and Gutch had a copy, printed for the same, to which he gives the date 1686. Garlands of the eighteenth century increase the number of ballads to twenty-seven.

The earliest known copy of Robin Hood’s Garland is one in the Bodleian Library, Wood, 79, printed for W. Gilbertson, 1663. This contains seventeen ballads. An edition of 1670, in the same library, Douce, H. 80, for Coles, Vere and Wright, omits the first of these, a version of Robin Hood and Queen Katherine which is found nowhere else. There is an edition, printed by J. M. for J. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passinger, among Pepys’s Penny Merriments, vol. iii, and Gutch had a copy, printed for the same, to which he gives the date 1686. Garlands of the eighteenth century increase the number of ballads to twenty-seven.

42. In the Stationers’ Registers, 1562–63, Arber, I, 204, ‘a ballett of Robyn Hod’ is licensed to John Alde. The best one would expect of this would be a better copy of some later broadside. ‘Robyn Hode in Barnysdale stode’ is the first line of a mock-song introduced into the Morality of the Four Elements (which alludes to the discovery of America “within this xx. yere”): Halliwell, Percy Society, vol. xxii, p. 51. It is mentioned (“As R. H.,” etc.) in Udall’s translation of Erasmi Apothegmata, 1542: Hazlitt, Handbook, pp 513 f. This line, Ritson observes, has been repeatedly cited, singularly enough, in law-cases (and always misquoted: in Barnwood stood, in Barnwell stood, upon Greendale stood): Ritson’s Robin Hood, 1832, I, lxxxix ff. We find “Robyn stode in Bernesdale,” Gest, 31; also, “As Robin Hood in the forest stood,” No 138, 21; “When Robin Hood in the greenwood stood,” No 141, 11, both texts very much later than the interlude. It is not strictly necessary to assume, as Ritson does, that the line belongs to a lost ballad; it may be from some older text of one that we have.

43. Knights and squires are exempted in the Gest, 14, inconsistently with 7, and, as to knights, with the tenor of what follows.

44. Bower, as above. The writer in the L. & W. Review does not distinguish Fordun and Bower.

45. Lieut.-Col. Prideaux states the resemblances between the story of Fulk Fitz Warine and that of Robin Hood, in an interesting article in Notes and Queries, 7th series, II, 421 ff, and suggests that the latter has borrowed from the former. Undoubtedly this might be, but both may have borrowed from the common stock of tradition.

46. The Pinder of Wakefield became, according to his ballad, one of Robin Hood’s men, but is not heard of in any other. Will Stutly is also one in No 141; Clifton, No 145; David of Doncaster, No 152. Robin Hood assumes the name Locksley in No 145, and by a blunder Locksley is made one of his men in 147 and 153. Scarlet and Scathlock are made two in the Earl of Huntington plays. Grafton says that the name of William of Goldesborough was graven, among others, with that of Robin Hood on Robin’s tombstone: Chronicle, I, 222, ed. 1809. Ritson says that Munday makes Right-hitting Brand one of the band: I have not observed this.

47. Robin Hood presents the friar with a “lady free,” not named, who may be meant for a degraded Maid Marian, such as Falstaff refers to in 1 Henry IV, III, iii, 129.

48. Stow, Survay of London, 1598, p. 72, in Ritson’s excellent note EE, Robin Hood, I, cix ff, ed. 1832, which contains almost all the important information relative to the subject. Stow adds that in consequence of a riot on Mayday, 1517, the great Mayings and May-games were not after that time “so freely used as afore.”

49. These are the people’s sports. Hall, fol. lvi, b, cited by Ritson, gives an account of a Maying devised by the guards for the entertainment of Henry VIII and his queen, in 1516. The king and queen, while riding with a great company, come upon a troop of two hundred yeomen in green. One of these, calling himself Robin Hood, invites the king to see his men shoot, and then to an outlaws-breakfast of venison. The royal party, on their return home, were met by a chariot drawn by five horses, in which sat “the Lady May accompanied with Lady Flora,” who saluted the king with divers songs.

50. Lysons, The Environs of London, I, 225–32.

51. The last two lines are to be understood, I apprehend, exclusively of the May, and the lord and lady mean Lord and Lady of the May. The Lord of Misrule, “with his hobby-horses, dragons, and other ántiques,” used to go to church: Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, ed. Furnivall, p. 147.

52. .sp 1Myselfe remembreth of a childe, in contreye native mine,A Maygame was of Robyn Hood, and of his traine, that time,To traine up young men, stripplings, and eche other younger childe,In shooting; yearely this with solempne feast was by the guyldeOr brotherhood of townsmen don, etc.Richard Robinson, 1553, in Ritson, p. cxii f, ed. 1832.

52. .sp 1

Myselfe remembreth of a childe, in contreye native mine,A Maygame was of Robyn Hood, and of his traine, that time,To traine up young men, stripplings, and eche other younger childe,In shooting; yearely this with solempne feast was by the guyldeOr brotherhood of townsmen don, etc.Richard Robinson, 1553, in Ritson, p. cxii f, ed. 1832.

