Recordings & Info 150. Robin Hood & Maid Marian
[There are no known US or Canadian traditional versions of this ballad. There are six known recordings.]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Robin Hood and Maid Marian: Introduction
4) Child Ballad Collection
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 3992: Robin Hood & Maid Marian (6 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Unknown
Traditional Ballad Index: Robin Hood and Maid Marian [Child 150]
NAME: Robin Hood and Maid Marian [Child 150]
DESCRIPTION: Robin, while Earl of Huntingdon, woos Maid Marian. Then, outlawed, he keeps to the wood, disguised. She dresses as a page to seek him. They meet and fight, unrecognized, till both are wounded. He calls a halt, she knows his voice, they celebrate.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1795 (Ritson)
KEYWORDS: Robinhood love courting fight disguise
FOUND_IN:
REFERENCES: (6 citations)
Child 150, "Robin Hood and Maid Marian" (1 text)
Bronson 150, comments only
Leach, pp. 423-425, "Robin Hood and Maid Marian" (1 text)
BBI, RZN3, "A bonny fine maid of noble degree"
ADDITIONAL: R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, _Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw_, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976, pp. 177-178, "Robin Hood and Maid Marian" (1 text)
Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, editors, _Robin Hood and Other Oudlaw Tales_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000, pp. 493-498, "Robin Hood and Maid Marian" (1 text,based on the Onley broadside)
Roud #3992
NOTES: For background on the Robin Hood legend, see the notes on "A Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117].
It is noteworthy that Marian is not an original part of the Robin Hood legend; other than this late and feeble piece -- which notably is preserved in only a single broadside; it was not found in the garlands -- she is mentioned only twice in all the ballads printed by Child (#145A, stanza 9, and #147, stanza 1). In neither case is she described as Robin's wife or beloved; she could be one of his men's wives, or a member of his band.
I observe that, in the tales of Robin's demise in the "Gest" and in "Robin Hood's Death" [Child 120], Robin does not mention a wife or children when he dies -- even though he states that he never hurt a woman. Would he not commend his wife to John's care if he had one? Obviously she is a late addition to the tale. Where she came from must remain a matter of speculation.
Holt (p. 160) believes that the story of Robin and Marian derives from Adam de la Halle's thirteenth century play "Robin et Marion." In this romance, Marian is a shepherdess whose fidelity to Robin causes her to fend off a lusty knight. This legend entered the French May Games, and was used by John Gower. At some point Marian became Queen of the May Games. With Robin also a character in the games, their union was almost inevitable.
In fact, things may not be that complex. Mustanoja notes that Robin and Marion are typical names for rustic lovers in French and English romance. If Robin were to find a lover, the name Marion (Marian) was almost to be expected.
This pairing is also found in Scotland, although in slightly different form. Speaking of Robert Henryson (fl. 1462), Garnett/Gosse, pp. 295-196, write, "Perhaps the most important of Henryson's performances is the lyrical pastoral of _Robin and Makyne_, not so much for its own merit, though this is great, than as the first revelation of the vast material for popular poetry in Scotch rural life. It is the old story of cross purposes. Makyne loves Robin, Robin is indifferent. Makyne becomes desperate, lays open siege to him; Robin repels her. Makyne renounces him; Robin, piqued into love, strives to regain her, but only to discover that
"The man that will nocht whan he may,
Sall have nocht quhen he wald."
Those wishing to see Henryson's poem may find it in volume II of Percy's _Reliques_. It looks rather affected to me (Henryson was one of many Chaucer imitators in this period), although some of this may be the result of it being taken from a printed version rather than from manuscript.
Henryson's tale was told after the origin of the Robin Hood legend, but before the linking of Robin and Marian; it serves as another illustration of the standard link between Robin and Ma(whatever). Indeed, it has been suggested that, in the May Games, Marian was initially the consort of the jolly, worldly, distinctly unchaste Friar Tuck (so, e.g., Child), and that she came to be Robin's prize based on their names.
The Broadside Index notes that this piece is "Smithson's parody of Robin Hood ballads," and Child observes that the broadside is signed S.S.
The strongest link between Maid Marian and Robin comes from the plays of Anthony Munday, described in the notes to the "Gest." It was he who linked Marian with Matilda FitzWalter (Holt, p. 162), whose alleged father Robert was a real opponent of King John (Tyerman, pp. 307, 313) but of whom no such stories are told in genuine history.
The absurd lateness of this particular song is shown by the mention in verse 3 that "neither Rosamond nor Jane Shore" could surpass Marian in beauty. It would not be unreasonable to find a mention of Rosamund (Clifford) in a Robin Hood ballad; she was the mistress of King Henry II, the father of Richard the Lion-Hearted and the great-great-grandfather of Edward II (Kings widely associated with the Robin Hood legend).
The mention of Jane Shore, though, is astonishingly anachronistic. Elizabeth Lambert, known as Jane Shore (for her story, see the song "Jane Shore") was the mistress of King Edward IV (died 1483) and was probably born in the 1450s. Sir Thomas More, who tells us most of what we know about her, had actually met her in old age in the sixteenth century (Cheetham, p. 205). She thus was active fully a century after our first known mention of Robin Hood as a legendary figure. A song which mentions her could hardly come from before 1475.
