ROBIN HOOD 



ROBINIA 



749 



Much ; to these the Gest adds Gilbert of the White 

 Hand and Reynold. A stalwart curtal friar, called 

 Friar Tuck in the title though not in the ballad, 

 fights with Robin Howl, and apparently accepts 

 the invitation to join his company, as he appears 

 later in two broadsides, which also mention Maid 

 Marian. Such is the romantic figure of the greatest 

 of English popular heroes a kind of yeoman-coun- 

 terpart to the knightly Arthur. 



The earliest notice of Robin Hood yet found is 

 that pointed out by Percy in Piers Plowman, 

 which, according to Skeat, cannot be older than 

 about 1377. Here Sloth says in his shrift that, 

 though but little acquainted with his paternoster, 

 he knows ' rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf, erle 

 of Chestre.' In the next century we find him 

 mentioned in Wyntoun's Chronicle of Scotland (c. 

 1420) ; a petition to parliament in the year 1439 

 represents a broken man in Derbyshire taking to 

 the woods ' like as it hadde be Rooyn-hode and his 

 meyne;' Bower, in his Scotichromcon (1441-47), 

 describes the lower orders of his time as entertain- 

 ing themselves with ballads both merry and serious 

 about Robin Hood, Little John, and their mates, 

 and preferring them to all others ; and Major or 

 Mair (c. 1470-1550) says in his Historia Maioris 

 Britannia! that Robin Hood ballads were sung 

 all over Britain. The last passage gives apparently 

 the earliest mention of those more romantic and 

 redeeming features of Robin Hood which earned 

 him a place in Fuller's Worthies of England, under 

 liia pro|>er county, sweet Nottinghamshire, 'not for 

 his thievery but for his gentleness.' Yet another 

 15th-century mention occurs in the Paston Letters, 

 where Sir John Paston writes in 1473 of a servant 

 whom he had kept to play Robin Hood and the 

 Sheriff of Nottingham. 



Fragments of two Robin Hood plays exist, one 

 dating from 1475, the other printed by Copland 

 with the Gest about 1550. The latter is described 

 in the title as ' very proper to be played in May- 

 ganies.' Robin Hood was a popular figure in these 

 during the 16th century, as we find from Stow, Hall, 

 and other writers, anil there is evidence that in 

 this connection he was known as far north as 

 Aberdeen. In place-names again we find traces of 

 him in cairns, mounds, hills, rocks, crosses, foun- 

 tains, caves, and oaks from Somerset to Whitby. 

 In the Gest the localities around Barnsdale are 

 topographically correct, down to the place of his 

 death at the priory of Kirkless between Wakefield 

 and Halifax. Here the valiant outlaw is treacher- 

 ously bled to death by his kinswoman the prioress, 

 to whom he had gone for relief in his sickness. 

 His last charge to Little John is completely true to 

 his character, and is expressed in lines of touching 

 simplicity : 



Lay me a green sod under my head. 



And another at my feet ; 

 And lay my bent bow by my side, 



Which wan my music sweet; 

 And make my grave of gravel and green. 



Which is most right and meet. 



There is no evidence worth anything that Robin 

 Hood was ever more than a mere creation of the 

 popular imagination, but in due time the yeoman 

 became a political personage, and was transformed 

 into an Earl of Huntingdon for whom a suitable 

 pedigree was constructed. Both Sir Walter Scott, 

 in Ivanhoe, and Thierry, in his ConquStede V Angle- 

 terre, make him a Saxon chief holding out like 

 Hereward against the Normans ; Bower, the con- 

 tinuator of Fordun, distinctly calls him one of the 

 proscribed followers of Simon de Montfort ; Joseph 

 Hunter ( 18.12) makes him an adherent of the Earl 

 of Lancaster in the insurrection of 1322. The last 

 scholar discovered a still further and exceptionally 

 amusing mare's nest in the name of one Robyn 



Hode, who entered the service of King Edward II. 

