No. 150: Robin Hood and Maid Marian
[There are no known US or Canadian version of this ballad.]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes [There is one footnote for this ballad in Child's Narrative and one in Additions and Corrections.]
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Text A
5. End-Notes
6. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 150. Robin Hood and Maid Marian
A. Roud 3992: Robin Hood & Maid Marian (6 listings)
2. Sheet Music: (Bronson's traditional music versions)
3. English and Other Versions (Including Child version A with additional notes)]
Child's Narrative: Robin Hood and Maid Marian
A. 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, 94 and in No 147, 14.
Even in Barclay's fourth eclogue, written not long after 1500, where, according to Ritson,[1] 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 trothplight. There she lives a spotless maiden, awaiting the time when the outlawry shall be repealed and Robin may legally take her to wife.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, 1, 133.
Translated by Anastasius Grün, p. 72, Loève-Veimars, p. 208.
Footnote: 1. Robin Hood, ed. 1832, p. xxxvi, note, p. lxxxvii.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
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, st. 9, and in No, 147, st. 1. Even in Barclay's fourth eclogue, written not long after 1500, where, according to Ritson, 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 Maid 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 on the very day of their trothplight. 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.
Child's Ballad Text
'A Famous Battle between Robin Hood and Maid Marian, declaring their Love, Life, and Liberty'- Version A; Child 150 Robin Hood and Maid Marian;
Wood, 401, leaf 21 b.
1 A bonny fine maid of a noble degree,
With a hey down down a down down
Maid Marian calld by name,
Did live in the North, of excellent worth,
For she was a gallant dame.
2 For favour and face, and beauty most rare,
Queen Hellen shee did excell;
For Marian then was praisd of all men
That did in the country dwell.
3 'Twas neither Rosamond nor Jane Shore,
Whose beauty was clear and bright,
That could surpass this country lass,
Beloved of lord and knight.
4 The Earl of Huntington, nobly born,
That came of noble blood,
To Marian went, with a good intent,
By the name of Robin Hood.
5 With kisses sweet their red lips meet,
For shee and the earl did agree;
In every place, they kindly imbrace,
With love and sweet unity.
6 But fortune bearing these lovers a spight,
That soon they were forced to part,
To the merry green wood then went Robin Hood,
With a sad and sorrowfull heart.
7 And Marian, poor soul, was troubled in mind,
For the absence of her friend;
With finger in eye, shee often did cry,
And his person did much commend.
8 Perplexed and vexed, and troubled in mind,
Shee drest her self like a page,
And ranged the wood to find Robin Hood,
The bravest of men in that age.
9 With quiver and bow, sword, buckler, and all,
Thus armed was Marian most bold,
Still wandering about to find Robin out,
Whose person was better then gold.
10 But Robin Hood, hee himself had disguisd,
And Marian was strangly attir'd,
That they provd foes, and so fell to blowes,
Whose vallour bold Robin admir'd.
11 They drew out their swords, and to cutting they went,
At least an hour or more,
That the blood ran apace from bold Robins face,
And Marian was wounded sore.
12 'O hold thy hand, hold thy hand,' said Robin Hood,
'And thou shalt be one of my string,
To range in the wood with bold Robin Hood,
To hear the sweet nightingall sing.'
13 When Marian did hear the voice of her love,
Her self shee did quickly discover,
And with kisses sweet she did him greet,
Like to a most loyall lover.
14 When bold Robin Hood his Marian did see,
Good lord, what clipping was there!
With kind imbraces, and jobbing of faces,
Providing of gallant cheer.
15 For Little John took his bow in his hand,
And wandring in the wood,
To kill the deer, and make good chear,
For Marian and Robin Hood.
16 A stately banquet the[y] had full soon,
All in a shaded bower,
Where venison sweet they had to eat,
And were merry that present hour.
17 Great flaggons of wine were set on the board,
And merrily they drunk round
Their boules of sack, to strengthen the back,
Whilst their knees did touch the ground.
18 First Robin Hood began a health
To Marian his onely dear,
And his yeomen all, both comly and tall,
Did quickly bring up the rear.
19 For in a brave veine they tost off the[ir] bouls,
Whilst thus they did remain,
And every cup, as they drunk up,
They filled with speed again.
