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THE VIRGINIA TEACHER

VOLUME II JUNE, 1921 NUMBER 6

I Hood. As a subject for pageant and festival the stories are superb. But, at A TEACHERS' GUIDE TO SHER- any rate, in some way the children in our schools should be made familiar with this de- WOOD FOREST lightful character and his boon companions. At some time during the school course we When Shakespeare wished to show the should consciously make an attempt to en- delightfulness of life in the forest of Arden, rich the minds of our students by introducing he recalled and mentioned the great (folk them to . This paper is hero of the English people, Robin Hood. In merely propaganda. In it I wish to accom- As You Like It, Oliver asks: 'Where will plish just one thing: to interest teachers in the old Duke live?" Charles answers: "They the Robin Hood material. Of course, not say he is already in the forest of Arden, and very much of it can be used in the schools. a many with him; and there they But a background of information will enable live like the old Robin Hood of ; . . us better to present the subject to our stu- and fleet the time carelessely as they did in dents; and, incidentally, it will prove a the golden world." To one who stops to source of pleasure to ourselves. thinks about it a moment, it is a singular The historic Robin Hood is hidden behind circumstance. Here we have an outlawed a heavy veil of time. When he actually individual of the twelfth or thirteenth cen- lived, or indeed whether or not he ever really tury. Of his historic career we know noth- existed, is a question that probably will re- ing with certainty. And yet his name is a main forever unanswered. His biographers household word. In the sixteenth century he fall into two groups; those who insist that has become such a popular hero that no May he really lived at some definite period, and Day is complete Without him. At the end those who deny altogether that he ever existed of the eighteenth century are being in the flesh. The diffifculty with the believers everywhere chanted, of which he is the hero. is that they can not agree among themselves. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries he Some place Robin Hood in the later half of is still common literary property, appealing the twelfth century; others, in the first part to poets as wide apart in time and spirit as of the thirteenth; and still others point out Sir and Alfred Noyes. It is the absurdities of the calculations, and in- probably not too much to say that there is sist that he had his being in the early four- no English king, not even Arthur, and no teenth century. In any case, we have abso- other English hero who so appeals to the lutely no contemporary historical references imagination, or who is so often mentioned in to our hero. He is first mentioned by a literature. historian in John of Fordun's Chronica Gen- Robin Hood has been an element in the tis Scotorum, which appeared about 13B4, consciousness of the English race for the last fifty years after his death by the most gener- seven hundred years, and it therefore seems ous estimate. Fordun was a Scottish chron- only fair that every child should at some icler who wrote a history of down time in his school life he brought into inti- to his own time. He places Robin Hood in mate contact with this fascinating hero. the reign of Henry HI, saying: Perhaps it can best be done through Scott's "About this time (1266) . . . lived those . Perhaps the old ballads themselves famous robbers Robin Hood and will do. If the ballads are not available, and their fellows, of whom the foolfsh vulgar in comedies and tragedies make lewd enter- there can be no better source of inspiration tainments, and are delighted to hear the jes- than 's masterly transcription ters and minstrels sing them above all other of them, The Merry Adventures of Robin ballads." ^54 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. n. NO. 6

Modern scholarship insists, however, that reputed to have been Earl of Huntington; a this reference was not the work of Fordun title to which, in the latter part of his life, himself, but that it was inserted by his dis- at least, he appears to have some sort of pre- ciple and follower, Walter Bower, who re- tension. In his youth he is reported to have vised and continued the work of his master been of a wild and extravagant disposition." up to the year 1450. In any case, it would And so the story continues, telling of his not be wise to accept the work of Fordun as flight to the forest, the gathering of his band, entirely truthful, for we can not forget that their free life in the woods, their deeds and he is Holinshed's source for Banquo, Fleance, their exploits, until "... the infirmities of and others Scotch heroes, who have been old age increasing upon him, and desirous to frowned out of existence by history. But be relieved, in a fit of sickness, by being let this reference did its work, and nearly all blood, he applied for that purpose to the the historians of Robin Flood, until the be- prioress of Kirkleys-nunnery in , ginning of the nineteenth century, state as an his relation, ... by whom he was treacher- accepted fact that he lived in the first half ously bled to death. This event happened on of the thirteenth