Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/376

 368 The Rev. Isaac Taylor, in The Academy of 13th October, drew attention to the mythological characteristics of the "Robin Hood Legend." He writes: "Is he not, like William of Cloudesley and William Tell, a faint Western echo of the solar heroes of Aryan mythology? William Tell has been conclusively identified with William of Cloudesley, whose very name goes far to establish his relation to the Nibelungs, the heroes of Cloudland; and it is no less difficult to separate William of Cloudesley from Robin Hood. Hence, we may affirm, almost in the words of Prof. Max Müller, that Robin Hood, like 'William Tell, the good archer, is the last reflection of the Sun-God, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses.' Like other solar heroes, he has his faint reflection in Little John, who stands to him in the same relation as Patrocles to Achilles, Telemachus to Ulysses, Gunnar to Sigurd, or Lancelot to Arthur. Maid Marian will therefore be the dawn maiden, to be identified with Briseis, Brynhild, and Guinevere. Friar Tuck is one of the triumvirate who appear also in the Cloudesley and Tell legends, and may possibly be represented in the southern version of the legend by Pantaloon, Columbine being the dawn maiden and Harlequin the solar hero. As for the name of Robin Hood, which Mr. Bradley endeavours to explain, I would venture to conjecture that we may find him in the Hotherus of Saxo-Grammaticus, who of course is the blind archer Hödr, who, in the Edda, slays his brother Balder. Hödr means the ' warrior.' In the later version Hagen, who is undoubtedly Odin, has been confounded with Hödr; while in the English legend Robin Hood and Little John, if they are to be identified with Balder and Hödr, the brother archers of the Teutonic sun-myth, seem to some extent to have changed places. The fact that the Robin Hood ballads are localised only in those parts of England in which there was a Scandinavian element is in itself significant as to the channel through which the legend reached our shores."

In the Anthropological section of the British Association, Mrs. R. G. Haliburton read a paper on "Primitive Astronomical Traditions as to Paradise," dealing principally with the traditions of the American Indians and other races with respect to the Pleiades.