Myselfe remembreth of a childe, in contreye native mine,

A Maygame was of Robyn Hood, and of his traine, that time,

To traine up young men, stripplings, and eche other younger childe,

In shooting; yearely this with solempne feast was by the guylde

Or brotherhood of townsmen don, etc.

Richard Robinson, 1553, in Ritson, p. cxii f, ed. 1832.

53. A Christmas game of very modern date is described in The Mirror, XXVI, 42, in which there was a troop of morris-dancers with Robin Hood and Maid Marian; and also Beelzebub and his wife. Cited by Kuhn, Haupt’s Zeitschrift, V, 481.

54. The entries in the Kingston accounts for 28 and 29 Henry VIII, if they refer to the morris-dance only, would show the morris to be constituted as follows:(28 Henry VIII.) Four dancers, fool, Maid Marian, friar, and piper. A minstrel is also mentioned.(29 Henry VIII.) Friar, Maid Marian, Morian (Moor?), four dancers, fool. This entry refers to the costume of the characters, which may account for the omission of the piper. Lysons, Environs of London, I, 228 f.

54. The entries in the Kingston accounts for 28 and 29 Henry VIII, if they refer to the morris-dance only, would show the morris to be constituted as follows:

(28 Henry VIII.) Four dancers, fool, Maid Marian, friar, and piper. A minstrel is also mentioned.

(29 Henry VIII.) Friar, Maid Marian, Morian (Moor?), four dancers, fool. This entry refers to the costume of the characters, which may account for the omission of the piper. Lysons, Environs of London, I, 228 f.

55. It need hardly be remarked that the morris was neither an exclusively English dance nor exclusively a May-game dance. A Flemish morris, delineated in an engraving dated 1460–70, has for personages a lady, fool, piper, and six dancers: Douce, p. 446 f. In Robert Laneham’s description of a bride-ale at Kenilworth, 1575, there is a morris-dance, “according to the ancient manner,” in the which the parties are Maid Marian, the fool, and six dancers: Furnivall, Captain Cox, p. 22 f. A painting of about 1625 has a morris-dance of seven figures, a Maid Marian, fool, piper, hobby-horse, and three dancers. A tract, of Elizabeth’s time, speaks of “a quintessence, beside the fool and the Maid Marian, of all the picked youth, footing the morris about a Maypole,” to the pipe and tabor, and other music; and a poem of 1614 describes a country morris-dance of a fool, Maid Marian, hobby-horse, and piper: Ellis’s Brand, p. 206 f.

56. The well-to-do Codrus says to the starving Menalcas, who has been venting his spleen against “rascolde” rivals,‘Yet would I gladly heare some mery fitOf Maide Marian,or elsof Robin Hood.’Codrus is here only suggesting themes which would be agreeable to him. We are not to deduce from his words that there were ballads about Maid Marian. But if there had been, they would have been distinct from ballads about Robin Hood.

56. The well-to-do Codrus says to the starving Menalcas, who has been venting his spleen against “rascolde” rivals,

‘Yet would I gladly heare some mery fitOf Maide Marian,or elsof Robin Hood.’

‘Yet would I gladly heare some mery fit

Of Maide Marian,or elsof Robin Hood.’

Codrus is here only suggesting themes which would be agreeable to him. We are not to deduce from his words that there were ballads about Maid Marian. But if there had been, they would have been distinct from ballads about Robin Hood.

57. SeeMonmerqué et Michel, Théatre Français au Moyen Age, 1842, Notice sur Adam de la Halle, pp 27 ff,the songs, pp 31 ff, the play, pp 102 ff; Ducange, Robinetus. Henryson’s Robin and Ma’kyne was undoubtedly suggested by the French pastorals.

58. I must invoke the spirit of Ritson to pardon the taking of no very serious notice of Robin Hood’s noble extraction. The first mention of this seems to be in Grafton’s Chronicle, 1569. Grafton says: In an olde and auncient pamphlet I finde this written of the sayd Robert Hood. This man, sayth he, discended of a noble parentage; or rather, beyng of a base stocke and linage, was for his manhoode and chiualry aduaunced to the noble dignitie of an erle.... But afterwardes he so prodigally exceeded in charges and expences that he fell into great debt, by reason whereof so many actions and sutes were commenced against him, wherevnto he aunswered not, that by order of lawe he was outlawed, etc.: I, 221, ed. 1809. (Some such account furnished a starting-point for Munday.) Leland also, Ritson adds, has expressly termed him “nobilis” (Ro: Hood, nobilis ille exlex), Collectanea, I, 54, ed. 1770, and Warner, in Albion’s England (1586), p. 132, ed. 1612, calls him a “county”:Those daies begot some mal-contents, the principall of whomA countie was, that with a troop of yeomandry did roam.Ritson also cites the Sloane MS., 715, “written, as it seems, toward the end of the sixteenth century;” and Harleian MS., 1233, which he does not date, but which is of the middle of the seventeenth century. Against the sixteenth-century testimony, so to call it, we put in that of the early ballads, all of which describe Robin as a yeoman, the Gest emphasizing the point.

