several other ballads, “but written so corruptly as to be of little or
no authority.” It did not occur to Fry that the illiteracy of the
drummer gave his ballads the best of authority. I have done what I
could to recover the manuscript, but in vain, though I had the kindest
assistance in Bristol from the Rev. J. Percivall, Mr Francis Fry, and
Mr J. F. Nicholls.
Footnote 2:
See Motherwell’s apt remarks, Minstrelsy, p. 1.
Footnote 3:
“It is sometimes said that this outlaw possessed the old Castle of
Morton in Dumfriesshire, now ruinous.... The mention of Durisdeer, a
neighboring parish, adds weight to the tradition.” Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border, 1833, III, 114 f. Mr W. Bennett, writing in 1826 in
The Dumfries Monthly Magazine, III, 250, of which he was editor,
speaks of a field a little to the southwest of Lochmaben as still
showing the trace of a circular tower, which was “called Cockiesfield,
from one John Cock, or O’Cock, who had there his residence, and who
during his lifetime was one of the most renowned freebooters in
Annandale.” Mr Macmath, who pointed out the passage to me, observes
that in Thomson’s map of Dumfriesshire, 1828, the name is given
“Cocketfield,” and that there is also a Cocket Hill.
Footnote 4:
Colophon: [P]rynted at London, in Fletestrete, at [the si]gne of the
Sonne, by me Iohn [By]ddell. In the yere of our lord god
m.ccccc.xxxvj. The seconde daye of June. Iohn̄ Byddell.
Eight lines wanting: 120^{3,4}; 121; 168^{3,4}. Mutilated at the
beginning: 169; 170. Mutilated at the end: 164^1; 165^3; 167^1.
Footnote 5:
Eleven lines wanting: 60^{2,3,4}; 67^4; 68^{1,2}; 100^3; 104^4;
105^{1,2}; 110^4. Mutilated at the beginning: 61–64^1; 64^3–67^3;
75^4–83^1; 90^{4,5,6}; 96^4; 105^3–110^3; 111^{1,2}. Mutilated at the
end: 60^1; 101^3; 102^3; 103^1; 104^{2,3}. Elsewhere: 97^{2,3}; 104^1.
Footnote 6:
Colophon. Imprinted at London, in Lothburye, by Wyllyam Copeland.
Footnote 7:
“Two leaves, discovered in the pasteboard or fly-leaves of a book
received from abroad.”
Footnote 8:
#b# was kindly copied for me by Mr J. P. Collier in 1857. Mr Collier
described his fragment as “a scrap which once formed the fly-leaf of a
book.” Hazlitt says that the type is clearly older than Copland’s, and
very like Wynkyn de Worde’s.
Footnote 9:
This old woman gives the title ‘Auld Matrons’ to a ballad in Buchan’s
larger collection, II, 238, in which kitchen-tradition has made over
some of the incidents in the First Fit of Adam Bell.
Footnote 10:
Vischer, Die Sage von der Befreiung der Waldstädte, pp 33, 36 f;
Rochholz, Germania, XIII, 56 f. “Wa er das nit hette gethan, so hette
er selbs müssen darumb sterben:” Russ’s Chronicle, 1482, Vischer, p.
50.
Footnote 11:
Liliencron, Die historischen Volkslieder der Deutschen, II, 109, No
147; Böhme, p. 47, No 10; Vischer, p. 46; Rochholz, Tell u. Gessler,
p. 180; Tobler, p. 3. This or a like song was known to Russ, 1482.
Tschudi, about a hundred years later, c. 1570, says that the child was
five or six, not more than six, years old: Vischer, p. 122. There is
another, but later and even worse, “song” about William Tell and the
confederacy: Böhme, No 11, p. 49; Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 129; etc.
Footnote 12:
Müllenhoff, Sagen, u. s. w., der Herzogthümer Schleswig Holstein u.
Lauenburg, p. 57, No 66. The story is localized at another place in
Holstein, with the change of apple to pear: Lütolf, Germania, VIII,
213.
Footnote 13:
Torfæus, in his history of Norway, III, 371, speaks of a ballad about
Heming sung in his time, c. 1700, which would seem to have been the
same as this, only somewhat fuller. Landstad, p. 187.
These ballads represent the king as regarding himself as quite
unapproachable in athletic exercises. The little boy of ballads,
smádrengin, kongins lítil svein, Norwegian #B#, Färöe #A#, or, in a
Färöe variation (Hammershaimb, p. 161), Harald’s queen, intimates
knowledge of an equal or superior. Harald answers, in true ballad
style, in Färöe #A# 6, If he is not my better, you shall burn for it.
