Chapter VI: Preface (5)

The original of all these stories is to be found in Pliny, who says: “It is generally held and confessed that the stagge or hind live long; for an hundred yeer after Alexander the great, some were taken with golden collars about their necks, overgrowne now with haire and growne within the skin: which collars the said king had done upon them” (Naturall Historie, by Holland, 1601, B. 8, c. 32). Pausanias, moreover, speaking of one Leocydas, who fought for the Megalopolitans, in conjunction with Lydiades, against the Lacedæmonians (about the year 243 before Christ), says he was reported to be the descendant in the ninth degree of that Arcesilaus, who living in Lycosura saw that stag which is sacred to the goddess Despoine worn out with old age. This stag, he adds, had a collar on its neck with the following inscription:

Caught young, when Agapenor sail’d for Troy.

By which, he concludes, it is evident that a stag lives much longer than an elephant (B. 8, c. 10).

―――― * Histoire de Charles VI.

† Upton de re militari, p. 119.

[49] Robin, in the old legend, expresses his regard for this order of men (concerning which the reader may consult an ingenious “Essay” in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. i., and some “Observations” in a collection of ancient songs, printed in 1790):

“Whether he be messengere,
Or a man that myrthes can,
Or yf he be a pore man,
Of my good he shall have some.”

[50] This play is entered in Master Henslowe’s account-book with the date of December 1600. See Malone’s Shakespeare, vol. ii. part ii. (Emen. & ad.)

[51] “The Triumphes of Reunited Britannia. A pageant in honour of Sir Leonard Holliday, lord mayor.” 1605.

[52] Henry Fitz-Alwine Fitz-Liefstane, goldsmith, first mayor of London, was appointed to that office by King Richard I. in 1189, and continued therein till the 15th of King John, 1212, when he “deceased, and was buried in the priorie of the holy trinitie, neare unto Aldgate” (Stow’s Survey, 1598, p. 418). His relationship with Robin Hood is merely poetical, and invented by Mundy “for the nonce;” though it is by no means improbable that they were acquainted, and that our hero might have occasionally dined at the Mansion-house on a Lord Mayor’s day.

[53] Jonson was led into this mistake by the old play of Robin Hood. See before, p. lv.

[54] This play appears to have been performed upon the stage after the Restoration. The prologue and epilogue (spoken by Mr. Portlock) are to be found in num. 1009 of the Sloane MSS. It was republished, with a continuation and notes, by Mr. Waldron, of Drury-lane Theatre, in 1783.

[55] A most stupid pantomime on this subject, under the title of “Merry Sherwood, or Harlequin, forester,” was performed in December 1795, at the Theatre-royal, Covent-garden.

[56] 1st edit. 1550, fo. xxvi. b. (Randolf is misprinted Rand of.) Subsequent editions, even of the same year, reading only “Randall of Chester.” Mr. Warton (History of English Poetry, ii. 179) makes this genius, whom he calls a frier, say “that he is well acquainted with the rimes of Randall of Chester;” and these rimes he, whimsically enough, conjectures to be the old Chester Whitsun plays; which, upon very idle and nonsensical evidence, he supposes to have been written by Randal Higden, the compiler of the Polychronicon. Of course, if this absurd idea were at all well founded, the rimes of Robin Hood must likewise allude to certain Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire plays, written by himself. The “Randolf erl of Chester” here meant is Randal Blundevile, the last earl of that name, who had been in the Holy Land, was a great warrior and patriot, and died in 1231.

The reading of the original edition is confirmed by a very old manuscript in the Cotton Library (Vespasian, B. XVI.) differing considerably from the printed copies, which gives the passage thus:

“I can nouzt perfiitli my pater-noster as a prest it syngeth:
I can rymes of Robyn Hood, of Rondolf erl of Chestre,
Ac of oure lorde ne of oure ladi the leste that ever was maked.”

(See also Caligula, A. XI.)

The speaker himself could have told Mr. Warton he was no frier:

“I have ben prieste & person passynge thyrty winter,
Yet can I nether solfe, ne singe, ne sayntes lyves read;
But I can find in a fielde or in a furlong an hare,
Better than in Beatus vir or in Beati omnes
Construe one clause well, & kenne it to my parishens.”

[57] “De quibus stolidum wigus hianter in comœdiis & tragædiis prurienter festum faciunt, & super ceteras ‘romancias mimos & bardanos cantitare delectantur” (Scotichronicon, à Hearne, p. 774). Comedies and tragedies are—not dramatic compositions, but—poems of a comic or serious cast. Romance in Spanish, and romance in French, signify—not a tale of chivalry, but—a vulgar ballad, at this day.