Those daies begot some mal-contents, the principall of whomA countie was, that with a troop of yeomandry did roam.

Those daies begot some mal-contents, the principall of whom

A countie was, that with a troop of yeomandry did roam.

Ritson also cites the Sloane MS., 715, “written, as it seems, toward the end of the sixteenth century;” and Harleian MS., 1233, which he does not date, but which is of the middle of the seventeenth century. Against the sixteenth-century testimony, so to call it, we put in that of the early ballads, all of which describe Robin as a yeoman, the Gest emphasizing the point.

59. The Edinburgh Review, LXXXVI, 123 (with a slight correction in one instance), mostly from Ritson, I, cix, cxxvi ff, 1832, and from Wright’s Essays, etc., II, 209 f, 1846. Of course the list might be extended: there are some additions in The Academy, XXIV, 231, 1883, and four Robin Hood’s wells in Yorkshire alone are there noted.

60. A Robin Hood’s Stone, near Barnsdale, of what description we are not told, is mentioned in an account of a progress made by Henry VII, and Robin Hood’s Well, in the same region, in an account of a tour made in 1634: Hunter’s Robin Hood, p. 61. The well is also mentioned by Drunken Barnaby. A Robin Hood’s Hill is referred to in Vicars’ account of the siege of Gloucester in 1643: The Academy, XXIV, 231.

61. Gough, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, March 8, 1793, cited by Gutch. Wright has, somewhat naively, furnished his own refutation: “A large tumulus we know well in our own county, near Ludlow in Shropshire, which is also called Robin Hood’s But, and which affords us a curious instance how new stories were often invented to account for a name whose original import was forgotten. The circumstances, too, in this case, prove that the story was of late invention. The barrow, as regarded superstitiously, had borne the name of Robin Hood. On the roof of one of the chancels of the church of Ludlow, which is called Fletchers’ chancel, as having been, when ‘the strength of England stood upon archery,’ the place where the fletchers held their meetings, and which is distant from the aforesaid barrow two miles, or two miles and a half, there stands an iron arrow, as the sign of their craft. The imagination of the people of the place, after archery and fletchers had been forgotten, and when Robin Hood was known only as an outlaw and a bowman, made a connection between the barrow (from its name) and the chancel (from the arrow on its roof), and a tale was invented how the outlaw once stood upon the former and took aim at the weathercock on the church steeple; but the distance being a little too great, the arrow fell short of its mark, and remained up to the present day on the roof of the chancel.” (Essays, I, 209 f.)A correspondent of The Academy, XXIV, 181, remarks that one of the Anglo-Saxon charters in Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus mentions a “place” in Worcestershire called Hódes ác (now Hodsoak), that there is a village in Nottinghamshire called Hodsock, that it is improbable that two men living in districts so widely apart should each have given his name to an oak-tree, and that therefore we may safely conclude Hód to be a mythical personage. Somebody’s tree is given as a boundary mark more than thirty times in these charters, somebody’s thorn at least ten times, somebody’s oak at least five times. How often such a mark might occur in connection with any particular name would depend upon the frequency of the name. Hód or Hóde is cited thirteen times by Kemble, and few names occur oftener. The name, we may infer, was relatively as common then as it is in our century, which has seen three Admiral Hoods (who, by virtue of being three, may be adjudged as mythical by and by) and one poet Hood alive together. Why may not three retired wícings and one scóp, of the name, have been living in Berks, Hants, Wilts, and Worcestershire in the tenth century?

A correspondent of The Academy, XXIV, 181, remarks that one of the Anglo-Saxon charters in Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus mentions a “place” in Worcestershire called Hódes ác (now Hodsoak), that there is a village in Nottinghamshire called Hodsock, that it is improbable that two men living in districts so widely apart should each have given his name to an oak-tree, and that therefore we may safely conclude Hód to be a mythical personage. Somebody’s tree is given as a boundary mark more than thirty times in these charters, somebody’s thorn at least ten times, somebody’s oak at least five times. How often such a mark might occur in connection with any particular name would depend upon the frequency of the name. Hód or Hóde is cited thirteen times by Kemble, and few names occur oftener. The name, we may infer, was relatively as common then as it is in our century, which has seen three Admiral Hoods (who, by virtue of being three, may be adjudged as mythical by and by) and one poet Hood alive together. Why may not three retired wícings and one scóp, of the name, have been living in Berks, Hants, Wilts, and Worcestershire in the tenth century?

