class="smallroman">II., the name of ‘Robyn Hode’ occurring several times as a ‘vadlet’ or ‘porteur de la chambre,’ at the salary of threepence per diem, between March and November of 1324.

Various other researchers have succeeded in tracing half a dozen people, all named Robin or Robert Hood, within a period of some forty years of the fourteenth century; but few have pressed identification with Robin Hood the outlaw so far as Hunter, ‘who,’ says Professor Child, ‘could have identified Pigrogromitus and Quinapalus, if he had given his mind to it.’ Working on the above datum, Hunter shows how probable it is that Robin Hood the outlaw entered the service of Edward II. at Nottingham, where the king was from November 9-23 in 1323. But the Robin whose fortunes Hunter raked up was a very bad servant, and within a year from the alleged date was ignominiously dismissed from the king’s service, with a present of 5s., ‘because he was no longer able to work’! Was this the invincible champion of English yeomen? Was this the hand that launched a thousand shafts?

The only point to which attention need be called is the obvious fact that ‘Robert Hood’ was not an uncommon combination of names, at least in fourteenth-century England.

IV. Robin Hood the Myth

In 1845 Adalbert Kuhn (in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, v. 472-94) attempted to show that Robin Hood was a mythological figure representing one of the manifestations of Woden, as a vegetation deity; and half a century later Sir J. H. Ramsay suggested that he was a wood-spirit corresponding to the Hodeken of German tradition. Theories such as this7 seem to be fascinating to all sorts of scholars, perhaps because they involve continually a minute appreciation of fine shades of probability. In the present instance they reach a point at which it is suggested that the rose-garland worn by the Potter—not in the ballad of Robin Hood and the Potter, but in the later play—is a survival of the Strife between Summer and Winter. Certainly there is no need to seek a mythological origin for the Robin Hood of the ballads; but we must proceed to consider the Robin of folk-drama.

To do this, it is necessary to go back some centuries before the time at which we first hear of Robin Hood the outlaw, and to follow the development of the English folk’s summer festival from song and dance to drama, and from the folk-games—the ‘Induction of May,’ the ‘Induction of Autumn,’ the ‘Play of the King and the Queen,’ which, separately or together, were performed at least as early as the thirteenth century—to the ‘May-game’ or ‘King’s game’ of the middle of the fifteenth century. Going back again to the thirteenth century, and crossing over to France, we find in the fêtes du mai—which were evolved, with the help of the minstrels, from the French folk’s summer festival—the names of Robin and Marion customarily appropriated to the king and queen of these fêtes.

Now between 1450 and 1500 the May-game becomes associated in England with Robin Hood: setting aside the possibility that Bower’s reference, mentioned above, to ‘comedies and tragedies,’ may allude to the May-game, we can find many entries, in parish records from all parts of England, which show that the summer folk-festival has developed into a play of Robin Hood. Further, it has been very plausibly suggested8 that about the same time the French Robin, becoming confused with the English one, brought in Marion (a French name), and thus supplied our Robin Hood with his Maid Marian, who has no place in the true ballads of the outlaw.

In 1473 Sir John Paston wrote a letter in which he refers to a servant, of whom he says, ‘I have kepyd hym this iii yer to pleye Saynt Jorge and Robyn Hod and the Shryff of Nottyngham.’ There has also survived a leaf of manuscript—perhaps it is only an accident that it was formerly in the possession of the first editor of the Paston Letters—of about the same date, which contains a portion of the play to which Sir John refers, that of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham,9 which is founded upon a story similar to that of the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne (see p. 128). Besides this fragment, we have in William Copland’s edition of the Gest a dramatic appendix of ‘the playe of Robyn Hoode, verye proper to be played in Maye games’ (printed c. 1560); this in fact consists of two plays carelessly tagged together, first Robin Hood and the Friar (who is distinctly called Friar Tuck), and second, Robin Hood and the Potter (partly founded on the ballad of that name). Friar Tuck, it should be noted, occurs also in the earlier fragmentary play; but there is no friar in Robin Hood’s ‘meynie’ in any of the older ballads, and no Maid Marian in either the older ballads or the above plays.

These complications of Robin Hood’s company are further confused by the fact that the morris-dance, which was universally affiliated to the May-game, borrowed therefrom not only Maid Marian but Robin Hood, Little John and Friar Tuck; so that amongst the later ballads and broadsides we find Robin’s company increased. However, by that time Robin himself had degenerated from the fine character exhibited in the earlier ballads given in this volume.

Topography of Robin Hood’s Haunts

Although Robin Hood belongs in legend no more exclusively to any definite district than his noble fore-runner King Arthur, yet, like King Arthur, he has become associated particularly with one or two haunts; and it is no easier—nor in the end more profitable—to reconcile Lyonnesse with Carlisle and Inglewood10 than to disentangle Robin Hood of Barnsdale from Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.

The simplest way to begin is to eliminate from our consideration the numerous Robin Hood’s Hills, Wells, Stones, Oaks, or Butts, some of which may be found as far distant as Gloucestershire and Somerset; for many of these probably bear his name in much the same way as other natural freaks bear the Devil’s name. A large number can be found in what may be called Robin Hood’s home-counties, Yorkshire and those which touch Yorkshire—Lancashire, Derby, Nottingham and Lincoln shires.

Undoubtedly the evidence of the best ballads goes to show that at one time there must have been at least two cycles of Robin Hood ballads, one placing him in Barnsdale, the other allotting him headquarters in Sherwood; but it appears that even the