During the reign of Elizabeth the Puritans, by their sermons and invectives, did much to interfere with this feature of the May-day games. Friar Tuck was deemed a remnant of Popery, and the Hobby-horse an impious superstition. The opposition to them became so bitter that they were generally omitted from the sport. Allusions to the omission of the Hobby-horse are frequent in the plays of the time; as in _Love's Labour's Lost_ (iii. 1. 30): "The hobby-horse is forgot;" and _Hamlet_ (iii. 2. 142): "or else he shall suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is, 'For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.'" This "epitaph" (which is also referred to in _Love's Labour's Lost_) appears to be a quotation from some popular song of the time. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Women Pleased_ (iv. 1.) we find: "Shall the hobby-horse be forgot then?" and in Ben Jonson's _Entertainment at Althorp_: "But see, the hobby-horse is forgot." Friar Tuck is alluded to by Shakespeare in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ (iv. 1. 36), where one of the Outlaws who have seized Valentine exclaims:-- "By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for our wild faction!" That he kept his place in the morris-dance in the reign of Elizabeth is evident from Warner's _Albion's England_, published in 1586: "Tho' Robin Hood, little John, friar Tuck, and Marian deftly play"; but he is not heard of afterwards. In Ben Jonson's _Masque of the Gipsies_, written about 1620, the Clown notes his absence from the dance: "There is no Maid Marian nor Friar amongst them." Maid Marian also officiated as the Queen or Lady of the May, who had figured in the May-day festivities long before Robin Hood was introduced into them. She was probably at first the representative of the goddess Flora in the ancient Roman festival celebrated at the same season of the year. Maid Marian was sometimes personated by a young woman, but oftener by a boy or young man in feminine dress. Later, when the morris-dance had degenerated into coarse foolery, the part was taken by a clown. In _1 Henry IV._ (iii. 3. 129), Falstaff refers contemptuously to "Maid Marian" as a low character, which she had doubtless become by the time (1596 or 1597) when that play was written. The connection of the morris-dance with May-day is alluded to in _All's Well that Ends Well_ (ii. 2. 25): "as fit ... as a morris for May-day"; but it came to be a feature of many other holidays and festivals, and was often one of the sports introduced to amuse the crowd at fairs and similar gatherings. Mr. Knight gives us this fancy picture of the May-day games as they probably were in Shakespeare's boyhood:-- "An impatient group is gathered under the shade of the old elms, for the morning sun casts his slanting beams dazzlingly across the green. There is the distant sound of tabor and bagpipe:--