The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 3 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 3 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
The story seems to have been built up on a portion of the ruins, so to
speak, of the fine tale of Gamelyn. There the king of the outlaws,
sitting at meat with his seven score young men, sees Gamelyn wandering
in the wood with Adam, and tells some of his young men to fetch them in.
Seven start up to execute the order, and when they come to Gamelyn and
his comrade bid the twain hand over their bows and arrows. Gamelyn
replies, Not though ye fetch five men, and so be twelve; but no violence
being attempted, the pair go to the king, who asks them what they seek
in the woods. Gamelyn answers, No harm; but to shoot a deer, if we meet
one, like hungry men. The king gives them to eat and drink of the best,
and, upon learning that the spokesman is Gamelyn, makes him master,
under himself, over all the outlaws. Little John having long had the
place of first man under Robin, the best that the ballad-maker could do
for Gamwell was to make him chief yeoman after John.[109] (The Tale of
Gamelyn, ed. Skeat, vv 625–686. The resemblance of the ballad is
remarked upon at p. x.)
Ritson gives this ballad the title of Robin Hood and the Stranger,
remarking: The title now given to this ballad is that which it seems to
have originally borne; having been foolishly altered to Robin Hood newly
Revived. R. H. and the Bishop, R. H. and the Beggar, R. H. and the
Tanner, are directed to be sung to the tune of Robin Hood and the
Stranger, but no ballad bears such a title in any garland or
broadside.[110] The ballad referred to as Robin Hood and the Stranger
may possibly have been this, but, for reasons given at p. 133, Robin
Hood and Little John is, as I think, more likely to be the one meant.
Robin Hood and the Stranger was one name for the most popular of Robin
Hood tunes, and this particular tune was sometimes called ‘Robin Hood’
absolutely (see the note at the end of the next ballad). If the ballad
denoted by Robin Hood and the Stranger was also sometimes known as
‘Robin Hood’ simply, and especially if this ballad was Robin Hood and
Little John, an explanation presents itself of the title ‘Robin Hood
newly Revived.’ What is revived is the favorite topic of the process by
which Robin Hood enlarged and strengthened his company. The earlier
ballad had shown how Little John came to join the band; the second
undertakes to tell us how Scarlet was enlisted, the next most important
man after John.
The second part, referred to in the last stanza, was separated, Mr
Chappell thought, when the present ballad was “newly revived,” because
the whole was found too long for a penny (one would say that both parts
together were “dear enough a leek”), and seven stanzas (incoherent in
themselves and not cohering with what lies before us) added to fill up
the sheet. These stanzas will be given under No 130, as Robin Hood and
the Scotchman; and the “second part,” ‘R. H. and the Prince of Aragon,’
or ‘R. H., Will. Scadlock and Little John,’ follows immediately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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