In Norwegian #B#, Färöe #A#, the king immediately sets out to find his
rival. Cf. Charlemagne and King Arthur, I, 275, 279, and the beginning
of ‘King Estmere,’ II, 51, and Landstad, p. 177, note 1.
Footnote 14:
The Witches’ Hammer was composed in 1486, and Punker is there recorded
to have exercised his devil’s craft sixty years before. Elsewhere
Punker [Pumper] is said to have been torn to pieces by oppressed
peasants in 1420. The name is spelled Puncler in the edition of 1620,
pp 248 f, and Puncher in the edition followed by Grimm. See Rochholz
in Germania, XIII, 48–51.
Footnote 15:
The Tell story, complete, Apfelschuss, Felsensprung und Tyrannenmord,
is said to occur among the Finns and the Lapps: E. Pabst, cited by
Pfannenschmid, Germania, IX, 5. Particulars’, which are very
desirable, are not given. This would not add much to the range of the
story.
Footnote 16:
In the prose Hemings Ðáttr, the intent to take vengeance appears from
Hemingr’s wish that the king should stand close to the mark; in the
ballads he reserves an arrow. In the Ólafs Saga, Eindriði openly
announces his purpose; in all but this version (treating the prose
Hemings Ðáttr and the ballads as one), the archer provides himself
with two arrows, or three.
Footnote 17:
Such as the penalty for missing, as above said; or Tell’s shooting at
a hundred and twenty paces, and bearing Cloudesly’s name, William. If
the coincidence as to the distance should be held to be very
important, I, for one, should have no objection to admitting that this
part of the ballad may be derived from the Tell story.
J. Grimm remarked in 1813, Gedanken über Mythos, Epos und Geschichte
(Kleinere Schriften, IV, 77), that the similarity of the names Tell,
Bell, Velent, Bellerophon (see a little further on, p. 21), could
hardly fail to strike even a superficial observer, and also pointed to
the identity of Tell’s and Cloudesly’s Christian name. In his Deutsche
Mythologie, I, 317, ed. 1875, it is simply said that the surname Bell,
as well as Cloudesly’s Christian name, is suggestive of William Tell.
Footnote 18:
The poet is Mohammed ben Ibrahim, 1119–c. 1230, and he bore the
honorary title of Furîd Uddîn (Pearl of Religion), and the sobriquet
of Attâr, perfumer. The title of the poem is The Language of Birds.
Garcin de Tassy, La Poésie Philosophique et Religieuse chez les
Persans, Extrait de la Revue Contemporaine, t. xxiv, pp. 4, 35. “Nur
den Apfel treffen wir hier.... Es bleibt also weiter nichts übrig als
anzunehmen dass die persische Sage ... in die grauesten Urzeiten des
arischen Alterthums hinaufreichen muss.” (Pfannenschmid, in Germania,
X, 26 f.) A rapid inference.
Footnote 19:
Eindriði also had accomplished a harder shot before he tried the
chessman. But Hemingr, having done what was thought a masterly thing
in cleaving a nut, is compelled to knock the same nut, shooting at the
same distance, from his brother’s head.
Footnote 20:
Das Inland, No 39, p. 630, cited by Rochholz, Tell und Gessler, p. 40
f. Gerhard’s Wila, I, 147 f, cited by Rochholz, p. 39 f. Eustathius to
Iliad, xii, 101, first cited by Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie (who says,
“Es stimmt auch theilweise,” p. 317, ed. 1875); by others later.
Footnote 21:
To Virgil, Ecl. v, 11, cited by Ideler, Die Sage von dem Schuss des
Tell, p. 59, note 3.
Footnote 22:
Hisely, Recherches Critiques sur l’Histoire de Guillaume Tell, p. 590.
Footnote 23:
Pfannenschmid, in Germania, X, 25; Rochholz, Tell und Gessler, p. 41
f.
Footnote 24:
T. B. Thorpe, Reminiscences of the Mississippi, in Harper’s New
Monthly Magazine, XII, 30. A story is there related of a famous Mike
Fink’s striking an apple from a man’s head by shooting between it and
the skull, like the Scandinavian marksmen. In Captain Mayne Reid’s
Scalp Hunters, or Romantic Adventures in Northern Mexico, ch. 22, we
are told of an Indian’s shooting a prairie-gourd from the head of his
sister, which may or may not be an invention. The title of the chapter
is A Feat à la Tell, and this may perhaps be the only foundation for
an assertion that the Tell story had been found in Mexico; at least,
inquiries have not brought to light any other.
