Frank Sidgwick

“ The Dictionary of National Biography includes Robin Hood, as it includes King Arthur; but it is better to face the truth, and to state boldly that Robin Hood the yeoman xii outlaw never existed in the flesh. As the goddess Athena sprang from the head of Zeus, Robin Hood sprang from the imagination of the English people. ”

“ To do this, it is necessary to go back some centuries before the time at which we first hear of Robin Hood the outlaw, and to follow the development of the English folk’s summer festival from song and dance to drama, and from the folk-games—the ‘Induction of May,’ the ‘Induction of Autumn,’ the ‘Play of the King and the Queen,’ which, separately or together, were performed at least as early as the thirteenth century—to the ‘May-game’ or ‘King’s game’ of the middle of the fifteenth century. ”

“ He did off his hood anon;
‘Where is the monk that bare the letters?’
He said to Little John.
66.
‘He is so fain of him,’ said Little John,
‘For sooth as I you say,
He has made him abbot of Westminster,
A lord of that abbay.’
67.
The sheriff made John good cheer,
And gave him wine of the best;
At night they went to their bed,
And every man to his rest.
68.
When the sheriff was on sleep,
Drunken of wine and ale,
Little John and Much for sooth
Took the way unto the jail.
69.
Little John callëd up the jailor;
And bade him rise anon;
He said Robin Hood had broken prison,
And out of it was gone. ”

“ Argument.—Robin Hood refuses to dine until he finds some guest to provide money for his entertainment. He sends Little John and all his men to bring in any earl, baron, abbot, or knight, to dine with him. They find a knight, and feast him beneath the greenwood tree: but when Robin demands payment, the knight turns out to be in sorry plight, for he has sold all his goods to save his son. On the security of Our Lady, Robin lends him four hundred pounds, and gives him a livery, a horse, a palfrey, boots, spurs, etc., and Little John as squire. ”

“ These five references show that Robin Hood was popular in ballads for at least a century before the date at which we find those ballads in print; and apart from the fact that printing is usually the last thing that happens to a ballad xvii of the folk, the language in which they are written is unmistakably Middle English—that is to say, the Gest of Robyn Hode (at least) may be dated nearer 1400 than 1500. But Langland’s evidence is clear; ‘rymes’ of Robin Hood were widely known by 1377. Neither Bower nor Major know anything of Robin except what they learnt from the ballads about him. ”

“ If King Arthur is the ideal knight of Celtic chivalry, Robin is the ideal champion of the popular cause under feudal conditions: his enemies are bishops, fat monks, and the sheriff who would restrain his liberty. It is natural that an enfranchised yeoman, who took toll of the oppressors, and so effected what we still call xiii a redistribution of wealth, should be the hero of the oppressed and the law-abiding poor ”

“ The simplest way to begin is to eliminate from our consideration the numerous Robin Hood’s Hills, Wells, Stones, Oaks, or Butts, some of which may be found as far distant as Gloucestershire and Somerset; for many of these probably bear his name in much the same way as other natural freaks bear the Devil’s name. A large number can be found in what may be called Robin Hood’s home-counties, Yorkshire and those which touch Yorkshire—Lancashire, Derby, Nottingham and Lincoln shires. ”

“ The knight bids him appeal to the king, saying he will ‘avow’ (i.e. make good or justify) all he has done, on the pledge of all his lands. The sheriffs raise the siege and go to London, where the king says he will be at Nottingham in two weeks and will capture both the knight and Robin Hood. The sheriff returns home to get together a band of archers to assist the king; but meanwhile Robin has escaped to the greenwood. However, the sheriff lies in wait for the knight, captures him and takes him bound to Nottingham. The knight’s lady rides to Robin and begs him to save her lord ”

“ ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE
1.
1.1 ‘shaws,’ woods: ‘sheen,’ beautiful: ‘shradds,’ copses.
When shaws been sheen, and shradds full fair,
And leaves both large and long,
It is merry, walking in the fair forest,
To hear the small bird’s song.
2.
2.1 ‘woodweel,’ a small warbler. Percy, Ritson, Hazlitt, Halliwell, Child, Murray, Hales, and Furnivall, have variously identified it with the woodpecker, woodlark, redbreast, greenfinch, nuthatch, and ‘golden ouzle.’
The woodweel sang, and would not cease,
Amongst the leaves o’ lyne,
And it is by two wight yeomen,
By dear God, that I mean.
..... ”

