The Paradoxes of Robin Hood

Author(s): Joseph Falaky Nagy

Source: Folklore, Vol. 91, No. 2 (1980), pp. 198-210
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.
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198

The Paradoxes of Robin Hood

JOSEPH FALAKY NAGY

THE narrative tradition about Robin Hood, which throve in the folklore and
the popular literature of England from the medieval period to the
nineteenth century,' reflects the worldwide fascination with the figure of the
outlaw,2 the man who exists beyond human society and has adventures which
would be impossible for normal members of society in their normal social
environments. In this paper I present an analysis of the 'mystique' of Robin
Hood the outlaw and an examination of the Robin Hood ballads as myth - that
is, as an expression of basic social issues. I will attempt to demonstrate that
Robin Hood is not so much a figure outside society as one who exists between
culture and nature, and several other pairs of opposed categories as well. The
liminal world of Robin Hood, a construct of narrative,3 provides a context in
which social values and realities are mirrored and redefined. To examine the
function of the narrative tradition about Robin Hood is to examine a specific
instance of the function of liminality in myth.4
One of the most prominent characteristics of the Robin Hood figure, from the
earliest extant Robin Hood narratives - such as the fifteenth-century Gest of
Robin Hood - to the broadside ballads of the eighteenth century, is that he and
his men are devoted hunters; it is both a means of survival in the forest and a
pastime for them. Robin Hood describes their situation to the disguised king in
the Gest thus:

We be yemen of this foreste,

Under the grene wode tre;
We lyve by our kynges dere,
Other shyft have not we.5

Robin's general attitude is that of a professional hunter, who lives in the woods
and has no taste for the 'civilized' life of town and court. After Robin spends
some time with the king in civilization, he becomes restless (and destitute). 6 The
reformed outlaw returns to the forest, where he reflects:

It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,

That I was last here;
Me lyste a lytell for to shote
At the donne dere.7

He slays a deer, summons his men, and returns to the life of the hunter. Thus,
Robin Hood can survive for periods within the civilized world: he spends some
time in the king's court, and in the ballads Robin is frequently sneaking into the
town of Nottingham. s But he prefers to live in the wilderness far from normal

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THE PARADOXES OF ROBIN HOOD 199

human habitations. In 'Robin Hood and th

butcher, does business with his mortal enem
inquires whether Robin has any cows:

Hast thou any horn-beasts, the sheriff repli'd,

Good fellow, to sell unto me?9

Robin does have 'horned beasts' to show the

deer in the forest:

How like you my horned beasts, good Master Sh

They be fat and fair for to see.

(The sheriff replies:)

I tell thee, good fellow, I would I were gone,

For I like not thy company.'"

The point made in Robin's joke on the sheri

the civilized man, for whom 'horned beasts'
they are game.
Robin and his men dress in green, the colou
live among the game on which they depend
identification of hunter with hunted. In t
companion, lures the sheriff out into the for
deer, but leads him into an ambush laid by
Robin as the 'mayster herte.'" This playful
indicates the liminality of Robin and his me
is fluid and separate categories of identity c
Closely linked to his role as a hunter is R
members of society travelling through the
he has dominion over roads and those who
Ballads he is generally not associated with S
but with the less forested area of Barnsdal
that the latter association is consistent wit
'highwayman,' for Barnsdale was 'the most
York and in a real sense the gateway to nort
'Robin Hood and the Potter' the hero attemp
and travellers not really as a robber but as
demands 'pavage' from the travelling craftsm
on a narrow bridge, where Robin demands t
instances Robin is bested by his victims; non
and travelling is apparent. In one of the
Hood's death, the dying hero asks that his b
buried there.'16 Robin is a figure of the road,
travelling. The action of the Gest begins w
journey of a knight; at the centre of the act
disruption of a journey - this time, the jour

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 200 J.F.NAGY

of the Gest the k

arrive at a rappro
passage between
Robin Hood is an
appear in court fo
law and authority
identity and statu
Society and the e
outlawed. From s
'bears the wolf's
values, issues, and
no longer a memb
he was outlawed),
society, where he
marriage,22 or ev
world of culture
order and the aso
Sherwood Forest
strands of traditi
with the town of
But, at least in th
anomaly existing
nature owned, pr
representative m
distinctly limina
- or Sherwood Forest.
There has been scholarly controversy over whether the figure of Robin Hood
is a projection of some late medieval social class, and whether he has a special
affinity with the peasantry or the gentry. 26 (This controversy implicitly confirms
the anomalous nature of this figure, an outlaw who appears to be linked with a
sector of society.) In the Gest, one of the surviving Robin Hood narratives that is
closest to the medieval world, the hero and his companions are frequently
referred to as 'yeomen';27 Robin forbids his men to harass yeomen,28 and he
states:

What man that helpeth a good yeman,

His frende that wyll I be."9

Thus, the outlaw is the defender, and paradoxically even a member, of

yeomanry - the class of free peasantry which was emerging in late medie
English society. 30 Also in the Gest, however, Robin orders his men not to a