[58] “Rebus hujus Roberti gestis tota Britannia in cantibus utitur” (Majoris Britanniæ Historia, Edin. 1740, p. 128).

[59] Hystory of Scotland, Edin. 1541, fo. The word “waithman” was probably suggested by Andrew of Wyntown (see before, Note 3). It seems equivalent to the English vagabond, or perhaps outlaw. Waith is waif; and it is to be remembered that, in the technical language of the English courts, a woman is said to be waived, and not outlawed. “In our auld Scottish langage,” says Skene, “ane _Vothman_ is ane out-law, or ane fugitive fra the lawes” (_De verborum significatione_, Edin. 1597). It is from þæðan, _venari_, _fugare_. See Lye’s Dictionary. The passage above quoted does not occur in Boise’s original work.

[60] Of this poem there have been at least five editions at London or Westminster, and one at Edinburgh. In a list of “bookes printed and . . . sold by Jane Bell, at the east end of Christ-church [1655],” in company with Frier Rush, The frier and the boy, &c., is “a book of Robin Hood and Little John.” Captain Cox of Coventry appears to have had a copy of some old edition: see Laneham’s Letter from Killingworth, 1575.

[61] “Description of the Town of Tottenham-high-crosse,” &c. London (1631, 4to), 1781, 8vo. The invaluable MS. alluded to has been since discovered; and the entire poem, of which Mr. Ritson has here given a fragment, will be found in the Appendix.—ED.

[62] The book, under the same title, printed by Wynken de Worde, in 1517, is a different translation in prose.

[63] Mr. Warton reads _Toby_; and so, perhaps, it may be in former editions.

[64] Honest Barnaby, _i.e._ Richard Brathwayte, who wrote or travelled about 1640, was well acquainted with our hero’s story.

“Veni Nottingham tyrones
Sherwoodenses sunt latrones.
Instar Robin Hood, & servi
Scarlet & Joannis Parvi;
Passim, sparsim, peculantur,
Cellis, sylvis deprædantur.”

“Thence to Nottingham, where rovers,
Highway riders, Sherwood drovers,
Like old Robin Hood and Scarlet,
Or like Little John his varlet;
Here and there they shew them doughty,
In cells and woods to get their booty.”

Whitlock relates that “the [parliament] committee who carried the propositions of peace to Oxford, had the king’s answer sealed up and sent to them. They, upon advice together, thought it not fit for them to receive an answer in that manner . . . and made an address to his majesty that they might know what his answer was, and have a copy of it: to which his majesty replied, What is that to you, who are but to carry what I send, and if I will send the song of _Robin Hood and Little John_, you must carry it? To which the commissioners only said, that the business about which they came was of somewhat more consequence than that song” (_Memorials_, p. 115).

[65] There is, in fact, such a place as Barnwood forest, in Buckinghamshire; but no one, except Mr. Hearne, has hitherto supposed that part of the country to have been frequented by our hero. Barnwood, in the case reported by Yelverton, has clearly arisen from a confusion of Barnsdale and green wood. “Robin Hood in the greenwood stood” was likewise the beginning of an old song now lost (see _post_, p. 197): and it is not a little remarkable that Jefferies, serjeant, on the trial of Pilkington and others, for a riot, in 1683, by a similar confusion, quotes the line in question thus:

“Robin Hood upon Greendale stood” (State-trials, iii. 634).

A third corruption has taken place in Parker, p. 131 (King _v._ Cotton), though expressly cited from Yelverton, viz.

“Robin Hood in Barnwell stood.”

The following most vulgar and indecent rime, current among the peasantry in the North of England, may have been intended to ridicule the perpetual repetition of “Robin Hood in greenwood stood:”

Robin Hood
In green-wood stood.
With his back against a tree;
He fell flat
Into a cow-plat,
And all besh—n was he

[66] It is possible that, amid these absurdities, there may be other lines of the old song of Robin Hood, which is the only reason for reviving them.

“O sleepst thou, or wakst thou, Jeffery Cooke?”

occurs, likewise, in a medley of a similar description, in Pammelia 1609.

[67] In “_Heraclitus ridens_, or a discourse between Jest and Earnest,” a periodical paper against the Whigs, published in 1681, and collected and republished in 1713 (No. 34), Jest begins singing:

“Bills, bows, and axes, quoth Robin Hood,
But I have not time to tell;
Yonder’s the sheriff and his company,
But I hope all will be well.
Hei, down, derry, derry, down;”

and says, “I hope I may sing of old Robin without offending a grand jury, or being presented for disuniting Protestants.”