Footnote 25:
For the interpretation which has been put upon the Tell story, see,
among many, Pfannenschmid, in Germania, X, 1–40; Rochholz, Tell und
Gessler, in Sage und Geschichte.
The mildew of myth spreads, of course, from William to his comrades.
J. Grimm, in his Gedanken über Mythos, etc., 1813, interprets Clim,
Cloudesly, and Clough all in the sense of nail, sharp point, arrow;
and as Bell is βέλος, Tell is telum, Toko τόξον, and Egil is igel,
hedgehog, and therefore the spine of the hedgehog, and therefore dart,
the names are all one as to meaning. But Grimm appears to have been
less confident about these etymologies in later days. Sir G. W. Cox,
on the other hand, says that Cloudesly’s name marks him as an
inhabitant of Cloudland. (Meanwhile, every likelihood favors the
derivation of Cloudesly from clúd, rock, and leáh, lea, and the
interpretation of Clim as Clem and of Clough as ravine.) Cloudesly and
his mates are all the more mythical because they are three, and
because, as it is asserted, Robin Hood is mythical, with whom they
are, one and all, assumed to be identical.
Footnote 26:
Camden, Britannia, II, 175, ed. 1772. King Edward the First, when
hunting in this forest, is said to have killed two hundred bucks in
one day. For Arthur’s hunting there, see Robson, Three Early English
Metrical Romances, p. 26, LV^7, p. 59, V^1; Madden’s Syr Gawayne, p.
298, v. 16; this book, I, 294, st. 9, etc.
Footnote 27:
Cronykil of Scotland, Book vii, v. 3523 f, ed. Laing, II, 263.
Footnote 28:
John Bell robbed the Chamberlain’s men of cattle, 1337: Exchequer
Rolls of Scotland, II, 437. The Bells are included with the Grahams,
Armstrongs, and others, among the bad and more vagrant of the great
surnames of the border, by the Lord Warden of the Marches of England,
1593 (Rymer’s Fœdera, XVI, 183, ed. 1727, cited by Bishop Percy), and
had no better estimation in Scotland.
Footnote 29:
#a# preserves stanzas 1–83^4, 118^4–208^3, 314^2–349^3; with defects
at 2^{2,3}, 7^1, 123^4–127^3, 133–136^3. It has therefore about 200
stanzas out of 456.
#c# preserves 26^4–60^3; #d#, 280–350, very much mutilated; #e#,
435^4–450^1, very much mutilated. #e#, inserted among the Douce
fragments, was presented by Mr Halliwell-Phillips.
Footnote 30:
Dr Farmer considered these leaves to be of Rastell’s printing, and
older by some years than #b#; which is not quite intelligible, since
Rastell’s work is put at 1517–38. #c# is cited under Rastell’s name in
Ritson’s second edition as well as his first.
Footnote 31:
9^4, #a#, allther moste: #b#, all other moste. (#f#, #g#, of all
other; #b#, 283^3, all ther best; 284^1, all theyre best; #f#, #g#, al
of the best.) 61^4, #a#, Muche in fere: #b#, Much also. 68^4, #a#, By
xxviii (eight and twenty) score: #b# (#f#, #g#), By eyghtene score,
which gives no meaning. 138^3, #a#, frembde bested: #b# (#f#, #g#),
frend. 173^4, #a#, same nyght: #b#, same day. 176^4, #a#, wode hore:
#b# (#f#, #g#), wode tre. 333^2, #a#, on rode: #b# (#f#, #g#), on a
tre. 343^2, #a#, The sherif: #b# (#f#, #g#), The knyght.
Footnote 32:
13^3, #a#, #b#, husbonde: #f#, #g#, husbandeman. 256^1, #b#, in yonder
other corser: #f#, on the other courser: #g#, in the other coffer.
274^4, 286^2, 387^4, 412^2, #b#, trystell-tre: #f#, #g#, trusty tre.
385^1, #b#, “tarpe”: #f#, #g#, seale. 371^4, #b#, blyve: #f#, #g#,
blythe, etc.