century. the 18th of November, 1247, . . . about the One of the prominent and important 87th of his age." Now, I am not one of scholars in our group of believers is Joseph those who insist on having every fact sup- Ritson, the English antiquarian. In the in- ported by an affidavit. I can swallow a fact tervals between his fierce quarrels with with any man. But, there are, to say the Wharton, and Steevens, and Dr. Johnson, least, some details of Ritson's story that seem and Bishop Percy, (in which he was nearly open to doubt—"the 18th of November, always right in matter and wrong in man- 1247," for example—and I am afraid that ners) he managed to find time to gather and we must conclude that it contains more fic- edit the first real collection of Robin Hood tion than fact. Nevertheless, Ritson's edition Ballads, to ferret out references to the famous is exceedingly valuable, and it must not be from an unbelievable number of lit- neglected by one who is interested in the lore erary works, and to write an "authentic" of Robin Hood. Life of Robin Hood. His work appeared There are many nineteenth century inves- in 1795, and we must hope that it won im- tigators who believe that Robin Hood lived mediate success, for the unfortunate author at a late period. One of the most important showed signs of mental collapse as early as of this group is John M. Gutch, who issued 1796, and he became completely insane on in 1847 a new edition of the Lytell Gests of the 10th of September, 1803. He barracaded Robin Hood, with Other Ancient and Mod- himself in his chambers at Gray's Inn, made ern Ballads and Songs Relating to This Cel- a bonfire of his manuscripts, and was finally ebrated Teoman, to which is Prefixed his forcibly removed to Hoxton, where he died History and Character, Grounded upon other two weeks later. Fortunately for us, he Documents than those made Use of by his could not destroy his issued volumes on Robin Former Biographer, 'Mister Ritson 1 Gutch Hood, and they live to keep alive the memory reprints the invaluable notes of Ritson, and of poor, hard-working, acrimonious, half-mad adds many new ones, so that this is the most Joseph Ritson. complete and useful edition until that of "Robin Hood was born at Locksley," he Professor Child, in 1888. He scorns Rit- tells us, "in the county of , in the son s facts," however, and maintains that reign of King Henry the second, and about Robin Hood was a follower of Simon de the year of Christ 1160. His extraction was Montfort; and that after the defeat of that noble, and his true name was Robert Fitz- nobleman at Evesham, in 1265, Robin Hood ooth, wbich vulgar promunciation easily cor- kept up the struggle for liberty by a sort of rupted into Robin Hood." The corruption guerilla warfare from his stronghold in the of Robert Fitzooth into Robin Hood offered forest. He suggests that Robin Hood was no difficulties whatever to the men who could born in 1225 and lived until about 1294. insist seriously that his own name, Ritson, Another interesting theorist is the Rev. Was a short pronunciation for Richardson! But to go on with his story: "He (Robin iPubllslied In , by Longman, Brown, Hood) is frequently styled, and commonly Green and Longmans. June, 1921] THE VIRGINIA TEACHER 155

Joseph Hunter,2 who claims that both Ritson the jovial with the "spirit of and Gutch are wrong. Robin Hood was frost and snow," it must be admitted that born, he insists, in the reign of Edward I, there are elements in the story that suggest abount 1285, and lived into the reign of the exploits of Robin Goodfellow and the Edward HE Mr. Hunter made some studies forest elves. However it may be, when we of the ancient exchequer accounts and the leave the shadowy kingdom of history and court rolls, and he found that for several come into the broad free fields of tradition, months in 1323, in the reign of Edward III, we are on certain ground. appear payments to "Robyn Hod" as a "vad- This is the one thing that we can state let of the crown." This fact, he claims, with certainty: by 1400 Robin Hood had been coincides with the history of Robin Hood as accepted by the English people, and he has told in the "Lytell Geste", and he associates never been dethroned in their affection, how- the outlaw with the rebellion of the Earl ever he may have been treated by history. of Lancaster. Lancaster was defeated and Langland, in The Vision of Piers Plowman, executed in 1322. In the following year the about 1360, puts these words into the mouth King, Edward III, actually made a trip into of Sloth, an idle, ignorant, drunken priest: the region of Sherwood, according to the "I kan noght parflty my pater-noster court records. This trip coincides with the as the preest it syngeth; story. Here, says Mr. Hunter, the But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood, and King met Robin Hood, forgave his misdeeds, Randolf, erl of Chestre." attached him to his court, and brought him back to London. The payments stop after a One of the arguments against Hunter's year or so, and this fact again agrees with theory is that if Robin had lived until 1350, the ballad story, that Robin soon sickened for as he maintains, there would hardly have the old free life, and asked and received the been time before 1360 for many "rymes of King's permission