 about Christmas 1323 as one of the ' vadlets, por- 

 teurs de la chambre,' and was eleven months later 

 found unfit for his duties, and paid off with a gift 

 of five shillings. 'To detect "a remarkable co- 

 incidence between the ballad and the record " 

 requires,' says Professor Child, 'not only a theoret- 

 ical prepossession, but an uncommon insensibility 

 to the ludicrous.' Kuhn again identifies our outlaw 

 with Woden ; others with a sun-god, a woodland 

 deity, and the like all which subtleties of specu- 

 lation are unnecessary if we readily admit that the 

 hero of popular creative imagination may well have 

 formed a peg round which to hang much old-world 

 wood-lore even then fast fading into forgetfulness. 



Of Robin Hood ballads there have come down to 

 us in more or less ancient form as many as forty, 

 of which eight may be said to be of the first import- 

 ance, and of almost the finest quality of ballad 

 poetry. Of the remaining thirty-two, as Professor 

 Child points out, about half a dozen have in them 

 something of the old popular quality ; as many 

 more not the least snatch of it. Fully a dozen 

 are variations, sometimes wearisome, sometimes 

 sickening, upon the theme ' Robin Hood met with 

 his Match.' The best of all the cycle are perhaps 

 ' Robin Hood and the Monk,' and ' Robin Hood 

 and Gny of Gisborne,' and both open with a 

 delightful glimpse of the green wood a century 

 and more before its time in English poetry 



In somer, when the shawes be sheyne, 



And leves be large and long, 

 Hit is full mery in feyre foreste 



To here the foulys song : 



To se the dere draw to the dale, 



And leve the hilles hee, 

 And shadow hem in the leves grene, 



Under the grene- wode tre. 



The second begins no less beautifully 



When shawes beone sheene. and shradds full fayre 



And leeves both large and longe, 

 Itt is merry, walking in the fayre fforrest, 



To hear the small birds songe. 



The Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode was printed by 

 Wynken de Worde, most probably before 1500, a 

 long poem of over 1800 lines, arranged in eight 

 fyttes, being a not unskilful redaction of at least 

 four earlier distinct ballads. 



See Kitson's collection of Robin Hood ballads ( 2 vols. 

 1795) ; J. M. Gutch's Lytell Geste of Robin Hode (2 vols. 

 1847); the Percy Folio Manuscript, vol. i. (1867), and 

 the Introduction to the Eobin Hood ballads there by 

 Professor Hales ; and especially part v. ( Boston, 1888 ) of 

 Professor Child's magistral English and Scottish, Popular 

 Ballads. The first known ' Garland ' was printed in 1670, 

 and in 1678 there appeared a prose version of it, reprinted 

 by W. J. Thorns in his Early English Prate Romances 

 (voLii. 2ded. 1858). 



Robin Hood's Bay, a fishing-village in the 

 North Riding of Yorkshire, 6} miles SE. of Whitby 

 by the coast railway to Scarborough, opened in 

 1885. The bay on which it stands is picturesquely 

 fringed by lofty cliffs, rising in the Old Peak, its 

 southern horn, to a height of 585 feet. It owes its 

 name to traditions of Robin Hood, whose arrows 

 shot from the tower of Whitby Priory reached 

 Hawkser, 3 miles distant. 



Ivoliiliia. a genus of trees and shrubs of the 

 natural order Leguminosai, sub-order Papilionaceiv. 

 The most important species is the Locust Tree 

 (q.v.), also known as the False Acacia, or Thorn 

 Acacia, often simply designated Acacia. It is a 

 native of North America, extending from Canada 

 to the southern states, and is there much valued 

 for the hardness and durability of its timber. 

 With it, it is alleged, the houses of the Pilgrim 

 Fathers were built, and the city of Boston founded. 

 When green it is of soft texture, but when mature 

 and seasoned it rivals the oak for strength and 



