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
43^3. good counsel.
45^3. Rob.
46^1. came in we.
51^1. in sight.
51^4. a _for_ the.
52^1. they.
52^2. upon the bride’s head.
55^4. sing um.
#c.#
Printed by and for Alex. Milbourn, at the Stationers-Arms, in
Green-Arbor-Court, in the Little-Old-Baily. (1670–97.) _Compared
only here and there._
9^1. God wot his.
30^4. Tilbury.
41^2. Eight: too too.
42^4. of the eight.
45^3. Bob.
150
ROBIN HOOD AND MAID MARIAN
Wood, 401, leaf 21 b.
Ritson, Robin Hood, 1795, II, 157, from Wood’s copy. In none of the
garlands.
The Earl of Huntington, _alias_ Robin Hood, is forced by fortune’s spite
to part from his love Marian, and take to the green wood. Marian dresses
herself “like a page,” and, armed with bow, sword, and buckler, goes in
quest of Robin. Both being disguised, neither recognizes the other until
they have had an hour at swords, when Robin Hood, who has lost some
blood, calls to his antagonist to give over and join his band. Marian
knows his voice, and discovers herself. A banquet follows, and Marian
remains in the wood.
Though Maid Marian and Robin Hood had perhaps been paired in popular
sports, no one thought of putting more of her than her name into a
ballad, until one S. S. (so the broadside is signed) composed this
foolish ditty. The bare name of Maid Marian occurs in No 145 #A#, 9^4
and in No 147, 1^4.
Even in Barclay’s fourth eclogue, written not long after 1500, where,
according to Ritson,[119] the earliest notice of Maid Marian occurs, and
where, he says, “she is evidently connected with Robin Hood,” the two
are really kept distinct; for the lusty Codrus in that eclogue wishes to
hear “some mery fit of Maide Marion, _or els_ of Robin Hood.”
In Munday’s play of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, Matilda,
otherwise Marian, daughter to Lord Lacy, accompanies Earl Robert to
Sherwood, upon his being outlawed for debt the very day of their
troth-plight. There she lives a spotless maiden, awaiting the time when
the outlawry shall be repealed and Robin may legally take her to wife.
Neither the author of the play nor that of the ballad was, so far as is
known, repeating any popular tradition.
The ordinary partner of Maid Marian is Friar Tuck, not Robin Hood. There
is no ground for supposing that there ever were songs or tales about the
Maid and Friar, notwithstanding what is cursorily said by one of the
characters in Peele’s Edward I:
Why so, I see, my mates, of old
All were not lies that _beldames told_
Of Robin Hood and Little John,
Friar Tuck and Maid Marian.
ed. Dyce, I, 133.
Translated by Anastasius Grün, p. 72, Loève-Veimars, p. 208.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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