to return to the north, Robin Hood" to spring up. However, the where he lived during the remainder of his actual existence of Robin Hood seems to gain life in the region which he loved, and with strength from his mention here with Ran- which he will be forever associated. Although dolph, Earl of Chester, Whose actual exis- Professor Child dismisses the inferences of tence no one doubts. Mr. Hunter as "ludicrous", we must admit In any case, tradition rolled up quickly. that he has pointed out a striking series of Within a century Robin Hood was an integ- coincidences. But proof, in such a matter as ral part of many Folk festivals. He becomes this, is an impossibility, and the reader is free a supernumerary character of the Morris to accept the story that best pleases him. dances. May day celebrates his exploits. As He may, if he wishes, believe with the the patron of , he is extolled as an unbelievers, and insist that Robin Hood never example of manly virtue. The sports and lived at all. Mr. H. Bradly3 states that games in his honor sometimes interfered with the more customary religious services, as is "The whole story Is ultimately derived testified by Bishop Latimer in his sixth ser- from the great Aryan sun-myth. Robin Hood is Hod, the god of the wind, a form mon before Edward VI, in 1549. The good of Woden; Maid Marion is Morgan, the Bishop is very indignant: dawn-maiden; Friar Tuck is Toki, the spirit of frost and snow." "I came once myselfe to a place, riding on a journey homeward from London, and Mr. Wright,4 too, believes that Robin Hood I sent word over night into the town that was "one amongst the personages of the early I would preach there in the morning, be- cause it was a holy day, and methought mythology of the Teutonic people." Al- it was a holidays works; the church stode though it seems rather difficult to indentify in my way; and I thought I should have found a great companye in the churche, and when I came there the churche dore 2Robln Hood, by Joseph Hunter. London, was faste locked. I tarried there half an John Russell Smith, 1852. houre and more, and at last the key was SQuoted in the Encylopaedia Britannica. founde; and one of the parishe commes to See article on Robin Hood. me, and sayes, Syr, this ys a busye day 4 Essays on England in the Middle Ages, with us, and we cannot heare you; it is Thomas Wright 1850. Robyn Hoodes Daye. The parishe are gone 156 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. II, No. 6

abroad to gather for Robyn Hoode, I pray you let them not. I was fayne there to sort of hiding-place, where the rotten re- ■give place to Robyn Hoode. I thought my mains of a bow, a green garment, and a cap, rochet should have been regarded, thoughe were found, which were supposed to have be- I were not; but it would not serve, it was longed to one of Robin Hood's band! He fayne to give place to Robyn Hoodes men. It is no laughylng matter, my friends, it also visited Hathersage, the reputed burial- Is a weepynge matter, a heavy matter, place of Little John, and saw the house in under the pretence for gathering for which Little John died! Mr. Hall speaks Robyn Hoode, a traytoure and a thefe, to for himself: put out a preacher, to have his office lesse Esteemed, to prefer Robyn Hod before the "The house Is a rustic old place, with mynlstration of Gods word; and all thys exceedingly thick walls, built without hath come of unpreaohynge prelates. Thys lime; it is now mantled with ivy, shady realme hath been U provided, for that it with umbrageous tree's. In it lives Jenny hath had suche corrupte judgementes in it Sherd, a repectable old widow—a very in- to prefer Robyn Hode to Goddes Worde." telligent woman too, for one in her circum- stance's. I had a long conversation with Michael Drayton bears more cheerful testi- Jenny Sherd, who was full of faith not mony in Polyolbion, about 1613: only in Little John having died in her cottage, and in his being burled in the "In this spacious isle, I think there is not one. churchyard, but that the very grave still But he hath heard some talk of him and Little pointed out, with the little stone at each John: end. Is the precise spot." And to the end of time, the tales shall ne'er be done, In fact, Jenny well remembered Little John's Of Scarlock, George a Green, and Much the grave being opened by the order of Captain miller's son, Shuttleworth, a local nobleman, and a great Of Tuck the merry friar, which many sermons made thigh-bone was brought directly into her In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and cottage and measured. It was found to be their trade." thirty-two inches in length! Little John must have been a giant, indeed, for the thigh- And Drayton goes on to describe in detail bone of a six-foot man is only about eighteen the merry life in the greenwood. There are inches long. Two shovels were broken in hundreds of quotations and references that digging the grave, and the bone had been might be given to prove that by the Eliza- broken in the middle, but the ends fitted to- bethan age, Robin Hood had become a cult. gether perfectly, and the accuracy of the He was the subject of ballads, the hero of measure is guaranteed by Jenny. Captain many plays and festivals, and there are many Shuttleworth had the bone taken to the Hall, places