Brief synopsis of character in ballad and poem

 

It is the opinion of some writers, such as Maurice
Keen, that these stories
were, perhaps, composed, or at least written down,
separately in around
1400, but were not collected and printed until
c.1495.3

Whether or not, in Professor Child's famous phase,

"Robin Hood is absolutely
a creation of the ballad-muse",any anthology of
greenwood literature is bound
to devote most of its space to the ballads on
which-until at least the early
nineteenth century-Robin Hood's fame was always
based.4

These two quotations point to the importance of the ballad forms that introduced Robin Hood to a wider public, almost at the time of the advent of printing presses. It is an indication of the strength of the tales that they were printed so early on in publishing history. The second quotation continues to say that there are thirty eight surviving "Traditional" Robin Hood ballads. The earliest being Robin Hood and the monk of 1450 or slightly later, and one of the most famous being the Geste of Robyn Hode compiled in the early fifteenth century. It is not the purpose of this dissertation to explore the full import of the ballad form, but it is important to mention them to glean certain facts. The mainpart of this ballad mentions Little John, Much the Miller, and Will Scarlock5 It also has the Sheriff of Nottingham as a main adversary, an archery contest; in this it is Little John who competes, and the Sheriff being decoyed in the Greenwood. In another tale The King and the Miller Robin declares his loyalty to the true King who is disguised as an abbot. At the end of the Geste we have Robin done to death at the instigation of his kinswoman, the prioress of Kirklees. In Robin Hood's Death we have the episode of the firing of one last arrow to mark the sight of his grave. There is a ballad entitled Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne, introducing another arch-enemy. There are also specific ballads entitled Robin Hood and Little John, Robin Hood and Allen A Dale, Robin Hood and Maid Marian and Robin Hood and the Curtail Friar, though this last one may not refer to Friar Tuck.

A "Frere" Tuck had already become synonymous
with that of a notorious
robber by the early fifteenth century and
"Ffrere" Tuke appears as an
active member of Robin's company in a
dramatic fragment..of c. 1475.6

We can see how characters and events are featured in the earliest material. There are many compilations and cross references and is is not at all improbable that characters such as Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, and Allen A Dale, or variants of them existed in ballad form in their own right before being incorporated into the Robin Hood legend.

This is included here to set the precedent of the characters as being of ancient origin and that to the most part they were identifiable personas at a very early stage. Indeed, there is the point of view that the characterisations echo ancient religious fertility dramas.

(*) Robin Hood being a form of Green Man, or Summer King, doing battle with a Winter King for the hand of The Queen of The May, in this case Maid Marian.

(*) This ritual structure is discussed in such books as The White Goddess by Robert Graves, and Robin Hood by John Matthews.(see bibliography).

3- A Little Tale of Robin Hood. Website: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atlantis/8943/robin.html

4- Rhymes of Robyn Hood. Preface. Paragraph 2.

5-Rhymes of Robyn Hood. Page 74. Paragraph 2.

6-Rhymes of Robyn Hood. . Page 159. Line 11.