Footnote 33:
111^2, That all this worldë wrought; 163^2, The whilë that he wolde;
316^4, To metë can they gone; 72^4, But his bowë tree; 29^1, They
brought hym to the lodgë dore.
255^4, To seke a monkës male; 360^3, He shall haue the knyghtës
londys; 369^1, And I wyll be your ledës man; 376^1, Robyn toke the
kyngës hors; 366^3, 367^2, 368^4, etc. 336^3, For our derë lady loue.
31^1, With wordës fayre and fre; 34^4, Of all these wekÿs thre; 210^2,
Or a man that myrthës can; 318^4, The wallës all aboute; 60^2, 331^4,
332^2, 371^2, etc. 433^4, And all his mennës fe.
21^2, By a dernë strete; 25^1, Welcome be thou to grenë wode; 298^1,
But had I the in grenë wode; 327^3, 373^3, 374^3.
56^4, Ouer the saltë see; 173^4, That ylkë samë nyght; 213^2, By the
hyë way; 235^2, Of all this longë day; 241^1, 292^4, 303^2, 305^1,
393^2, 455^4, etc. 25^2, Hendë knyght & fre; 113^3, Out, he sayd, thou
falsë knyght; 242^3, Therfore I cun the morë thanke.
47^2, 100^2, By God that madë me; 80^4, To walkë by his syde; 222^2,
And that shall rewë the; 297^4, Other wyse thou behotë me; 426^1, So
God me helpë, sayd our kynge. #d#, 282^2, 317^2, herkeneth.
Footnote 34:
Ritson had seen, among Peck’s collections for the history of
Premonstratensian monasteries, a Latin poem with the title Prioris
Alnwicensis de bello Scotico apud Dunbar, tempore regis Edwardi I,
dictamen, sive rithmus Latinus, quo de Willielmo Wallace, Scotico illo
Robin Whood, plura sed invidiose canit, and in the margin the date 22
Julii, 1304; whence he concluded that Robin Hood was both mentioned,
and compared with Wallace, in 1304. The date refers to matters in the
poem. The MS. (Sloane, 4934, pars II, ff 103–106) is of the eighteenth
century, Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, etc., III, 279, No 503. The
title was supplied by Peck, one of whose marks is the spelling Whood.
Footnote 35:
Either Randle the second, earl from 1128 to 1153, or Randle the third,
earl from 1181 and for fifty years, would be likely to be the subject
of ballads, but especially the latter. He figures in the story of Fulk
Fitz Warine: Wright, p. 149.
Footnote 36:
Cited by Ritson. I have not found the writs.
Footnote 37:
Cited in the Edinburgh Review, 1847, LXXXVI, 134, note; and by Hunter,
1852, The Ballad-Hero, Robin Hood, p. 58 (where the year is wrongly
given as 1432). It appears from many cases that the name was very
often pronounced Róbinhode.
Footnote 38:
“Robertus Hode et Litill-Johanne, cum eorum complicibus, de quibus
stolidum vulgus hianter in comœdiis et in tragœdiis prurienter festum
faciunt, et præ ceteris romanciis mimos et bardanos cantitare
delectantur.”
“Of whom the foolish vulgar in comedies and tragedies make lewd
entertainment, and are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels
sing them above all other ballads:” Ritson, whose translation may
pass. Ritson rightly observes that comedies and tragedies here are not
to be understood as plays. Then follows this abstract of one of the
‘tragedies.’
“De quo etiam quædam commendabilia recitantur, sicut patuit in hoc,
quod cum ipse quondam in Barnisdale, iram regis et fremitum principis
declinans, missam, ut solitus erat, devotissime audiret, nec aliqua
necessitate volebat interrumpere officium, quadam die, cum audiret
missam, a quodam vicecomite et ministris regis, eum sæpius perprius
infestantibus, in illo secretissimo loco nemorali ubi missæ interfuit
exploratus, venientes ad eum qui hoc de suis perceperunt ut omni
annisu fugeret suggesserunt. Quod, ob reverentiam sacramenti, quod
tunc devotissime venerabatur, omnino facere recusavit. Sed, ceteris
suis ob metum mortis trepidantibus, Robertus, in tantum confisus in
eum quem coluit, inveritus, cum paucis qui tunc forte ei affuerunt
inimicos congressus eos de facili devicit, et, de eorum spoliis ac
redemptione ditatus, ministros ecclesiæ et missas in majore
veneratione semper et de post habere præelegit, attendens quod
vulgariter dictum est:
Hunc deus exaudit qui missam sæpius audit.”