all over England that still bear his but he met with so many severe accidents, name. We find Robin Hood's Ook, Robin two of them in the church yard, that he had Hood's Shambles, Robin Hood's Well, Robin it re-interred in the old place. The result Hood's Bay, Robin Hood's Seat, and so on to was, no more accidents! infinity. Robin Hood's own gravestone was pointed Mr. Spencer T. Hall, a native of Sher- out to travellers until the middle of the wood Forest, gives some interesting traditions eighteenth century. It was in Kirkless Park in The Forester s Offering, and in his Ram- near the nunnery in which our hero was bles in the Country surrounding Sherwood treacherously slain. It read: Forest.5 He tells us of the prevalence even in his day (1850) in Sherwood Forest of "Here undemead this lytel stone Lies Robert earl of Huntintua Littles, Archers, Shaklochs, Hardstaffs, and Nere archers were as he so gude Naflors. It will be remembered that the true And people called him Robyn Hudo name of Little John was John Nailor, ac- Such outlaws as he and his men cording to many traditions. Mr. Hall re- Will England never bee agen. Obiit 24 kal dekembrls 1247." ports that some years ago (probably about 1800) an old house was pulled down at I o be sure, Dr. Percy questions the "genu- , and in its walls was discovered a ineness of this epitaph." Master Thomas 6 5 Two rare pamphlets, published in Lon- Gent, of , informs us don about 1845, and quoted at length by Mr. 6 In "The Ancient and Modern Slate of Gutch. York," 1730. Quoted by Mr. Gutch. June; 192]] THE VIRGINIA TEACHER 157

"That his (Robin Hood's) tombstone, of adventure. This particular one is in having his efflgy thereon, was ordered not eight "fyttes", Fytte (or fitt or fitQ is the many years ago, by a certain , to be placed as a hearth-stone in his great hall. Anglo-Saxon word for song, whence it When it was laid over-night, the next came to mean a canto, or division of a morning it was surprisingly removed to poem. Thus it may be seen that this Ro- one side; and so three times it was laid, mance of Robin Hood, in eight cantos, is al- and so successively turned aside. The knight, thinking he had done wrong to most a little epic. It contains 456 stanzas, have brought it thither, ordered it should or more than 1800 lines, which is one-fifth be drawn back again; which was perform- again as many as there are in Evangeline. ed by a pair of oxen and four horses, when The regular ballad form is used, stanzas con- twice the number could scarcely do it be- fore. But as this is a story only, it is sisting of four lines each, of which the second left to the reader to judge at pleasure." and fourth rime. The important thing to note is that this The significant fact about all these traditions poem is apparently nothing more than a col- of Robin Hood and his followers is that they lection of earlier ballads, compiled and strung prove the vitality of the story and show how together by some unknown poet. Dr. Claw- widely it was spread. The explanation is son in his study picks out and lists those parts pointed out by Mr. Hunter; these stories are which were originally individual ballads, traditional recollections, not of the veritable and those parts which are the work of the heroes themselves, but of persons who "ob- compiler. He finds twelve distinct ballads. tained a celebrity for the ability with which It is impossible to say When the work was they performed their parts" in the wide spread done. It may have been as early as the dramatic representations. Such a person was fourteenth century; or it mlay have been only Robert Locksley, a famous historic outlaw, a few years before the first printing, or about who contributed his name to the story. So 1500. In any case, it seems almost certain tradition grew. Whether Robin Hood re- that the original ballads go back to the mid- presented the down-trodden Saxons against dle of the fourteenth century, for they con- the ,7 the rich against the poor, or tain a large numbeir of unmistakably Middle the forces of spring against those of winter, English grammatical forms, such as the final he did appeal to the English imagination, and —e and -es as regular inflectional endings. by 1500, the date of the first printed ballad, The "Littel Gest" contains other evidence, there had grown up a great mass of tradition too, of earlier ballads, for we read in The in which he was the hero. Seconde Fytte, 11. 176 and 177: The first printed story of which we know "He wente hyn forthe full mery syngynge, is "The Lytell Gest of Robyn Hode." There As men have told in tale." are seven early editions of this work whicli are extant, only four of which are complete. It is unfortunate that of these earlier The most valuable and the best known of ballads, with the possible exception of that these is the one "Enprented at London in fragment known as Robiti Hood and the fletestrete at the sygne of the sone By Wyn- Monk, none aire known. ken de Worde." Unfortunately this little Of the ballads which we have today few book contains no date, so we can not be cer- can date back of the reign of Elizabeth, and tain when it was issued. However, we know many bear the mark of the eighteenth cent- that although Wyken de Worde succeeded ury. The reason for the loss of the earlier Caxton in 