62. Plot’s History of Staffordshire, p. 434, cited in Ellis’s Brand, I, 383; The Mirror, XX, 419, cited by Kuhn, Haupt’s Zeitschrift, V, 474 f. The Kentish sport is also described in the Rev. W. D. Parish’s Dictionary of the Kentish Dialect, p. 77, under Hoodening.

63. In West Worcestershirehis put forw, “by an emphatic speaker,” in such words as wood, wool: Mrs Chamberlain’s Glossary. Hood for wood occurs in East Sussex; also in Somerset, according to Halliwell’s Dictionary. The derivation of Hood from wood has often been suggested: as by Peele, in his Edward I, “Robin of the Wood, alias Robin Hood,” Works, Dyce, I, 162. The inventive Peck was pleased always to write Robin Whood.

64. The Hobby-Horse, Schimmel, Fastnachtspferd, Herbstpferd, Adventspferd, Chevalet, Cheval Mallet, is maintained by Mannhardt to be figurative of the Corn-Sprite, Korndämon; nichts anderes als das Kornross, Vegetationsross, nicht aber eine Darstellung Wodans, wie man nach Kuhns Vorgang jetzt allgemein annimmt: Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, in Quellen u. Forschungen, LI, p. 165. “Man sieht den Ungrund der bei deutschen Mythologen so beliebten Identifizierung von Robin Hood und Wodan:” Mannhardt, Wald- u. Feldkulte, I, 546, note 3.

65. The reasoning, in the instance of Robin Hood, has been signally loose and incautious; still, the general conclusion finds ready acceptance with mythologists, on one ground or another, and deductions are made with the steadiness of a geometer. Robin Hood, being one of the “solar heroes,” “has his faint reflection in Little John, who stands to him in the same relation as Patroclus to Achilles,” etc. “Maid Marian will therefore be the dawn-maiden, to be identified with Briseis,” etc. “Friar Tuck is one of the triumvirate who appear also in the Cloudesly and Tell legends,” etc. And again, by an interpreter of somewhat different views: “though a considerable portion of this story is ultimately derived from the great Aryan sun-myth, there is the strongest reason for believing that the Anglian Hód was not originally a solar personage, but a degraded form of the God of the Wind, Hermes-Woden. The thievish character of this divinity explains at once why his name should have been chosen as the popular appellation of an outlaw chief.” (The Academy, XXIV, 250, 384.)The Potter in the later Play of Robin Hood (not in the corresponding ballad) wears a rose garland on his head. So does a messenger in the history of Fulk Fitz Warine, Wright, p. 78, not to mention other cases referred to by Ritson, Robin Hood, II, 200, ed. 1832. Fricke, Die Robin-Hood Balladen, p. 55, surmises that the rose garland worn by the Potter may be a relic of the strife between Summer and Winter; and this view, he suggests, would tend to confirm “the otherwise well-grounded hypothesis” that Robin Hood is a mythological personage.

The Potter in the later Play of Robin Hood (not in the corresponding ballad) wears a rose garland on his head. So does a messenger in the history of Fulk Fitz Warine, Wright, p. 78, not to mention other cases referred to by Ritson, Robin Hood, II, 200, ed. 1832. Fricke, Die Robin-Hood Balladen, p. 55, surmises that the rose garland worn by the Potter may be a relic of the strife between Summer and Winter; and this view, he suggests, would tend to confirm “the otherwise well-grounded hypothesis” that Robin Hood is a mythological personage.

66. “Desde la última década del siglo xvi hasta pocos años hace, no eran ya los héroes del pueblo ni los Bernardos, ni los Cides, ni los Pulgares, ni los Garcilasos, ni los Céspedes, ni los Paredes, porque su pueblo estaba muerto ó trasformado en vulgo, y este habia sustituido á aquellos los guapos Francisco Estéban, los Correas, los Merinos, los Salinas, los Pedrajas, los Montijos.” (Duran, p. 389, note.)

67. Bernardo del Montijo, Duran, No 1342, kills an alcalde at the age of eighteen, “con bastante causa:” upon which phrase Duran observes, “para el vulgo era bastante causa, sin duda, el ser alcalde.” Beginning with so much promise of spirit, he afterwards, in carrying off his mistress, who was about to be wedded against her will, kills six constables, a corregidor, the bridegroom, and a captain of the guard. For differences, compare the English broadside R. H. and Allen-a-Dale, No 138.

68.“Doch sind sie meist ohne grossen poetischen Werth, nur als Zeugniss für die Denkweise des Volkes über die ‘armen Bursche,’ die es lange nicht für so grosse Verbrecher hält als der Staat, und die es, ihre Vorurtheile theilend, im Gegentheile oft als kühne Freiheitshelden betrachtet, die gegen grössere oder kleinere Tyrannen sich zu erheben und denselben zu trotzen wagen, und als ungerecht verfolgte Söhne seines Stammes in Schutz nimmt gegen die fremden Gesetzvollstrecker.” (Aigner, Ungarische Volksdichtungen, p. xxvi f.)

69. J. Hunter (Critical and Historical Tracts, No IV), whom I follow here, shows that Barnsdale was peculiarly unsafe for travellers in Edward the First’s time. Three ecclesiastics, conveyed from Scotland to Winchester, had a guard, sometimes of eight archers, sometimes of twelve, or, further south, none at all; but when they passed from Pontefract to Tickhill, the number was increased to twenty,propter Barnsdale: p. 14.

70. Hunter suspects that the Nottinghamshire knight, Sir Richard at the Lee, in the latter half of the Gest, was originally a different person from the knight in the former half, “the knight of the Barnsdale ballads,” p. 25. Fricke makes the same suggestion, Die Robin-Hood Balladen, p. 19. This may be, but the reasons offered are not quite conclusive.

71. And so, as to Nottingham and Barnsdale, in No 118; and perhaps No 121, for the reference to Wentbridge, st. 6, would imply that Robin Hood is in Barnsdale rather than Sherwood.

72. I say Barnsdale, though the place is not specified, and though Sherwood would remove or reduce the difficulty as to distance. We have nothing to do with Sherwood in the Gest: a rational topography is out of the question. In the seventh fit the king starts from Nottingham, 365, walks “down by yon abbey,” 368, and ere he comes to Nottingham, 370, falls in with Robin, 375.

73. This was a custom of Arthur’s only upon certain holidays, according to the earlier representation, but in later accounts is made general. For romances, besides these mentioned at I, 257, in which this way of Arthur’s is noted (Rigomer, Jaufré, etc.), see Gaston Paris, Les Romans en vers du Cycle de la Table Ronde, Histoire Litt. de la France, XXX, 49.

74.Pothouis Liber de Miraculis S. D. G. Mariæ, c. 33, p. 377; Vincentius B., Speculum Hist., vii. c. 82.Mussafia, Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akad., Phil.-Hist.Classe, CXIII, 960–91, notes nine Latin copies, besides that attributed to Potho, in MSS mostly of the 13th century. Gautier de Coincy, ed. Poquet, cols. 543–52;Adgar’s Marienlegenden, Neuhaus, p. 176, No 29;Miracles de Nostre Dame par Personnages, G. Paris et U. Robert, VI, 171–223, No 35; Romania, VIII, 16, No 3 (Provençal). Berceo, in Sanchez, II, 367, No 23. Unger, Mariu Saga, No 15, pp. 87–92, 1064–67. Mone’s Anzeiger, VIII, col. 355, No 8, as a broadside ballad. Afanasief, Skazki, vii, No 49, as a popular tale, the Jew changed to a Tartar, and the Cross taken as surety, Ralston, Russian Folk-Tales, p. 27. “God-borg” inAlfred’s Laws, c. 33, Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsachsen, p. 88 f., was perhaps only an asseveration with an invocation of the Deity, like the Welsh “briduw.” And so “Ich wil dir got ze bürgen geben,” “Got den wil ich ze bürgen han,” in the Ritter v. Staufenberg, vv. 403, 405,Jänicke, Altdeutsche Studien.

75.Le Doctrinal de Sapience, fol. 67 b, cited by Legrand, is not to the purpose. Scala Celi refers to a Speculum Exemplorum.In Peele’s Edward I, the friar, having lost five nobles at dice to St Francis, pays them to St Francis’ receiver; but presently wins a hundred marks of the saint, and makes the receiver pay. (The story has in one point a touch of the Frenchfabliau.) Peele’s Works, ed. Dyce, I, 157–61.

75.Le Doctrinal de Sapience, fol. 67 b, cited by Legrand, is not to the purpose. Scala Celi refers to a Speculum Exemplorum.

In Peele’s Edward I, the friar, having lost five nobles at dice to St Francis, pays them to St Francis’ receiver; but presently wins a hundred marks of the saint, and makes the receiver pay. (The story has in one point a touch of the Frenchfabliau.) Peele’s Works, ed. Dyce, I, 157–61.

76. hey hoy.

77. 435. The three in 433, as in 416, is for rhyme, and need not be taken strictly.

78. Critical and Historical Tracts, No IV, Robin Hood, p. 28 ff.

79. Think of Robin as light porter,—Robin who had been giving and taking buffets that might fell an ox. Think of him as worn out with the work in eleven months, and dropped for disability. Think of his being put on threepence a day, after paying his yeomen at thrice the rate, 171, not to speak of such casual gratuities as we hear of in 382. “There is in all this, perhaps, as much correspondency as we can reasonably expect between the record and the ballad,” says Hunter, p. 38.

80. Hunter asks if it is not possible to find in this Robert Hood of Wakefield, near Barnsdale, “the identical person whose name has been so strangely perpetuated.” This Robert Hood would be a person of some consideration, and he would thus be qualified “for his station among the vadlets of the crown,”—three-penny vadlets, Great Hob, Little Coll, RobertTrash, and their fellows. The Wakefield Robert’s wife was named Matilda, “and the ballad testimony is—not the Little Gest, but other ballads of uncertain antiquity,—that the outlaw’s wife was named Matilda, which name she exchanged for Marian when she joined him in the green-wood.” (Pp 46–48.) Hunter has made a trivial mistake about Matilda: she belongs to Munday’s play, and not to the ballads (ballad) he has in mind.

