Recordings & Info 133. Robin Hood & the Beggar I
[There are no recordings listed in the Child Collection.]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Excerpt from: Aunt Molly Jackson and Robin Hood: A Study in Folk Re-Creation
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 3391: Robin Hood and the Beggar I (6 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Robin Hood and the Beggar
Traditional Ballad Index: Robin Hood and the Beggar (I) [Child 133]
DESCRIPTION: Robin meets a beggar who asks charity. They fight. The beggar wins. Robin gives him his horse and clothes, goes on to Nottingham in the beggar's attire. There he finds three of his band are to be hanged. He blows his horn to summon his men who rescue them
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1663
KEYWORDS: Robinhood begging execution rescue disguise
FOUND_IN:
REFERENCES: (4 citations)
Child 133, "Robin Hood and the Beggar I" (1 text)
Bronson 133, comments only
Leach, pp. 385-388, "Robin Hood and the Beggar, I" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Stephen Knight, editor (with a manuscript description by Hilton Kelliher), _Robin Hood: The Forresters Manuscript_ (British Library Additional MS 71158), D. S. Brewer, 1998, pp. 82-85, "Robin Hood and the Beggar" (1 text,very likely a composite from the broadsides)
Roud #3391
NOTES: For background on the Robin Hood legend, see the notes on "A Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117].
Fully half the Robin Hood ballads in the Child collection (numbers (121 -- the earliest and most basic example of the type), 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, (133), (134), (135), (136), (137), (150)) share all or part of the theme of a stranger meeting and defeating Robin, and being invited to join his band. Most of these are late, but it makes one wonder if Robin ever won a battle. - RBW
Aunt Molly Jackson and Robin Hood: A Study in Folk Re-Creation
by John Greenway
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 69, No. 271 (Jan. - Mar., 1956), pp. 23-38
It is not usual for folk singers to make the rime scheme more complicated in Aunt Molly's variant o f "Robin Hood and the Beggar" (Child 133), for instance, she drops the internal rime in all but four stanzas.
ROBIN HOOD AND THE BEGGAR
(Tune "Wild Bill Jones")
1. Come light and listen you gentlemen
All of a story you would like to hear;
A story true I will tell to you
As soon as you all draw near.
2. In olden times there was a man,
At fighting he was good;
He was an outlaw, as many did know,
His name was Robin Hood.
3. Yes, Robin was a brave outlaw
As many people knows;
He was feared by one and all
His friends and all his foes.
4. One day he mounted on his gallant steed
And said, "Good day, my friends."
With a mantle of green, most brave to be seen,
He left all his merry men.
5. As he rode along toward Nottingham town
A beggar there he spied;
He had a lot of beggar's bags,
But he had lost his pride.
6. An old patched coat with ragged pants
Was all he had to wear;
He was begging pennies on the street,
Both feet and head was bare.
7. "Give me some pennies," the beggar said,
"You seem to be so good."
"I am an outlaw, if you please,
My name is Robin Hood.
8. "Why do you beg? Pray tell to me;
You look so strong and stout;
Lay off your ragged coat, my friend,
And I will try you out."
9. The beggar drew a large, long staff,
And Robin drew his sword;
The beggar gave Robin blow for blow,
And never said a word.
10. "Fight on, fight on," said Robin Hood,
'"Yours pirit pleases me."
And every lick that Robin gave,
The beggar gave him three.
11. "Now hold your hand," said Robin Hood,
"With you I will agree;
I'll take your old ragged coat, my friend,
And my mantle give to thee.
12. "Now we will exchange," said Robin Hood,
'Your coat and bags give me;
And my mantle and horse shall be yours,
For your true bravery."
13. When Robin got in the beggar's clothes,
He turned himself about;
Says he, "I like the beggar's life,
For a beggar is brave and stout.
I4. "So now I have a bag for bread,
And another bag for corn;
And one for salt and one for malt,
And one for my blowing horn."
I5. As Robin went begging on the streets
He heard a mournful cry;
Three brethren had stolen deer, they said,
And were condemned to die.
16. He went up to the hangman's grounds,
Saying, "I pray you, give to me
Those three yeomen-do not hang
Those yeomen to a tree."
17. "We cannot free those three yeomen,
Their cases is too clear;
They must be hanged on a gallows tree;
They have been stealing deer."
I8. Then the yeomen bowed their heads
And begun to weep and cry;
"Cheer up, cheer up," said Robin Hood,
"I swear you shall not die."
19. Then Robin took his blowing horn,
And blew it one-two-three;
He called three hundred brave outlaws
To set the yeomen free.
20. 'What shall we do, Master Robin?" they said;
"We are at your command."
"Shoot east, shoot west," said Robin Hood, good
"And do not fear a man."
21. Then they shot east and they shot west,
And their arrows was so keen,
The high sheriff left with all his force
And no longer could be seen.
22. Then away they rode to the shady greenwoods;
They sang with merry glee;
And Robin Hood took those three yeomen
As outlaw men to be.
Except for this dropping of the third-line internal rime, the rime in all but two of the stanzas retained in Aunt Molly's text has been carried over from the original ballad.
The Child text of "Robin Hood and the Beggar" is much closer to true popular style than "Robin Hood and Allen a Dale," which preserves most of its broadside jargon, and consequently Aunt Molly's verbal changes are not in every case improvements.
In structure, however, her ballad is clearly superior. She has cut the Child text by approximately one-third (22 stanzas instead of 31), and of the omitted stanzas only one (the twentieth, which tells of Robin's passage to Nottingham) adds anything of
importance to the story, and one (the nineteenth) contains as lamentable a bit of singer intrusion to be found anywhere in the Child ballads: "And if any more of Robin you'll know, In this second part it's behind."
The most consequential omission, that of stanzas 22 to 25, is a fine example of improvement through folk transmission. These stanzas in Child tell of Robin's visit to the sheriff, a purposeless affair which does nothing but delay the rescue of the yeomen and diffuse the dramatic effect. In Aunt Molly's text Robin goes directly to the hangman (who does not appear in the Child version) and asks the condemned men's release. A notable improvement also is Aunt Molly's new eighth stanza, which gives a reason for Robin's fighting the beggar and a reason for his losing the fight to so unlikely an opponent-two incidents unmotivated in the Child text.