Read Ebook: Robin Hood A collection of all the ancient poems songs and ballads now extant relative to that celebrated English outlaw. To which are prefixed historical anecdotes of his life. by Ritson Joseph Compiler Bewick Thomas Illustrator Buckman Edwin Illustrator Tourrier Alfred Holst Illustrator

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Dr. Fuller is doubtful as to the place of his nativity. Speaking of the "Memorable Persons" of Nottinghamshire, "Robert Hood," says he, " by his chief abode this country-man."

The name of such a town as Locksley, or Loxley , in the county of Nottingham or of York, does not, it must be confessed, occur either in Sir Henry Spelman's Villare Anglicum. in Adams's Index Villaris, in Whatley's England's Gazetteer, in Thoroton's History of Nottinghamshire, or in the Nomina Villarum Eboracensium . The silence of these authorities is not, however, to be regarded as a conclusive proof that such a place never existed. The names of towns and villages, of which no trace is now to be found but in ancient writings, would fill a volume.

"Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude Wayth-men were commendyd gud: In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale."

"Duke 'Ammon in great wrath thus wise to speake: This is a Tale indeed of Robin Hood, Which to beleeve, might show my wits but weake;"

or to imagine his story must have been familiar to Plutarch, because in his Morals, translated by Dr. Philemon Holland, 1603, p. 644, we read the following passage:--"Evenso , when learned men at a table plunge and drowne themselves , in subtile problemes and questions interlaced with logicke, which the vulgar sort are not able for their lives to comprehend and conceive; whiles they also againe for their part come in with their foolish songs, and vain ballads of Robin-Hood and Little John, telling tales of a tubbe, or of a roasted horse, and such like." Who, indeed, would be apt to think that his skill in archery was known to Virgil? And yet, as interpreted by our facetious friend Mr. Charles Cotton, he tells us that

"Cupid was a little tyny, Cogging, lying, peevish nynny; But with a bow the shit-breecht elf Would shoot like Robin Hood himself."

In a word, if we are to credit translators, he must have existed before the siege of Troy; for thus, according to one of Homer's:

"Then came a choice companion Of Robin Hood and Little John, Who many a buck and many a doe, In Sherwood forest, with his bow, Had nabb'd; believe me it is true, sir, The fellow's Christian name was Teucer."

This last supposition, indeed, has even the respectable countenance of Dan Geoffrey Chaucer:

"Pandarus answerde, it may be well inough, And held with him of all that ever he saied, But in his hart he thought, and soft lough, And to himselfe full soberly he saied, From hasellwood there Jolly Robin plaied, Shall come all that thou abidest here, Ye, farewell all the snow of ferne yere."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for March 1793, under the signature D. H., pretends that Hood is only a corruption of "o' th' wood, q.d. of Sherwood." This, to be sure, is an absurd conceit; but, if the name were a matter of conjecture, it might be probably enough referred to some particular sort of hood our hero wore by way of distinction or disguise. See Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 522. In Jonson's masque of "The king's entertainment at Welbeck" , certain characters are introduced "in livery hoods," of whom Fitz-ale says,

"Six hoods they are, and of the blood, They tell of ancient Robin Hood."

In the MS. note is the following passage: "It is said that he was of noble blood no lesse then an earle." Warner, in his Albion's England, already cited, calls him "a county." The titles of Mundy's two plays are: "The downfall" and "The death of Robert earle of Huntington." He is likewise introduced in that character in the same author's Metropolis Coronata, hereafter cited. In his epitaph we shall find him expressly styled "Robert, Earl of Huntingtun."

In "A pleasant commodie called Looke about you," printed in 1600, our hero is introduced, and performs a principal part. He is represented as the young Earl of Huntington, and in ward to Prince Richard, though his brother Henry, the young king, complains of his having "had wrong about his wardship." He is described as

"A gallant youth, a proper gentleman;"

and is sometimes called "pretty earle" and "little wag." One of the characters thus addresses him:

"But welcome, welcome, and young Huntington, Sweet Robyn Hude, honor's best flowing bloome,"

and calls him

"--an honourable youth, Vertuous and modest, Huntington's right heyre."

It is also said that

"His father Gilbert was the smoothst fac't lord That ere bare armes in England or in Fraunce."

In one scene, "Enter Richard and Robert with coronets."