Scotichronicon, ed. Goodall, II, 104.
Footnote 39:
Major was in extreme old age in 1524: see Moir’s Wallace, I, iv.
“Robertus Hudus Anglus et Paruus Ioannes, latrones famatissimi in
nemoribus latuerunt, solum opulentorum virorum bona diripientes.
Nullum nisi eos inuadentem, vel resistentem pro suarum rerum tuitione,
occiderunt Centum sagittarios ad pugnam aptissimos Robertus
latrociniis aluit, quos 400 viri fortissimi inuadere non audebant.
Rebus huius Roberti gestis tota Britannia in cantibus utitur. Fœminam
nullam opprimi permisit, nec pauperum bona surripuit, verum eos ex
abbatum bonis ablatis opipare pauit.” Historia Maioris Britanniæ, fol.
55 b.
It will be observed that Wyntoun, Bower, and Mair are Scots.
Footnote 40:
Because comic and not heroic, and because Robin is put at a
disadvantage. In the other ballads Robin Hood is “evermore the best.”
Though there is humor in the Gest, it is kept well under, and never
lowers Robin’s dignity.
Footnote 41:
The only one of these ballads entered in the Stationers’ Registers, or
known to have been printed, at a date earlier than the seventeenth
century is No 124, ‘Of Wakefylde and a Grene,’ 1557–58.
The earliest known copy of Robin Hood’s Garland is one in the Bodleian
Library, Wood, 79, printed for W. Gilbertson, 1663. This contains
seventeen ballads. An edition of 1670, in the same library, Douce, H.
80, for Coles, Vere and Wright, omits the first of these, a version of
Robin Hood and Queen Katherine which is found nowhere else. There is
an edition, printed by J. M. for J. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T.
Passinger, among Pepys’s Penny Merriments, vol. iii, and Gutch had a
copy, printed for the same, to which he gives the date 1686. Garlands
of the eighteenth century increase the number of ballads to
twenty-seven.
Footnote 42:
In the Stationers’ Registers, 1562–63, Arber, I, 204, ‘a ballett of
Robyn Hod’ is licensed to John Alde. The best one would expect of this
would be a better copy of some later broadside. ‘Robyn Hode in
Barnysdale stode’ is the first line of a mock-song introduced into the
Morality of the Four Elements (which alludes to the discovery of
America “within this xx. yere”): Halliwell, Percy Society, vol. xxii,
p. 51. It is mentioned (“As R. H.,” etc.) in Udall’s translation of
Erasmi Apothegmata, 1542: Hazlitt, Handbook, pp 513 f. This line,
Ritson observes, has been repeatedly cited, singularly enough, in
law-cases (and always misquoted: in Barnwood stood, in Barnwell stood,
upon Greendale stood): Ritson’s Robin Hood, 1832, I, lxxxix ff. We
find “Robyn stode in Bernesdale,” Gest, 3^1; also, “As Robin Hood in
the forest stood,” No 138, 2^1; “When Robin Hood in the greenwood
stood,” No 141, 1^1, both texts very much later than the interlude. It
is not strictly necessary to assume, as Ritson does, that the line
belongs to a lost ballad; it may be from some older text of one that
we have.
Footnote 43:
Knights and squires are exempted in the Gest, 14, inconsistently with
7, and, as to knights, with the tenor of what follows.
Footnote 44:
Bower, as above. The writer in the L. & W. Review does not distinguish
Fordun and Bower.
Footnote 45:
Lieut.-Col. Prideaux states the resemblances between the story of Fulk
Fitz Warine and that of Robin Hood, in an interesting article in Notes
and Queries, 7th series, II, 421 ff, and suggests that the latter has
borrowed from the former. Undoubtedly this might be, but both may have
borrowed from the common stock of tradition.
Footnote 46:
The Pinder of Wakefield became, according to his ballad, one of Robin
Hood’s men, but is not heard of in any other. Will Stutly is also one
in No 141; Clifton, No 145; David of Doncaster, No 152. Robin Hood
assumes the name Locksley in No 145, and by a blunder Locksley is made
one of his men in 147 and 153. Scarlet and Scathlock are made two in
the Earl of Huntington plays. Grafton says that the name of William of
Goldesborough was graven, among others, with that of Robin Hood on
Robin’s tombstone: Chronicle, I, 222, ed. 1809. Ritson says that
Munday makes Right-hitting Brand one of the band: I have not observed
this.