In The Gentleman’s Magazine for December 1790 is the first verse of a song used by the inhabitants of Helston in Cornwall on the celebration of an annual festivity on the 8th of May, called the Furry-day, supposed Flora’s day, not, it is imagined, “as many have thought, in remembrance of some festival instituted in honour of that goddess, but rather from the garlands commonly worn on that day.” (See the same publication for June and October 1790.) This verse was the whole that Mr. Urban’s correspondent could then recollect, but he thought he might be afterwards able “to send all that is known of it, for,” he says, “it formerly was very long, but is now much forgotten.” The stanza is as follows:

“Robin Hood and Little John
They are both gone to fair O;
And we will go to the merry green-wood,
To see what they do there O.
With hel an tow,
And rum-be-low,
And chearily we’ll get up,
As soon as any day O,
All for to bring the summer home,
The summer and the May O.”

“After which,” he adds, “there is something about the grey goose wing; from all which,” he concludes, “the goddess Flora has nothing to say to it.” She may have nothing to say to the song, indeed, and yet a good deal to do with the thing. But the fact is, that the first eight days of May, or the first day and the eighth, seem to have been devoted by the Celtic nations to some great religious ceremony. Certain superstitious observances of this period still exist in the Highlands of Scotland, where it is called the Bel-tein; Beltan, in that country, being a common term for the beginning of May, as “between the Beltans” is a saying significant of the first and eighth days of that month. The games of Robin Hood, as we shall elsewhere see, were, for whatever reason, always celebrated in May.—N.B. “Hel-an-tow,” in the above stanza, should be heave and how. Heave and how, and Rumbelow, was an ordinary chorus to old ballads, and is at least as ancient as the reign of Edward II., since it occurs in the stanza of a Scotish song, preserved by some of our old historians, on the battle of Bannockburn.

To lengthen this long note: Among the Harleian MSS. (num. 367) is the fragment of “a tale of Robin Hood dialouge-wise beetweene Watt and Jeffry. The morall is the overthrowe of the abbyes; the like being attempted by the Puritane, which is the wolfe, and the politician, which is the fox, agaynst the bushops. Robin Hood, bushop; Adam Bell, abbot; Little John, colleagues of the university.” This seems to have been a common mode of satirising both the old Church and the reformers. In another MS. of the same collection (N. 207), written about 1532, is a tract entitled “The banckett of John the reve, unto Peirs Ploughman, Laurens Laborer, Thomlyn Tailyor, and Hobb of the Hille, with others;” being, as Mr. Wanley says, a dispute concerning transubstantiation by a Roman Catholic. The other, indeed, is much more modern: it alludes to the indolence of the abbots, and their falling off from the original purity in which they were placed by the bishops, whom it inclines to praise. The object of its satire seems to be the Puritans; but here it is imperfect, though the lines preserved are not wholly destitute of poetical merit.—“Robin Hood and the Duke of Lancaster, a ballad, to the tune of The Abbot of Canterbury,” 1727, is a satire on Sir Robert Walpole.

[68] Chatterton, in his “Memoirs of a Sad Dog,” represents “Baron Otranto” (meaning the honourable Horace Walpole, now Earl of Orford), when on a visit to “Sir Stentor,” as highly pleased with Robin Hood’s ramble, “melodiously chaunted by the knight’s groom and dairy-maid, to the excellent music of a two-stringed violin and bag-pipe,” which transported him back “to the age of his favourite hero, Richard the Third;” whereas, says he, “the songs of Robin Hood were not in being till the reign of Queen Elizabeth.” This, indeed, may be in a great measure true of those which we now have, but there is sufficient evidence of the existence and popularity of such-like songs for ages preceding; and some of these, no doubt, were occasionally modernised or new-written, though most of them must be allowed to have perished.

The late Dr. Johnson, in controverting the authenticity of Fingal, a composition in which the author, Mr. Macpherson, has made great use of some unquestionably ancient Irish ballads, said, “He would undertake to write an epick poem on the story of Robin Hood, and half England, to whom the names and places he should mention in it are familiar, would believe and declare they had heard it from their earliest years” (Boswell’s Journal, p. 486).