Dr. Percy's objection, that the most ancient poems make no mention of this earldom, but only call him a yeoman, will be considered in another place. How he founded his pretensions to this title will be seen in his pedigree. Here it is.

The following is a Distributed Proofreaders transcription of the pedigree chart printed in the original book.

That he lurked or infested the woods is agreed by all. "Circa haec tempora," says Major, "Robertus Hudus Anglus & parvus Joannes, latrones famatissimi, in nemoribus latuerunt."

Dr. Stukeley says that "Robin Hood took to this wild way of life in imitation of his grandfather Geoffrey de Mandeville, who being a favorer of Maud empress, King Stephen took him prisoner at S. Albans, and made him give up the tower of London, Walden, Plessis, &c., upon which he lived on plunder" .

"They haunted about Barnsdale forrest, Compton parke, and such other places" .

"His principal residence," says Fuller, "was in Shirewood forrest in this county , though he had another haunt near the sea in the North Riding in Yorkshire, where Robin Hood's Bay still retaineth his name: not that he was any pirat, but a land-thief, who retreated to those unsuspected parts for his security" .

In Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, p. 505, is some account of the ancient and present state of Sherwood forest; but one looks in vain through that dry detail of land-owners for any particulars relating to our hero. "In anno domini 1194, King Richard the First, being a hunting in the forrest of Sherwood, did chase a hart out of the forrest of Sherwood into Barnesdale in Yorkshire, and because he could not there recover him, he made proclamation at Tickill in Yorkshire, and at divers other places there, that no person should kill, hurt, or chase the said hart, but that he might safely retorne into forrest againe, which hart was afterwards called a hart-royall proclaimed" .

With respect to Frier Tuck, "thogh some say he was an other kynd of religious man, for that the order of freyrs was not yet sprung up" , yet as the Dominican friers came into England in the year 1221, upward of twenty years before the death of Robin Hood, and several orders of these religious had flourished abroad for some time, there does not seem much weight in that objection: nor, in fact, can one pay much regard to the term frier, as it seems to have been the common title given by the vulgar to all the regular clergy, of which the friers were at once the lowest and most numerous. If Frier Tuck be the same person who, in one of the oldest songs, is called the curtail frier of Fountains-dale, he must necessarily have been one of the monks of that abbey, which was of the Cistercian order. However this may be, Frier Tuck is frequently noticed by old writers as one of the companions of Robin Hood, and as such was an essential character in the morris-dance . He is thus mentioned by Skelton, laureat, in his "goodly interlude" of Magnificence, written about the year 1500, and with an evident allusion to some game or practice now totally forgotten and inexplicable:

"Another bade shave halfe my berde, And boyes to the pylery gan me plucke, And wolde have made me freer Tucke, To preche oute of the pylery hole."

In the year 1417, as Stow relates, "one, by his counterfeite name, called Frier Tucke, with manie other malefactors, committed many robberies in the counties of Surrey & Sussex, whereupon the king sent out his writs for their apprehension" .

George a Green is George o' the green, meaning perhaps the town-green, in which the pound or pinfold stood of which he had the care. He has been particularly celebrated, and "As good as George a Green" is still a common saying. Drayton, describing the progress of the river Calder, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, has the following lines:

"It chanc'd she in her course on 'Kirkley' cast her eye, Where merry Robin Hood, that honest thief, doth lie; Beholding fitly too before how Wakefield stood, She doth not only think of lusty Robin Hood, But of his merry man, the pindar of the town Of Wakefield, George a Green, whose fames so far are blown For their so valiant fight, that every freeman's song Can tell you of the same; quoth she, be talk'd on long, For ye were merry lads, and those were merry days."

Thus, too, Richard Brathwayte, in his poetical epistle "to all true-bred northerne sparks of the generous society of the Cottoneers" :

"But haste, my muse, in colours to display Some auncient customes in their high-roade way,

At least such places labour to make knowne As former times have honour'd with renowne.