81. The sheriff flees from Barnsdale “towards his house in Nottingham,” in stanza 57. In fact, though these places are fifty miles apart, this ballad treats them as adjacent. See p. 50 f.

82. Formerly among Sir John Fenn’s papers (for the history of which see Gairdner, Paston Letters, I, vii. ff); now in the possession of Mr William Aldis Wright, of Trinity College, Cambridge. The fragment, Mr Wright informs me, is written on a paper which was evidently the last half-leaf of a folio MS. On the back are various memoranda, and among them this: Itm. Rdof Rechard Wytway, penter [orpeuter], for hes hosse rent, in full payment, lx [ix?] s’, the vij day of November, aº Ed. iiijtixv \[1475]. The grammatical forms of themselves warrant our putting the composition further back. This interesting relic has already been printed in Notes and Queries, First Series, XII, 321, from a very incorrect copy made by Dr Stukely. It is given here from a transcript made for me by Henry Bradshaw, of honored memory. Mr Wright has compared this with the original, and given me the history of the paper, so far as known.This paper, as far as we can see, came into Sir John Fenn’s hands in company with the Paston Letters. In a letter of the date 1473, Sir John Paston writes: W. Woode, whyche promysed ... he wold never goo fro me, and ther uppon I have kepyd hym thys iii yer to pleye Seynt Jorge, and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham, and now, when I wolde have good horse, he is gone into Bernysdale, and I without a keeper. Fenn, Original Letters, etc., 1787, II, 134, cited by Ritson; Gairdner, Paston Letters, III, 89. The play cited above might be called one of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and may possibly have been the very one in which William Wood was used to perform, before he went “into Barnysdale,” that is, ran away from service.

This paper, as far as we can see, came into Sir John Fenn’s hands in company with the Paston Letters. In a letter of the date 1473, Sir John Paston writes: W. Woode, whyche promysed ... he wold never goo fro me, and ther uppon I have kepyd hym thys iii yer to pleye Seynt Jorge, and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottyngham, and now, when I wolde have good horse, he is gone into Bernysdale, and I without a keeper. Fenn, Original Letters, etc., 1787, II, 134, cited by Ritson; Gairdner, Paston Letters, III, 89. The play cited above might be called one of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and may possibly have been the very one in which William Wood was used to perform, before he went “into Barnysdale,” that is, ran away from service.

83. The [d]oo in the last line is not quite certain. I am not sure that the parts are always rightly assigned in the third dialogue.

84. Norray should be Nornee, or Norny, the name of a court fool. He is mentioned in James IV’s Treasurer’s Accounts, 1503–12. See Laing’s Dunbar, II, 307 f. Allan Bell being sly at shot, it is probable that Allan is miswritten in the MS. for Adam.

85. The gap at 302occurs between two pages, and is peculiarly regrettable. The former reading of “Robyns men” in 301made matters much worse, since there was no way of accounting for the appearance of his men at this point. We must suppose that some one of Robin’s many friends carries the news of his capture to his band, and not simply that; with this there must have come information that their leader was to be held to await knowledge of the king’s pleasure, otherwise delay would be dangerous, and summary measures for his deliverance be required.

86. The porter or warden, in such cases, may commonly look to have his neck wrung, to be thrown over the wall, into a well, etc.: compare Adam Bell, st. 65; Jock o the Side, sts 13, 14; the Tale of Gamelyn, Skeat, v. 303–05; Fulk Fitz Warine, Wright, pp 44, 82 f; King Horn. ed. Wissmann, vv 1097–99; Romance de don Gaiferos, F. Wolf, Ueber eine Sammlung spanischer Romanzen, p. 76, Wolf y Hofmann, Primavera, II, 148, No 174; etc.

87.En le temps de Averyl e May, quant les prees e les herbes reverdissent, et chescune chose vivaunte recovre vertue, beaute e force, les mountz e les valeys retentissent des douce chauntz des oseylouns, e les cuers de chescune gent, pur la beaute du temps e la sesone, mountent en haut e s’enjolyvent, etc.: Wright, Warton Club, 1855, p. 1; Stevenson, Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum, etc., p. 277.

88. Already cited at p. 41. Bower wrote 1441–47, and died 1449: Skene, Johannis de Fordun Chronica, pp xv, xli.

89. .sp 1Par cest exemple bien veonsQue li dous Deux en qui creonsAme et chierist et honneureCelui qui volentiers demeurePour oïr messe en sainte eglise, etc.‘Du chevalier qui ooit la messe, et Notre-Dame estoit pour lui au tournoiement,’ Barbazan et Méon, Fabliaux, 1808, I, 86.