[69] The following note is inserted in the fourth edition of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in July 1795 (vol. i. p. xcvii.):

“Of the 24 songs in what is now called ‘Robin Hood’s Garland,’ many are so modern as not to be found in Pepys’s collection, completed only in 1700. In the [editor’s] folio MS. are ancient fragments of the following, viz.—Robin Hood and the beggar.—Robin Hood and the butcher.—Robin Hood and fryer Tucke.—Robin Hood and the pindar.—Robin Hood and queen Catharine, in two parts.—Little John and the four beggars, and “Robine Hood his death.” This last, which is very curious, has no resemblance to any that have yet been published; [it is probably num. xxviii. of part ii.], and the others are extremely different from the printed copies; but they unfortunately are in the beginning of the MS. where half of every leaf hath been torn away.”

As this MS. “contains several songs relating to the civil war in the last century,” the mere circumstance of its comprising fragments of the above ballads is no proof of a higher antiquity; any more than its not containing “one that alludes to the Restoration” proves its having been compiled before that period; or than, because some of these 24 songs are not to be found in Pepys’s collection, they are more modern than 1700. If the MS. could be collated, it would probably turn out that many of its contents have been inaccurately and unfaithfully transcribed, by some illiterate persons, from printed copies still extant, and, consequently, that it is, so far, of no authority. See the advertisement prefixed.

[70] Mr. Warton has mistaken and misprinted this line so as to make it absolute nonsense.

“Is not my reason good?
Good—even good—Robin Hood.”

(His. En. po. vol. ii.)

[71] Drayton’s Polyolbion, song 26, p. 122 (supra, p. vii.)

[72] In Churchyard’s “Replication onto Camel’s Objections” he tells the latter:

“Your knowledge is great, your judgement is good,
The most of your study hath ben of Robyn Hood;
And Bevys of Hampton, and syr Launcelot de Lake,
Hath taught you full oft your verses to make.”

[73] See the original story, in which two brothers, of whom one had wished for as many oxen as he saw stars, the other for a pasture as wide as the firmament, kill each other about the pasturage of the oxen (from Camer. oper. subscis. cent. 1, c. 92, p. 429), in Wanley’s Little World of Man, edition of 1774, p. 426. Camerarius, it seems, had the story from Scardeonius _de claris civibus Patavinis_, whence it is also related in the notes to Upton _de studio militari_; and an older, of the like kind, is in the Facetiæ of Poggius.

[74] “Derry down is the burden of the old songs of the Druids sung by their Bards and Vaids, to call the people to their religious assemblys in the groves. Doire in Irish (the old Punic) is a grove: corrupted into derry. A famous Druid grove and academy at the place since called Londonderry from thence.”—MS. note by Dr. Stukeley, in his copy of Robin Hood’s Garland. “Paul, Paul, thou art beside thyself!”

[75] Mr. Boyd, the famous preacher in Childsdale, finding that several of his hearers went away after the forenoon sermon, had this expression in his afternoon prayers: “Now, Lord, thou seest that many people go away from hearing thy Word; but had we told them stories of Robin Hood or Davie Lindsay, they had stayed; and yet none of these are near so good as thy Word that I preach” (Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, 1714, p. 156).

[76] The Bishop grows scurrilous. “I never heard,” says Coke, attorney-general, “that Robin Hood was a traitor, they say he was an outlaw.” (State Trials, i. 218.—Raleigh had said, “Is it not strange for me to make myself a Robin Hood, a Kett, or a Cade?”)

[77] This ballad seems to have been written in imitation of a song in Heywood’s Rape of Lucrece, 1630, beginning—

“The gentry to the King’s-head,
The nobles to the crown,” &c.

[78] In Arnold’s Essex Harmony (ii. 98) he gives the inscription, as a catch for three voices, of his own composition, thus:

“My beer is stout, my ale is good,
Pray stay and drink with Robin Hood;
If Robin Hood abroad is gone,
Pray stay and drink with Little John.”

[79] This description is finely illustrated by an excellent woodcut at the head of one of Anthony a Wood’s old ballads in the Ashmoleian Museum. The frontispiece to Gervas Markham’s Archerie, 1634, is likewise a man drawing a bow.

[80] See “The auncient order societie and unitie laudable of prince Arthure and his knightly armory of the round table . . . Translated and collected by R. R. London, Imprinted by John Wolfe dwelling in Distaffe-lane neere the signe of the Castle, 1583.” 4to, b. l. It appears from this publication that on the revival of London archery in Queen Elizabeth’s time, “the worshipfull socyety of archers,” instead of calling themselves after Robin Hood and his companions, took the names of “the magnificent prince Arthure and his knightly traine of the round table.” It is, probably, to one of the annual meetings of this identical society that Master Shallow alludes in the _Second Part of King Henry IV._ “I remember,” says he, “at Mile-end Green [their usual place of exercise],—I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s shew,” &c. (See also Steevens’s Shakespeare, 1793, ix. 142.) The successors of the above “friendly and frank fellowship” assumed the ridiculous appellations of Duke of Shoreditch, Marquis of Clerkenwell, Earl of Pankridge, &c. See Wood’s Bowman’s Glory, 1682.