“ The whole party proceeds to Nottingham, where the appearance of so many green mantles causes a general flight of the inhabitants. The king, however, reveals himself, and after a feast, pardons the knight.
Robin dwells in the king’s court for fifteen months, at the end of which time he has spent much money, and has lost all his men except Little John and Scathlock. He therefore begs the king’s leave to go on a pilgrimage to a shrine of St. Mary Magdalen in Barnsdale, and the king consents, but allows him only seven nights’ absence. Robin comes to the greenwood, and shoots a great hart ”

“ Argument.—Robin Hood will not dine until he has ‘his pay,’ and he therefore sends Little John with Much and Scarlok to wait for an ‘unketh gest.’ They capture a monk of St. Mary Abbey, and Robin Hood makes him disgorge eight hundred pounds. The monk, we are told, was on his way to London to take proceedings against the knight.
In due course the knight, who was left at the end of the second fytte at the wrestling-match, arrives to pay his debt to Robin Hood; who, however, refuses to receive it, saying that Our Lady had discharged the loan already. ”

“ The Story, of an outlaw disguising himself in order to gain information from his enemies, is common to the legends of Hereward the Saxon, Wallace, Eustace the monk, and Fulk Fitz Warine, the first three of whom assumed the guise of a potter at one time or another.
The ballad of Robin Hood and the Butcher is a tale similar to this; and part of the Play of Robin Hood is based on this ballad (see Introduction, p. xxiii.) . ”

“ In any case it is probable that most of this Eighth Fytte is the work of the compiler of the Gest; possibly even the delightful verses (stt. 445-6) in which the joy of greenwood life overcomes Robin.
85
One could wish the Gest ended with st. 450; but it is clear that the compiler knew of a ballad which narrated the death of Robin Hood, no doubt an earlier version of the Robin Hood’s Death of the Percy Folio, a ballad unfortunately incomplete (see p. 140) .
Every famous outlaw of English tradition visits the king’s court sooner or later, and makes peace with the king ”

“ The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, and The Death of the same, were written by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, and are first mentioned in Henslowe’s Diary in 1598. The Earl, being outlawed, flies to Sherwood Forest, accompanied by Matilda, daughter of Lord Fitzwater; and there he assumes the style and title of Robin Hood, and calls Matilda Maid Marian. This plot is introduced by an induction in which John Skelton the poet appears as stage-manager; and it has been suggested that Munday’s play may be founded on a now-lost interlude or pageant of Skelton’s composing. ”

“ Although Robin Hood belongs in legend no more exclusively to any definite district than xxv his noble fore-runner King Arthur, yet, like King Arthur, he has become associated particularly with one or two haunts; and it is no easier—nor in the end more profitable—to reconcile Lyonnesse with Carlisle and Inglewood10 than to disentangle Robin Hood of Barnsdale from Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest. ”

“ To the west, the natural boundary is the high xxviii ground of the Peak, which divides Manchester from Sheffield.
The town of Barnsley lies slightly to the east of a line joining Leeds and Sheffield; Barnsdale itself is east and north of Barnsley, where the high backbone of the Pennines drops towards the flats surrounding the river Humber. The great North Road (‘Watling Street,’ Gest, 18.2) between Doncaster and Pontefract, crosses the small slow river Went at Wentbridge (probably referred to in st. 135 of the Gest) , which may be taken as the northern boundary of Barnsdale. ”

“ Undoubtedly the evidence of the best ballads goes to show that at one time there must have been at least two cycles of Robin Hood ballads, one placing him in Barnsdale, the other allotting him headquarters in Sherwood ”

“ I. The Ballad Hero Robin Hood
The earliest known reference to Robin Hood the outlaw was first pointed out by Bishop Percy, the editor of the Reliques, in Piers Plowman, the poem written by Langland about 1377, where Sloth says (B. text, passus v. 401) :—
‘But I can [know] rymes of Robyn hood, and Randolf erle of Chestre.’
Observing that this first mention of Robin is as the subject of ballads, and that he is coupled with another popular hero, one of the twelfth-century Earls of Chester, we pass to the next reference. ”

“ In 1852 Joseph Hunter issued, as No. 4 of his ‘Critical and Historical Tracts,’ The Great Hero of the ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood. Amongst other discoveries, he found, in an Exchequer document of expenses in the royal household of Edward II., the name of ‘Robyn Hode’ occurring several times as a ‘vadlet’ or ‘porteur de la chambre,’ at the salary of threepence per diem, between March and November of 1324.
Various other researchers have succeeded in tracing half a dozen people, all named Robin or Robert Hood, within a period of some forty years of the fourteenth century ”

“ These complications of Robin Hood’s company are further confused by the fact that the morris-dance, which was universally affiliated to the May-game, borrowed therefrom not only Maid Marian but Robin Hood, Little John and Friar Tuck ”