89. .sp 1

Par cest exemple bien veonsQue li dous Deux en qui creonsAme et chierist et honneureCelui qui volentiers demeurePour oïr messe en sainte eglise, etc.

Par cest exemple bien veons

Que li dous Deux en qui creons

Ame et chierist et honneure

Celui qui volentiers demeure

Pour oïr messe en sainte eglise, etc.

‘Du chevalier qui ooit la messe, et Notre-Dame estoit pour lui au tournoiement,’ Barbazan et Méon, Fabliaux, 1808, I, 86.

90. These resemblances are noted by Fricke, Die Robin Hood Balladen, a dissertation, reprinted in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen (vol. 69), in which the relations of the ballads in question are discussed with sagacity and vigilance.

91. “You shall never hear more of me” might mean something stronger, but it is unlikely that Will is so touchy as to throw up fealty for a testy word from a sick man. A stanza or more seems to be lost here. Arthur is equally hasty with Gawain. He makes his vow to be the bane of Cornwall King. It is an unadvised vow, says Gawain.And then bespake him noble Arthur,And these were the words said he:Why, if thou be afraid, Sir Gawaine the gay,Goe home, and drink wine in thine own country.I, 285, sts 33–35.

And then bespake him noble Arthur,And these were the words said he:Why, if thou be afraid, Sir Gawaine the gay,Goe home, and drink wine in thine own country.I, 285, sts 33–35.

And then bespake him noble Arthur,And these were the words said he:Why, if thou be afraid, Sir Gawaine the gay,Goe home, and drink wine in thine own country.

And then bespake him noble Arthur,

And these were the words said he:

Why, if thou be afraid, Sir Gawaine the gay,

Goe home, and drink wine in thine own country.

I, 285, sts 33–35.

92. John is again his sole companion when Robin goes in search of Guy of Gisborne. The yeoman in stanza 3 should be Red Roger; but a suspicion has more than once come over me that the beginning of this ballad has been affected by some version of Guy of Gisborne.

93. I can make nothing of “give me mood,” in 231,2. ‘Give me God’ or ‘Give me my God,’ seems too bold a suggestion: at any rate I have no example of God used simply for housel.

94. A few verses are wanting at the end. The “met-yard” of the last line is one of the last things we should think Robin would care for.

95. It seemed to me at one time that there was a direction to shoot an arrow to determine the place of a grave also in No 16,A3,I, 185.Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,Shoot frae thy bow an arrow, and there let me lye.But upon considering the corresponding passage in 16B,C, and in 15B, the idea seems rather to be, that the arrow is to leave the bow at the moment when the soul shoots from the body.

95. It seemed to me at one time that there was a direction to shoot an arrow to determine the place of a grave also in No 16,A3,I, 185.

Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,Shoot frae thy bow an arrow, and there let me lye.

Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,

Shoot frae thy bow an arrow, and there let me lye.

But upon considering the corresponding passage in 16B,C, and in 15B, the idea seems rather to be, that the arrow is to leave the bow at the moment when the soul shoots from the body.

96. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 46, who citesB17, 18. Mr Ralston observes that most of the so-styled Robber Songs of the Russians are reminiscences of the revolt of the Don Cossacks against Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich. Stenka Razín, the chief of the insurgents, after setting for several years the forces of the Tsar at defiance, was put to a cruel death in 1672: p. 45, as above.

97. The personage may have been varied in the broadside ballads to catch the pence of tanners, tinkers, and the rest; or possibly some member of the respective fraternities might do this for the glory of his craft. A parallel case seems to be afforded by the well-known German ballad, ‘Der Zimmergesell und die junge Markgräfin,’ which is also sung of a journeyman shoemaker, tailor, locksmith, etc.; as remarked by A. Grün, Robin Hood, Ein Balladenkranz, p. 47 f.

98. Fricke, Die Robin-Hood-Balladen, p. 20 f, suggests a ballad of Robin Hood and the Sheriff (How Robin took revenge for the sheriff’s setting a price on his head), which may have been blended with another, of the Rescue of a Knight, to form the sixth fit of The Gest; and points to st. 329 of the Gest, ‘Robyn Hode walked in the forest,’ etc., as the probable beginning of such a ballad.

99.bwould have taken precedence ofa, having been printed earlier (1607–41), but I am at liberty only to collate Pepys copies. The Wood copies of Robin Hood ballads are generally preferable to the Pepys.

100. “A wet weary man,”A71, should probably be “wel weary.” Why should R. H. be wet? And if wet, he may as well be a little wetter.

101. Like terms are assured the cook by John in the Gest, sts 170, 171, and offered the Tanner by Robin Hood, R. H. and the Tanner, st. 26. Cf. Adam Bell, sts 163–65.The ‘Life’ in the Sloane MS., which is put not much before 1600, says: He procurd the Pynner of Wakefeyld to become one of his company, and a freyr called Muchel; though some say he was an other kynd of religious man, for that the order of freyrs was not yet sprung up.