[81] Meaning that his sole or chief employment had been in Christmas or May games, Whitsun-ales, and such like idle diversions. See Original Letters, &c., ii. 134.

In an old circular woodcut, preserved on the title of Robin Hood’s Garland, 1670, as well as on that of Adam Bell, &c., printed at Newcastle in 1772, is the apparent representation of a May-game, consisting of the following personages: 1. A bishop. 2. Robin Hood. 3. The potter (or beggar). 4. Little John. 5. Frier Tuck. 6. Maid Marian. Figures 2 and 4 are distinguished by their bows and different size. The frier holds out a cross; and Marian has flowing hair, and wears a sort of coronet. But the execution of the whole is too rude to merit a copy.

At Lord Fitzwilliams’s at Richmond there is, or lately was, a curious painting by Vinckenbooms, representing old Richmond palace, with a group of morris-dancers. It has been badly engraved by Godfrey, who reduced the figures to too small a scale. Mr. Douce has a tracing from the original picture with all the figures distinctly marked. See a poem at the end of Hall’s Downfall of May-games, 1661, 4to.

[82] The precise purpose or meaning of setting up Robin Hood’s bower has not been satisfactorily ascertained. Mr. Hearne, in an attempt to derive the name of “The Chiltern country” (ciltern, Saxon) from silex, a flint, has the following words: “Certe Silcestriam, &c. _i.e._ Certainly Silchester, in Hampshire, signifies nothing but the city of flints (that is, a city composed or built of flint-stones). And what is more, in that very Chiltern country you may frequently see houses built of flints, in erecting which, in ancient times, I suppose that many persons involved themselves deeply in debt, and that, in order to extricate themselves, they took up money at interest of I know not what great men, which so far disturbed their minds that they would become thieves and do many things in no wise agreeable to the English government. Hence, the nobility ordered that large woods in the Chiltern country should in a great measure be cut down, lest they should conceal any considerable body of robbers, who were wont to convert the same into lurking places. It concerns this matter to call to mind that of this sort of robbers was that Robin or Robert Hood, of whom the vulgar dayly sing so many wonderful things. He (being now made an outlaw) before he retired into the north parts, frequently robbing in the Chiltern country, lurked in the thickets thereof on purpose that he should not be taken. Thence it was that to us boys (exhilarating, according to custom, the mind with sports) certain countrymen, with whom we had accidentally some conversation, shewed us that sort of den or retreat (vulgarly called Robin Hood’s bower) in Maydenhead-thicket; which thicket is the same that Leland in his Itinerary called Frith, by which name the Anglo-Saxons themselves spoke of thickets. For although frið in reality signifies peace, yet since numerous groves with them (as well as before with the Britons) were deemed sacred, it is by no means to be wondered at that a great wood (because manifestly an asylum) should, in the judgment of the Anglo-Saxons, be called by no other name than fr ðes: and that Maydenhead-thicket was esteemed among the greater woods Leland himself is a witness. Rightly therefore did Robin Hood (as frið-bena) reckon himself to abide there in security” (Chronicon de Dunstaple, p. 387). What he means by all this is, doubtless, sufficiently obscure: the mere name, however, of Robin Hood’s bower seems a very feeble authority for concluding that gallant outlaw to have robbed or skulked in the Chiltern hundreds.

It may seem, perhaps, from a passage in Browne’s _Britannia’s Pastorals_ (Song 4), that _Robin Hood’s bower_ was prepared for the reception of himself and his Marian, as king and queen of May. The lines are these:

“As I have seene the lady of the May
_Set in an arbour_, on a holy-day,
Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains,
Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe’s strains.”

[83] See Steevens’s Shakespeare, 1793, x. 186.

[84] Albion’s England, 1602, p. 121. It is part of the “Northerne man’s speech against the friers.” He adds:

“At Baptis-day with ale and cakes bout bonfires neighbours stood,
At Martle masse wa turnd a crabbe, thilke told of Roben Hood,
Till after long time myrke, when blest were windowes, dares and lights,
And pails were fild, and hathes were swept, gainst fairie elves and
sprits:
Rock and plow Mondaies gams . . . with saint-feasts and kirk-lights.”

A very learned and ingenious gentleman conceives that the enumeration of characters in the passage quoted in the text belongs solely to the _May_, and has no relation whatever to the _morrise_. That the two games, however, though essentially distinct in their origin, got somehow or other blended together appears unquestionable.

“As fit as a _morris_ for _May-day_” is one of the clown’s similes in _All’s well that ends well_ (act ii. scene 2).

[85] “The word livery was formerly used to signify anything delivered; see the Northumberland Household Book, p. 60. If it ever bore such an acceptation at that time, one might be induced to suppose, from the following entries, that it here meant a badge, or something of that kind:

15 C. of leveres for Robin Hode 0 5 0
For leveres, paper and sateyn 0 0 20
For pynnes and leveres 0 6 5
For 13 C. of leverys 0 4 4
For 24 great lyvereys 0 0 4

We are told that formerly, in the celebration of May-games, the youth divided themselves into two troops, the one in winter livery, the other in the habit of the spring. See Brand’s Popular Antiquities, p. 261.” This quotation is misapplied. Liveries, in the present instance, are pieces of paper or sateyn with some device thereon, which were distributed for money among the spectators. So in a passage which will be shortly quoted from Jack Drum’s Entertainment: “Well said, my boyes, I must have my lord’s livory; what is’t? a May-pole?” See also Stubbs’s Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, sig. M. 2 _b_, and Skelton’s Don Quixote, part ii. chap. 22.

[86] “Though it varies considerably from that word, this may be a corruption of orpiment, which was much in use for colouring the morris garments.” How orseden can be a corruption of orpiment is not very easy to conceive: it may as well be supposed to mean worsted or buckram. Mr. Steevens thinks that this _orseden_ is the _Arse-dine_ of old Joan Trash, in Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, and means _flame-coloured paint_, used to _hobby-horses_. The four giants for the revived Midsummer shew at Chester, in 1668, were “to be cullered _tinsille arsedine_” (MSS. Har. 2150, fo. 373, b.)

[87] “The friar’s coat was generally of russet, as it appears by the following extracts . . . .” The coat of this mock frier would, doubtless, be made of the same stuff as that of a real one.

[88] “Marian was the assumed name of the beloved mistress of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, whilst he was in a state of outlawry, as Robin Hood was his. See Mr. Steevens’s note to a passage in Shakespeare’s _Henry IV._ This character in the morris-dances was generally represented by a boy. See Strutt’s View of Customs and Manners, vol. iii. p. 150. It appears by one of the extracts, given above, that at Kingston it was performed by a woman, who was paid a shilling each year for her trouble.”

[89] “Mr. Steevens suggests, _with great probability_, that this word may have the same meaning as howve or houve, used by Chaucer for a head-dress; Maid Marian’s head-dress was always very fine: indeed some persons have derived her name from the Italian word morione, a head-dress.” Mr. Steevens was never less happy than he is in this very probable conjecture. The word howve or houve, in Chaucer, is a mere variation of hood: and Maid Marian’s head-dress must, to be sure, have been “very fine” when made of four yards of broad cloth! A huke is a woman’s gown or habit. (Huke, palla, toga, palium Belgicis feminis usitatum.—_Skin._) Skelton mentions it in his Elinour Rumming:

“Her _huke_ of Lyncole grene.”

“All women in generall,” says Moryson, speaking of the Netherlands, “when they goe out of the house, put on a _hoyke_ or vaile, which covers their heads, and hangs downe vpon their backs to their legges,” &c. (Itinerary, 1617, part 3, p. 169).

Sir John Cullum seems to have mistaken Rose Sparkes’ “best hook” for a “hook worn at the bottom of the stays, to regulate the sitting of the apron” (History of Hawsted, p. 25). Morione, in Italian, signifies a murrion or scull-cap; and though the derivation alluded to appears to have the sanction of Blount’s Glosographia, nothing can be more completely absurd. _Marian_ is _Mary_.

“And _Marian’s_ nose looks rede and raw.”

[90] “It appears that this, as well as other games, was made a parish concern.”

[91] “Probably gilt leather, the pliability of which was particularly accommodated to the motion of the dancers.”

[92] “A sort of coarse linen.”

[93] “Probably a Moor’s coat; the word Morion is sometimes used to express a Moor.—The morris dance is by some supposed to have been originally derived from Moorish-dance. Black buckram appears to have been much used for the dresses of the ancient mummers. One of the figures in Mr. Tollet’s window is supposed to be a morisco.”

[94] “Disard is an old word for a fool.”

[95] In Ben Jonson’s Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies, presented to King James in 1621 (the very date, by the way, which appears on Mr. Tollet’s window), we have the following dialogue between _Cockret_ and _Clod_:

“_Coc._ Oh the lord! what be these? . . .