1492, he did not move into Fleete ballads is obvious, and is well pointed out by Street until 1500; and as he died in 1534, Professor Bates,9 who says: "It was Written we can place the edition between 1500 and literature, the work of clerks, fixed upon 1534. This early source of the Robin Hood the parchment that survived, While the songs material is exceedingly interesting. What of the people, passing from lip to lip down is probably the best discussion of it appears the generations, continually reshaped them- in Dr. Clawson's pamphlet, The Gest of s selves to the Changing times." Space is lack- Robin Hoo(l. A gest is a romance or tale ing to discuss this fascinating subject of bal- V See Thierry, The . ladry, but there is probably no ballad anthol- 8 Published by the University of Toronto, ogy in existence that does not contain its 1909. 9 A Ballad Booh, Kaitherine Lee Bates. 158 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. II, No. 6

quota about Robin Hood. Professor Child's horns would be out of place. They would scholarly edition, English and Scotch Popular find no "good, red deer" to be turned into Ballads, which appeared in 1888, is probably juicy venison or? lucious meat-pies. The the last word on the subject. A great ad- villairftms and his vance has been made, however, since that craven crew could soon chase them from the time in one direction. The work of such thinned thickets; and there are no longer any collectors as Mr. Cecil Sharp has added to dark groves from which they could spring our knowledge of the ballads themselves a out to terrify fat and wicked abbots. Sher- great store of the tunes to Which they were wood Forest is gone forever. sung. And it must be remembered that the Gone forever? I wonder, after all, if Robin Hood ballads and indeed all ballads, it does not still exist in the only place where were composed not to be recited or read, but it has ever really been, in the minds and to be sung, Whoever would gain a true idea of balladry must devote some of his imaginations of those few who love the Old ballads and songs that were once the delight time to the music element. of the English people. Sherwood Forest As a subject for festival or pageant Robin exists in those fortunate people for Whom Hood and his merry men have few equals. Robin Hood and Little John still fight at Almost any two or three of the ballads may be woven together by an individual or by a the plank over the brook; who follow softly the Sheriff of Nottingham in his tinker's dis- class of students to make a festival play for guise; who trail after Alan-a-Dale as he goes May Day, or for any spring holiday. Such down to court a "finikin lass, who shines a play will furnish an opportunity for pre- like glistering gold"; or Who see through the sentation by a large group or by a small startled eyes of Robin Hood, the harmless- one; the costumes may be as elaborate or as appearing step ominously from simple as one desires; the stage may be a the road, and With a gentle and melancholy gymnasium floor or a two acre lot. There is just one thing that the subject demands: a whistle on his lips pluck up by its roots a sturdy young and turn it into a mighty plentiful use of folk songs and folk dances. quarter-staff. And perhaps we may be for- A few of the commoner ballads that have given (by our students, at any rate!) though been so used are "Robin Hood and Maid they still occasionally make the "comma Marion," "The Rescue of Will Scarlet," blunder," or misspell one of the "one hundred and "Robin Hood and Alan-a-Dale." spelling demons," or write in composition The Sherwood Forest of today is a dis- no higher than 6.9 on the scale when the appointment. A few years ago I tramped median for the group to Which they belong is that historic regoin from! Nottingham to 7-3, if only we can guide them, even a few Lincoln, stopping at several of the smaller of them, into the pleasant land of Sherwood towns for a. day or two, especially at Edwin- Forest. stowe, a secluded and tourist-less town, in the very center of what used to be the great Milton M. Smith forest. Robin Hood's name is still connected with the region. One sees Robin Hood's Shambles, Robin Hood's Oak, and Robin Hood s Cave. But of "the good green 'The solution of the 'teacher problem' is wood" there are few traces. There is an not merely more money. Salary increases are occasional grove of large , here and right and necessary, but inadequate as the there a thicket of white , and mile after sole solution of the question. Reform of the mile of rolling farm land, sprinkled with in- plan of organization, with intelligent boards teresting old cottages, and laced by winding of education acting in collaborations with muddy, brown roads. But the Great Forest, teachers free to present their honest convict- in which Robin Hood and his archers could ions and free to develop their own indivi- roam at will, exists no more. No longer duality, is essential. Recognition of the could the gentle outlaws gather under a teacher as a human being will keep her hu- great oak around a roaring fire and "troll man, and keep her from seeking other fields the brown bowl" with mighty laughter and of employment for inspiration and a fuller broad humor. The blasts of their hunting life."—Isabel Rockwell, in The Survey.