What's more, it could be a lot later. In an age before photography, when portraits had to be painted and copied by hand, the assumption was that the most beautiful women were kings' mistresses. But, after the reign of Edward IV, there were few noteworthy royal mistresses. Edward IV's son Edward V was pre-pubescent when he was deposed (Ashley, p. 620). Richard III, who came next, lasted only two years and didn't have time for mistresses (and seems to have been puritanical anyway; Cheetham, pp. 204-205. His only illegitimate children were born long before he became king, and before he was married -- and we have no knowledge of the mother's name.). That strange, strange man, Henry VII, seems to have been very sexually unadventurous (Ashley, p. 624).
Henry VIII of course had mistresses, such as Bessie Blunt the mother of the Duke of Richmond, but they were forgotten in the tale of his many wives. Edward VI was a boy, too young for such things (Ashley, p. 636). Mary I and Elizabeth I were female; they obviously had no mistresses. James VI and I seems to have been homosexual; he had no known mistresses (Ashley, pp. 575-576). Charles I was another with a quiet home life (Ashley, p. 650). Thus the next king after Edward IV to have a noteworthy mistress was Charles II (ascended 1660), who had quite a collection, including Nell Gwin. So, since there were no noteworthy beauties for almost two centuries after Jane Shore, this rather feeble item could be very late indeed.
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.
Knight/Ohlgren, p. 493, do make the interesting point that there is perhaps a feminist undercurrent here -- almost the only such in the Robin Hood corpus. - RBW
>>BIBLIOGRAPHY<<
Ashley: Mike Ashley, _British Kings and Queens_, Barnes & Noble, 2002 (originally published as _The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens_, 1988)
Cheetham: Anthony Cheetham, _The Life and Times of Richard III _(with introduction by Antonia Fraser), George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972 (I used the 1995 Shooting Star Press edition)
Garnett/Gosse: Richard Garnett and Edmund Gosse, _English Literature: An Illustrated Record_ four volumes, MacMillan, 1903-1904 (I used the 1935 edition published in two volumes)
Holt: J. C. Holt, _Robin Hood_, second edition, revised and enlarged, Thames & Hudson, 1989
Mustanoja: Tauno F. Mustanoja, "The Suggestive Use of Christian Names in Middle English Poetry," in Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg, editors, _Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies_, Rutgers, 1970
Tyerman: Christopher Tyerman, _Who's Who in Early Medieval England (1066-1272)_, (being the second volume in the Who's Who in British History series), Shepheard-Walwyn, 1996
ROBIN HOOD AND MAID MARIAN: INTRODUCTION
Robin Hood and Maid Marian: Introduction
Edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren
Originally Published in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales
Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997
This ballad appears only once, in a broadside ballad collected by Wood which may well be post-Restoration. Much about this ballad suggests that it was deliberately constructed to add an element to the Robin Hood tradition. It is the only ballad where Maid Marian plays a part; she is briefly mentioned in Robin Hood and Queen Catherin and Robin Hood's Golden Prize. The diction seems characteristic of popular literary style (gallant dame, line 5; Perplexed and vexed, line 30; a shaded bower, line 63), while also having a distinctly broadside element (With finger in eye, shee often did cry, line 28; With kind imbraces, and jobbing of faces, line 56). The internal rhyme in the third line indicates a late and popular production.
Commentators have been severe on the ballad. Child calls it "this foolish ditty" (III, 218), while Dobson and Taylor speak of its "complete lack of literary merit" and call it an "extreme and implausible attempt" to combine Robin the lover and fighter (1976, p. 176). The events of the ballad had already been foreshadowed in Munday's play, where Matilda Fitzwater goes to the forest, becoming Marian in the process, to meet the Earl of Huntington, alias Robin Hood. The popularity of Robin Hood ballads was so great that several of these "prequels" seem to have been produced, as in Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham and Robin Hood and Little John.
Structurally the interesting thing about Robin Hood and Maid Marian is that it shows the only credible way to join the outlaw band is to fight a draw with the leader: this is a "Robin Hood meets his match" ballad in a wider sense than usual. Foolish as commentators have found it, the notion of the hero's fight with his lover is a potent one, whether it testifies to the woman's possible martial skill, or the enormity of mistreating woman, or both at once. Found in the recent film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), the motif is here taken quite seriously, down to the length of the fight and the sight of blood, however improbable it may be that Marian does not hear Robin's voice until he asks for respite (line 50).
Robin Hood and Maid Marian clearly shows the gentrification process finding its way into the popular genres, but it does not seem to have been very popular, never appearing in the garlands and very little referred to or reworked even after Ritson made it well known.
Child Ballad Collection- Child Ballad 150: Robin Hood and Maid Marian
Child-- Artist-- Title-- Album-- Year-- Length-- Have
150 Ed McCurdy & Michael Kane Robin Hood and Maid Marion The Legend of Robin Hood 1973 5:42 Yes
150 Estampie Robin Hood and Maid Marian Under the Greenwood Tree 1997 4:29 Yes
150 Faeryharper Robin Hood <website> 2007 :22 Yes
150 Squid Varilokeva Robin Hood and Maid Marian Librivox Folk Ballad Collection 001 2007 4:15 Yes
150 The Sherwood Consort Robin Hood and Maid Marian Robin Loves Me - The Legend of Robin and Marion 1998 4:42 Yes
150 Wallace House Robin Hood and Maid Marian Robin Hood Ballads 1953 3:27 Yes