_Clo._ They should be morris-dancers by their gingle, but they have no napkins.

_Coc._ No, nor a hobby-horse.

_Clo._ Oh, he’s often forgotten, that’s no rule; but there is no _maid Marian_ nor _friar_ amongst them, which is the surer mark.

_Coc._ Nor a _fool_ that I see.”—(_Tollet’s Memoir._)

[96] Neither is any notice taken of them, where the characters of the morris-dance are mentioned, in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, by Shakespeare and Fletcher.

[97] This was a usual cry on occasions of mirth and jollity. Thus, in the celebration of St. Stephen’s day in the Inner-Temple hall, as we find it described in Dugdale’s Origines Juridiciales: “Supper ended, the constable-marshall ‘presenteth’ himself with drums afore him, mounted upon a scaffold, born by four men; and goeth three times round about the harthe, crying out aloud, A lord, a lord, &c. Then he descendeth and goeth to dance,” &c. (p. 156).

[98]

――“’Tis meet we all go forth,
To view the sick and feeble parts of France:
And let us do it with no show of fear;
No, with no more, that if we heard that England
Were busied with a _Whitsun morris-dance_.”

Shak. _K. Hen. V._, act ii. scene 4.

[99] Perhaps also, Robin Hood and his party had never appeared in company with the morris-dancers but at one particular period, in the beginning of May, whereas we find that _Whitsuntide_ was no less devoted to the latter.

[100] It must be confessed that no other direct authority has been met with for constituting _Robin Hood_ and _Little John_ integral characters of the morris-dance. That _Maid Marian_, however, and the _Frier_, were almost constantly such, is proved beyond the possibility of a doubt; and why or how they should become so, without Robin Hood, at least, is unaccountable.

[101] This county would seem to have been famous for their exertions a couple of centuries ago. Will Kemp the player was a celebrated morris-dancer; and in the Bodleian Library is the following scarce and curious tract by him: “Kemp’s nine daies wonder performed in a daunce from London to Norwich. Containing the pleasure, paines and kind entertainment of William Kemp between London and that city in his late morrice. Wherein is somewhat set downe worth note; to reproove the slaunders spred of him, many things merry, nothing hurtfull. Written by himself to satisfie his friends. London, printed by E. A. for Nicholas Ling, 1600” 4to, b. l. On the title-page is a woodcut figure of Kemp as a morrice-dancer, preceded by a fellow with a pipe and drum, whom he, in the book, calls Thomas Slye his taberer.—See, in Richard Brathwayte’s Remains after Death, 1618, some lines “upon Kempe and his morice, with his epitaph.”

[102] “On Monday [July 30] the morris-dancers of Pendleton paid their annual visit in Salford. They were adorned with all the variety of colours that a profusion of ribbons could give them, and had a very showy garland.”—_Star_, Aug. 9, 1792.

[103] “Council Register, v. 1, p. 30.”

[104] “Mary, parliament 6, c. 61, A.D. 1555.” “Anentis Robert Hude, and abbot of Unreason. Item, It is statute and ordained, that in all times cumming, na maner of person be chosen Robert Hude, nor Little John, abbot of unreason, queenis of Maij, nor utherwise, nouther in burgh, nor to landwart, in onie time to cum: and gif ony provest, baillies, councell, and communitie, chuse sik ane personage as Robert Hude, Little John, abbotis of unreason, or queenis of Maij, within burgh, the chusers of sik sall tine their freedome for the space of five zeires; and utherwise salbe punished at the queenis grace will; and the acceptar of sik like office sall be banished foorth of the realme; and gif ony sik persones . . . . beis chosen out-with burgh, and uthers landward townes, the chusers sall pay to our soveraine ladie ten poundes, and their persones [be] put in waird there to remaine during the queenis grace pleasure.” Abbot of unreason is the character better known in England by the title of abbot or lord of misrule, “who,” says Percy, “in the houses of our nobility presided over the Christmas gambols, and promoted mirth and jollity at that festive season” (Northumberland Household Book, notes, p. 441).

[105] “Council Register, v. 4, p. 4, 30.”

[106] “Knox’s History, p. 270.”

[107] “Book of Universal Kirk, p. 414.” See also Keith’s History of Scotland, p. 216.

[108] History of Whitby, York, 1779, p. 146. “It was always believed,” adds the worthy pedagogue, “that these butts had been erected by him for that very purpose, till the year 1771, when this popular notion was discovered to be a mistake; they being no more than the barrows or tumuli thrown up by our pagan predecessors on interring their leaders or the other persons of distinction amongst them. However, notwithstanding this discovery, there is no doubt but Robin Hood made use of those houes or butts when he was disposed to exercise his men, and wanted to train them up in hitting a mark.” Be that as it may, there are a few hillocks of a similar nature not far from Guisbrough, which likewise bear the name of Robin Hood’s butts; and others, it is imagined, may be met with in other parts.

[109]

Epigram on Robin Hood’s well, “a fine spring on the road,
ornamented by Sir John Vanbrugh;” by Roger Gale, Esq. (Bib. Topo.
Britan. No. II. part iii. p. 427).

“Nympha fui quondam latronibus hospita sylvæ
Heu nimium sociis nota, Robine, tuis.
Me pudet innocuos latices fudisse scelestis,
Jamque viatori pocula tuta fero,
En pietatis honos! Comes hanc mihi Carliolensis
Ædem sacravit quâ bibis, hospes, aquas.”

The same author (Gent), in his “long and pathetick prologue,” setting forth “the contingencies, vicissitudes or changes of this transitory life,” “spoken, for the most part, on Wednesday and Friday the 18th and 20th of February 1761, at the deep tragedy of beautiful, eloquent, tender-hearted, but unfortunate Jane Shore, . . . . uttered and performed at his benefit” . . . (being then ætatis 70, and far declined into the vale of sorrow,*) has very artfully contrived to introduce our hero and his famous well.

“The concave hall, ’mongst sources never view’d,
Nor heard the goddesses, in merry mood,
At their choice viands sing bold Robin Hood:†
Whose tomb at Kirkley’s nunnery display’d,
A false, hard-hearted, irreligious maid,
Who bled, and to cold death that earl betray’d.
But fame still lasts, while country folks display
His limpid fountain, and loud-surging bay.”

―――― * He died in 1778, aged 87.

† “Omnes agnovere deam; lætique receptant
Alcæum musæ comitem, ponuntur Iâcchi
Crateres; flaventque scyphis Cerealia vina:
Accedunt vultus hilares; festique lepores,
Et jocus, et risus: dulci testudine Naias
Pulchra modos variat; furtisque insignis et arcu
Hodi latronis, fluvios bene nota per istos,
Ludicra gesta canit: resonant laquearia plausu.”

[110]

“Viventes venæ, spine, catinusque catenæ,
Sunt Robin Hoodi nota trophæa sui.”

[111]

“A well, thorne, dish, hung in an iron chaine,
For monuments of Robin Hood remaine.”

[112] Voyage from England to India, 1773, p. 8. In a subsequent page this great man is employed in a commerce of a more delicate, indeed, but, according to European notions, less honourable nature, which he manages with consummate address.

[113] They likewise seem alluded to in the Vision, fo. 1, b:

“And ryse wyth ribaudy as Rebertes knaves.”

[114] “On a loose paper, in Mr. Ashmole’s handwriting, in the museum at Oxford, is the following little anecdote:—

“The famous Little John (Robin Hood’s companion) lyes buried in Fethersedge churchyard, in the peak of Derbyshire, one stone at his head, another at his feet, and part of his bow hangs up in the chancell. Anno 1652.” H. E[llis]. European Magazine, October 1794, p. 295.

[115] This seems the established size of an ancient hero. The grave of Gawin, King Arthur’s nephew, discovered in the time of William the Conqueror, was, according to Malmesbury, “_quatuor decim pedes longum_” (De gestis regum, l. 3). Bois, from the above circumstance, conceives our “Litil Jhon” to have been so called “_per ironiam_.” See his original work, fo. ix.

[116] Historie of Scotland, translatit be Maister Johne Bellenden, Edin. 1541, fo. The luxury of his countrymen will appear a strange complaint in the mouth of a Scotishman of the 16th century, to such as believe, with the late Dr. Johnson, that they learned to plant kail from Cromwell’s soldiers, and that “when they had not kail they probably had nothing” (Journey to the Western Islands, p. 55).

[117] Description of Ireland, in Holinshed’s Chronicle, 1587.

[118] Historical Essay, &c., p. 129. This allegation demands what the lawyers call a _profert in curiam._ It is, however, certain that there have been persons who usurped the name of Little John. In the year 1502, “about mydsomer, was taken a felow whyche had renued many of Robyn Hodes pagentes, which named himselfe Grenelef” (Fabyan’s Chronicle, 1559). Therefore, beware of counterfeits!

ROBIN HOOD.

Part I.

{1}

ROBIN HOOD.