Footnote 47:
Robin Hood presents the friar with a “lady free,” not named, who may
be meant for a degraded Maid Marian, such as Falstaff refers to in 1
Henry IV, III, iii, 129.
Footnote 48:
Stow, Survay of London, 1598, p. 72, in Ritson’s excellent note EE,
Robin Hood, I, cix ff, ed. 1832, which contains almost all the
important information relative to the subject. Stow adds that in
consequence of a riot on Mayday, 1517, the great Mayings and May-games
were not after that time “so freely used as afore.”
Footnote 49:
These are the people’s sports. Hall, fol. lvi, b, cited by Ritson,
gives an account of a Maying devised by the guards for the
entertainment of Henry VIII and his queen, in 1516. The king and
queen, while riding with a great company, come upon a troop of two
hundred yeomen in green. One of these, calling himself Robin Hood,
invites the king to see his men shoot, and then to an
outlaws-breakfast of venison. The royal party, on their return home,
were met by a chariot drawn by five horses, in which sat “the Lady May
accompanied with Lady Flora,” who saluted the king with divers songs.
Footnote 50:
Lysons, The Environs of London, I, 225–32.
Footnote 51:
The last two lines are to be understood, I apprehend, exclusively of
the May, and the lord and lady mean Lord and Lady of the May. The Lord
of Misrule, “with his hobby-horses, dragons, and other ántiques,” used
to go to church: Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, ed. Furnivall, p. 147.
Footnote 52:
Myselfe remembreth of a childe, in contreye native mine,
A Maygame was of Robyn Hood, and of his traine, that time,
To traine up young men, stripplings, and eche other younger childe,
In shooting; yearely this with solempne feast was by the guylde
Or brotherhood of townsmen don, etc.
Richard Robinson, 1553, in Ritson, p. cxii f, ed. 1832.
Footnote 53:
A Christmas game of very modern date is described in The Mirror, XXVI,
42, in which there was a troop of morris-dancers with Robin Hood and
Maid Marian; and also Beelzebub and his wife. Cited by Kuhn, Haupt’s
Zeitschrift, V, 481.
Footnote 54:
The entries in the Kingston accounts for 28 and 29 Henry VIII, if they
refer to the morris-dance only, would show the morris to be
constituted as follows:
(28 Henry VIII.) Four dancers, fool, Maid Marian, friar, and piper. A
minstrel is also mentioned.
(29 Henry VIII.) Friar, Maid Marian, Morian (Moor?), four dancers,
fool. This entry refers to the costume of the characters, which may
account for the omission of the piper. Lysons, Environs of London, I,
228 f.
Footnote 55:
It need hardly be remarked that the morris was neither an exclusively
English dance nor exclusively a May-game dance. A Flemish morris,
delineated in an engraving dated 1460–70, has for personages a lady,
fool, piper, and six dancers: Douce, p. 446 f. In Robert Laneham’s
description of a bride-ale at Kenilworth, 1575, there is a
morris-dance, “according to the ancient manner,” in the which the
parties are Maid Marian, the fool, and six dancers: Furnivall, Captain
Cox, p. 22 f. A painting of about 1625 has a morris-dance of seven
figures, a Maid Marian, fool, piper, hobby-horse, and three dancers. A
tract, of Elizabeth’s time, speaks of “a quintessence, beside the fool
and the Maid Marian, of all the picked youth, footing the morris about
a Maypole,” to the pipe and tabor, and other music; and a poem of 1614
describes a country morris-dance of a fool, Maid Marian, hobby-horse,
and piper: Ellis’s Brand, p. 206 f.
Footnote 56:
The well-to-do Codrus says to the starving Menalcas, who has been
venting his spleen against “rascolde” rivals,
‘Yet would I gladly heare some mery fit
Of Maide Marian, _or els_ of Robin Hood.’
Codrus is here only suggesting themes which would be agreeable to him.
We are not to deduce from his words that there were ballads about Maid
Marian. But if there had been, they would have been distinct from
ballads about Robin Hood.
Footnote 57:
See Monmerqué et Michel, Théatre Français au Moyen Age, 1842, Notice
sur Adam de la Halle, pp 27 ff, the songs, pp 31 ff, the play, pp 102
ff; Ducange, Robinetus. Henryson’s Robin and Ma’kyne was undoubtedly
suggested by the French pastorals.
Footnote 58: