Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/265

 Robin Hood's lieutenant, Little John, shot an arrow thither while standing on Dublin bridge.

Robin Hood also entered at an early date into the popular celebrations of May-day. He was one of the mythical characters whom the populace were fond of personating in the semi-dramatic devices and morris-dances performed at that season. The May celebration was at times called Robin Hood's Festival. Sir John Paston mentions, in a letter dated Good Friday 1473, that he had kept a servant three years to play 'Robyn Hod' in Maytime (Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, iii. 89). Printed accounts for the parish of Kingstonon-Thames from 1507 to 1526 show frequent payments to persons playing Robin Hood on May-day. Bishop Latimer, preaching before Edward VI, told the story that, having arranged to preach at a village church, he found the door locked, and the parishioners gone abroad 'under the pretence of gathering for Robin Hood,' i.e. for the May-games. Robin was equally popular in the May-day celebrations of Scotland. In April 1577 and April 1578 the general assembly requested the king to prohibit plays of 'Robin Hood, King of May,' on the sabbath. Similarly, 'Robene Hude' is named as a Scottish dance in Wedderbum's 'Complainte of Scotland,' 1549. In France from the thirteenth century onwards rural celebrations of Whitsuntide include motets and pastourelles with Robin as their hero, and Robin was usually associated with a ladylove, Marion. In England, at the end of the middle ages, a cognate character, Maid Marian, usually appears in the May-games at the side of Robin Hood. No trace of the lady has been recovered in English literature earlier than about 1500, when 'some mery fit of Maide Marian or els of Robin Hood' is mentioned by Alexander Barclay in his fourth eclogue appended to his 'Ship of Fooles.' She probably came to England from France. Friar Tuck and Little John, the legendary companions of Robin Hood, who were also personated in the May-games, doubtless owed their origin to mythological processes, similar to those which produced the hero himself. Robin Hood's other companions, Much, the Miller's son, and William Scathlock or Scarlock, have no pretensions to be reckoned historical. Robin Hood figures in numerous proverbial expressions, such as 'Many men talk of Robin Hood that never shot in his bow,' or 'Tales of Robin Hood are good for fools' (, Remains), but none are capable of historical interpretation.

The arguments in favour of Robin Hood's historical existence, although very voluminous, will not bear scholarly examination. Mediæval historians practically ignore him. But 'Rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf, erle of Chestre,' according to the author of 'Piers Plowman,' were popular with the English peasantry about 1377 (Passus v. 11. 401, 402). Although English chroniclers of the fifteenth century overlook him, several Scottish writers of that date mention him as a popular ballad hero, and describe him as a famous robber. Wyntoun, in his 'Chronicle of Scotland' (dated about 1420), writes that in 1283 Lytill Ihon and Robyne Hude Waytheinen [i.e. outlaws] ware commendyd gude, In Vngilwode and Barnysdale Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale. In 1417, according to Stow, a thief was known in Surrey and Sussex under the counterfeit name of Friar Tuck, who appears in the ballads as one of Robin Hoods chief companions (Annals, 1631, p. 352 b). In 1439 a petition was presented to parliament for the arrest of a robber named Piers Venables, who with other; 'misdoers. . . wente into the wodes' in Derbyshire, 'like as it hadde be Robyn-hode and his meyne' (Rot. Parl. v. 16). Bower, writing about 1445 in continuation of Fordun's 'Scotichronicon,' and Major in his 'Historia Majoris Britanniæ' (written about 1500)—both Scotchmen—refer to the popularity of ballads about Robin Hood. John Bellenden, the Scottish translator of Boece's Latin 'History of Scotland' in 1533, remarks that Robin Hood was the subject of 'many fabillis and mery sportis soung amang the vulgar pepyll.' A connected life, in ballad verse, of the hero, compiled out of older ballads about 1495, was entitled 'A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hoode,'and was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde. A similar compilation appeared at Edinburgh in  1508, and was reissued with variations by William Copland in London about 1550. According to the 'Geste,' which first supplies details of his history, Robin Hood's home was in Barnsdale, a woodland region in the West Riding of Yorkshire, south of Pontefract and north of Doncaster. He protects a knight, Sir Richard-at-the-Lee, from the extortions of the abbot of St. Mary's, York; kills his sworn foe the sheriff of Nottinghamshire, who attempts to arrest him; is visited by 'King Edward in disguise, who, delighted with his archery and courtesy, takes him into his household; finally returns to the greenwood; and, going to the prioress of Kirklees (between Wakefield and Halifax) to be let blood, is there treacherously bled to death at the suggestion of a knight, Sir