101. Like terms are assured the cook by John in the Gest, sts 170, 171, and offered the Tanner by Robin Hood, R. H. and the Tanner, st. 26. Cf. Adam Bell, sts 163–65.

The ‘Life’ in the Sloane MS., which is put not much before 1600, says: He procurd the Pynner of Wakefeyld to become one of his company, and a freyr called Muchel; though some say he was an other kynd of religious man, for that the order of freyrs was not yet sprung up.

102. Curtilarius (Old English curtiler) qui curtile curat aut incolit: Ducange.

103. I suppose that it must already have been pointed out that the story of King Ramiro, versified by Southey from the Portuguese, Poetical Works, 1838, VI, 122, is a variety of that of Solomon. There are curious points of resemblance between ‘R. H. rescuing Three Squires’ and the conclusion of the story of Solomon.

104. Dodsley’s Old Plays, 4th ed., by W. C. Hazlitt, VIII, 195, 232.

105. A very serious offence: see E. Peacock, Hales and Furnivall, Percy Folio Manuscript, I, lxii, note to p. 34.

106. Further on, Brathwayte alludes to a difference between Robin Hood and the Shoemaker of Bradford, which had been treated of by stage-poets. This refers to the fight that Robin Hood and George a Green have with the shoemakers, in chap. xii of the History (Thoms, p. 52 f), which is introduced into Robert Greene’s play (Dyce, p. 199 f), but only George does the fighting there. It is mere carelessness when Munday, ‘Downfall,’ etc., applies the name of George a Greene to the Shoemaker of Bradford (Hazlitt, as above, p. 151). In the same play and the same scene he makes Scathlock and Scarlet two persons.

107. Robin Hood Newly Revived (which, by the way, is in the same bad style as Robin Hood and Little John) is directed to be sung ‘to a delightful new Tune.’ The tune, as is seen from the burden, was that of Arthur a Bland, etc., called in Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon (the Second Part of Robin Hood Newly Revived) Robin Hood, or Hey down, down a down. The earliest printed copy of the air is preserved in the ballad-opera of The Jovial Crew, 1731 (Rimbault, in Gutch’s Robin Hood, II, 433, Chappell’s Popular Music, p. 391), and the song which is there sung to it has middle rhyme in the first line as well as the third, which is the case with no Robin Hood ballad except Robin Hood and the Peddlers.Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which has the middle rhyme in the third line, is directed to be sung to Robin Hood Revived. Robin Hood and the Scotchman, as already said, has middle rhyme in the third line; so have The King’s Disguise, etc., R. H. and the Golden Arrow, R. H. and the Valiant Knight; but the tune assigned to the last is Robin Hood and the Fifteen Foresters, that is, Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham.It ought to be added that Robin Hood Newly Revived is found in the Garland of 1663, in company with R. H. and the Bishop, R. H. and the Butcher, etc., and that Robin Hood and Little John is not there; but I do not consider this circumstance sufficient to offset the probability in favor of the supposition, that by Robin Hood and the Stranger is meant Robin Hood and Little John.

Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which has the middle rhyme in the third line, is directed to be sung to Robin Hood Revived. Robin Hood and the Scotchman, as already said, has middle rhyme in the third line; so have The King’s Disguise, etc., R. H. and the Golden Arrow, R. H. and the Valiant Knight; but the tune assigned to the last is Robin Hood and the Fifteen Foresters, that is, Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham.

It ought to be added that Robin Hood Newly Revived is found in the Garland of 1663, in company with R. H. and the Bishop, R. H. and the Butcher, etc., and that Robin Hood and Little John is not there; but I do not consider this circumstance sufficient to offset the probability in favor of the supposition, that by Robin Hood and the Stranger is meant Robin Hood and Little John.

108. Fourteen foot, as proved by his bones, preserved, according to Hector Boece, in the kirk of Pette, in Murrayland. See Ritson’s Robin Hood, 1832, I, cxxxii f; and Gutch, II, 112, note *.

109. The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood, No 132, is a traditional variation of Robin Hood Revived.

110. Though Mr W. C. Hazlitt, in his Handbook to the Popular, Poetical, and Dramatic Literature of Great Britain, p. 514, No 25, has: “Robin Hood and the Stranger. In two parts. [Col.] London: printed by and for W. O., and to be sold at the booksellers. Roxb. and Wood Colls.” This colophon belongs only to Robin Hood, Will Scadlock, and Little John, otherwise Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon, which see. The title Robin Hood and the Stranger is adopted from Ritson.

111. ‘Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon,’ in Thackeray’s list, Ballad Society, I, xxiv, and in the late Garlands, 1749, etc.

112. Remarked by Fricke, p. 88 f.

113. Mr E. Maunde Thompson, Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum, in an obliging letter to Harvard College Library, and in The Academy, 1885, March 7, p. 170. No 8 C of this collection is in this manuscript.

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