20 At last they ended their merryment,
And went to walk in the wood,
Where Little John and Maid Marian
Attended on bold Robin Hood.
21 In sollid content together they livd,
With all their yeomen gay;
They livd by their hands, without any lands,
And so they did many a day.
22 But now to conclude, an end I will make
In time, as I think it good,
For the people that dwell in the North can tell
Of Marian and bold Robin Hood.
End-Notes
A Famous Battle between Robin Hood and Maid Marian, declaring their Love, Life, and Liberty.
Tune, Robin Hood Reviv'd.
No printer: black-letter. S.S. at the end.
111. out rheir.
191. vente.
213. there: wirhout.
A Manuscript copy in Percy' s papers has in 161 he had, and in 191, in a brave venie they tost off their bowles. It is barely possible that venie, which Ritson prints, may be right.
Additions and Corrections
P. 218 (and 43-46).
Mr. H. L. D. Ward, in his invaluable Catalogue of Romances, etc., while treating of Fulk Fitz-Warine, has made the following important remarks concerning the literary history of Maid Marian (p. 506 f.).
"There were three Matildas who were popularly supposed to have been persecuted by King John. The most historical of these was Matilda de Braose. She was imprisoned, with her son and her son's wife, in 1210, some (Matthew Paris and others) say at Windsor, but another chronicler says at Corfe Castle (see a volume published by the Soc. de l'Hist. de France in 1840), and they were all starved to death. The second was Fulk's wife Mahaud, who was the widow of Theobald Walter. The third was the daughter of Robert Fitz-Walter. The only authority that can be quoted for the story of the third Matilda is the Chronicle of Dunmow, of which one copy of the 16th century remains, in the Cotton Manuscript, Cleopatra, C. iii. (ff. 281-7), but which was probably begun by Nicholas de Brumfeld, a canon of Dunmow in the latter part of the 13th century. It is there stated that, when Robert Fitz-Walter fled to France in 1213, his daughter took refuge in Dunmow Priory, where John, after a vain attempt at seduction, poisoned her. Now all these three Matildas may be said to appear in the two plays known as The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earle of Huntington, by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, which are first mentioned in Henslowe's Diary in February and November, 1598. Two of them indeed appear in their own names, Matilda de Braose (or Bruce) and Matilda Fitz-Walter; and the one is starved at Windsor and the other is poisoned at Dunmow in the second play. But in the first play Matilda Fitz-Walter escapes the solicitations of John by joining her newly-married husband in Sherwood, where they are called Robin Hood and Maid Marian. This is clearly owing to a combination of the second and third Matildas. It may have been effected by the course of tradition, or it may have been the arbitrary work of a single author. But if the romance of Fulk Fitz-Warin had been known to either Munday or Chettle, other portions of it would almost certainly have appeared in plays or novels or ballads. Now Munday introduces the piece as a rehearsal, conducted by John Skelton the poet, who himself plays Friar Tuck, with a view to performing it before Henry VIII. And it is not at all unlikely that it was really founded upon a May-day pageant devised by Skelton, but not important enough to be specified in the list of his works in his Garlande of Laurell. We know that Skelton did write Interludes, of which one still remains, Magnyfycence: and Anthony Wood tells us that at Diss in Norfolk, where Skelton was rector, he was 'esteemed more fit for the stage than the pew or pulpit.' Thus there was no man more likely than Skelton to devise a new Robin Hood pageant for his old pupil, Henry VIII. And again, there was no man more likely to celebrate the story of Matilda Fitz-Walter, for the patron of his living was Robert Lord Fitz-Walter, who was himself a Ratcliffe, but who had inherited the lordship of Diss through his grandmother, the last of the old Fitz-Walters.[1] But whether Skelton may have read the then accessible poem about Fulk, afterwards described by Leland, or whether either he or Munday may have received the story in its composite form, it is pretty evident that the two reputed objects of King John's desire, Matilda Walter and Matilda Fitz-Walter, have become blended together into the Maid Marian of the play."
Footnote for Additions and Corrections:
1. "The earldom of Huntingdon was vacant from about 1487 to 1529, and, as the Fitz-Walters were lineally descended from the daughter of the first Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon, this may have suggested to Skelton the idea of giving that title to the husband of Matilda Fitz-Walter."