The first whereof that I intend to show Is merry Wakefield, and her pindar too, Which fame hath blaz'd with all that did belong, Unto that towne in many gladsome song, The pindar's valour, and how firme he stood In th' townes defence 'gainst th' rebel Robin Hood, How stoutly he behav'd himselfe, and would, In spite of Robin, bring his horse to th' fold, His many May-games which were to be seene Yearly presented upon Wakefield greene, Where lovely Jugge and lustie Tib would go, To see Tom-lively turne upon the toe; Hob, Lob, and Crowde the fidler would be there, And many more I will not speake of here. Good God! how glad hath been this hart of mine, To see that towne, which hath, in former time, So flourish'd and so gloried in her name, Famous by th' pindar who first rais'd the same! Yea, I have paced ore that greene and ore And th' more I saw't I tooke delight the more, For where we take contentment in a place, A whole daies walke seemes as a cinquepace. Yet as there is no solace upon earth Which is attended evermore with mirth, But when we are transported most with gladnesse, Then suddenly our joy's reduc'd to sadnesse; So far'd with me to see the pindar gone, And of those jolly laddes that were not one Left to survive: I griev'd more then Ile say: .

In the latter part of this extract, honest Richard evidently alludes to "A pleasant conceyted comedie of George a Greene, the pinner of Wakefield; as it was sundry times acted by the servants of the right honourable the earle of Sussex," 1599, 4to, which has been erroneously ascribed to Heywood the epigrammatist, and is reprinted, with other trash, in the late edition of Dodsley's Old Plays; only it unluckily happens that Robin Hood is almost the only person who has no difference with the souter of Bradford. The play, in short , is founded on the ballad of Robin Hood and the Pinder of Wakefield , which it directly quotes, and is, in fact, a most despicable performance. King Edward having taken King James of Scotland prisoner, after a most bloody battle near Middleham Castle, from which of 30,000 Scots not 5000 had escaped, comes with his royal captive in disguise to Bradford, where they meet Robin Hood and George a Green, who have just had a stout affray: and after having read this, and a great deal more such nonsensical stuff, Captain Grose sagaciously "supposes that this play has little or no foundation in history;" and very gravely sits down and debates his opinion in form.

"The history of George a Green, pindar of the town of Wakefield," 4to, no date, is a modern production, chiefly founded on the old play just mentioned, of neither authority nor merit.

Our gallant pinder is thus facetiously commemorated by Drunken Barnaby:

"Hinc diverso cursu, sero Quod audissem de pindero Wakefeeldensi; gloria mundi, Ubi socii sunt jucundi, Mecum statui peragrare Georgii fustem visitare."

"Turning thence, none could me hinder To salute the Wakefield pindar; Who indeed is the world's glory, With his comrades never sorry. This was the cause, lest you should miss it, George's club I meant to visit."

"Veni Wakefield peramaenum, Ubi quaerens Georgium Greenum, Non inveni, sed in lignum Fixum reperi Georgii signum, Ubi allam bibi feram Donec Georgio fortior eram."

"Strait at Wakefield I was seen a, Where I sought for George a Green a; But could find not such a creature, Yet on a sign I saw his feature, Where strength of ale had so much stir'd me, That I grew stouter far than Jordie."

Besides the companions of our hero enumerated in the text, and whose names are most celebrated and familiar, we find those of William of Goldsbrough , Right-hitting Brand , and Gilbert with the white

hand, who is thrice named in the Lyttell Geste of Robyn Hode , and is likewise noticed by Bishop Gawin Douglas in his Palice of Honour, printed at Edinburgh in 1579, but written before 1518:

"Thair saw I Maitlaind upon auld Beird Gray, Robene Hude, and Gilbert with the quhite hand, How Hay of Nauchton slew, in Madin land."

As no mention is made of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslie, either in the ancient legend or in more than one of the numerous songs of Robin Hood, nor does the name of the latter once occur in the old metrical history of those famous archers reprinted in Percy's Reliques, and among pieces of ancient popular poetry, it is to be concluded that they flourished at different periods, or at least had no connection with each other. In a poem, however, intitled, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and young William of Cloudesley, the second part," 1616, 4to, b. l. , are the following lines :

"Now beare thy father's heart, my boy, Said William of Cloudesley then, When i was young i car'd not for The brags of sturdiest men. The pinder of Wakefield, George a Green, I try'd a sommer's day, Yet he nor i were victors made Nor victor'd went away. Old Robin Hood, nor Little John, Amongst their merry men all, Nor fryer Tuck, so stout and young, My courage could appall."

'Good Robin Hood was living then, Which now is quite forgot, And so was fayre Maid Marian,' &c."

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