....knyght ne no squyer
That wol be a gode felawe.3'

The main tale of the Gest features Robin saving a destitute knight from ec
iastics who want to take all his property. The outlaw gives the knight mo
clothes, a horse, and even Little John as a temporary servant so that he may

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 THE PARADOXES OF ROBIN HOOD 201

the dignity fitting to a member of the gentry.32

the welfare of this class; in 'Robin Hood Resc
Nottingham in disguise to rescue three members of
Of course, this link between Robin and the gentr
the hero is, or was before he was an outlaw, 34 a m
Robin is really supporting a social superior,
awareness of a hierarchical distinction between k
the knight to give something in return for the d

It was never the maner, by dere worthi God,

A yoman to pay for a knight.36

Robin is not actually a member of the gentry, bu

quality characteristic of a knight.37 Perhaps this
Hood is a reflection of the breakdown of the bou
and impoverished gentry in late medieval Englis
not member of any social class inasmuch as he i
Robin Hood as a sociological phenomenon is conf
Not only is Robin Hood a liminal figure but so
some of his enemies. His most famous companio
John, who, despite the name, is a giant - he is, t
'little' and 'big.' John receives his paradoxical ni
John Little) as part of his initiation into Robin's
greenwood means, for John, becoming an anom
Marian in the only surviving Robin Hood ballad
comes from society into the wilderness to join R
and Robin even fights with this 'man-woman
other.40

Marian and most other females who appear in the Robin Hood ballads are
depicted as liminal figures. Thus Robin's devotion to women, an important
theme in the ballads,41 is another indication of his own liminal nature. Robin is
especially devoted to the Blessed Virgin,42 the most important female in the
Christian tradition, who performs an essential liminal function: she mediates
between God and man by interceding on behalf of humanity. In the Gest Mary is
chosen as the surety for the loan which Robin gives to the knight. Robin says:

To seche all Englonde thorowe,

Yet fonde I never to my pay (i.e satisfaction)
A moche better borrowe (i.e. surety).43

Mary mediates between the knight, a member of society and of the gentry, and
Robin, a figure who suggests yeomanry but who, more importantly, is a figure
outside society. Females in Robin Hood narratives cross the boundary between
culture and nature - society and the world of the outlaw - easily. In the Gest,
after the knight has been seized by the sheriff, his wife goes out into the
wilderness, finds Robin, and tells him the news.44 A woman whom the outlaw
meets 'along the highway'45 tells him of the plight of the three squires about to
be executed by the sheriff in 'Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires.' It is a

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 202 J.F.NAGY

female messenger
the mission of sa
and the Prince o
pardoned through
The sheriff of No
introduces him to the sheriff in 'Robin Hood and the Potter.'48 All these
narratives present women as mediators between Robin, an extra-social figure,
and society. In 'The Noble Fisherman' the land-based outlaw decides to go to
sea; it is a woman who makes this radical transition possible for Robin by giving
him a job as a sailor on her ship. 49 Thus, females effect passage between all kinds
of realms and identities in the Robin Hood ballads - they exist between
categories, like their devotee Robin. In 'Robin Hood and the Bishop' the outlaw
actually exchanges identities with an old woman in order to escape from an
ecclesiastic; Little John does not recognize his master in the woman's clothing,
and the bishop mistakes the old woman in green for Robin Hood."5 There is a
deep affinity between the outlaw and women: both are ubiquitous and liminal.
Females are Robin's allies usually, and they share with him an anomalous
quality. Anomaly is something that Robin has in common with his main enemies
as well - clerics. By definition they too are mediators, between God and man.
According to Christian ideology, the ecclesiastic lives a life different from, and
closer to the 'sacred' than, the life of secular people. Yet, as depicted in the
Robin Hood ballads, clerics are exceptionally greedy and worldly. Therefore, the
cleric exists between God and man; also, in the context of the Robin Hood
ballads, he leads both a sacred and secular life. Although one of Robin's
companions, Friar Tuck, is a cleric,51 in general these liminal figures are
Robin's enemies, as opposed to women, who are equally liminal figures but are
usually on his side. The outlaw's death, however, is brought about by the
treachery of a figure both female and ecclesiastical - the prioress of a nunnery,
who is not celibate, as nuns theoretically are, but has a lover. 52 Liminality proves
to be both Robin's way of life and also his way of death.
The 'surprise' of the Robin Hood narrative tradition is that the figure who
appears to be Robin's greatest enemy, the king (on whose land the outlaw
poaches), becomes Robin's benefactor and friend. But the king as a social figure
initimately associated with nature (the king's forests)53 is a liminal figure
himself, and so he has an anomalous characteristic in common with the outlaw:
both figures suggest a transcendence of the boundary between culture and
nature. With liminality in common, we would expect the king and the outlaw to
be either very good friends or mortal enemies: in the shifting world of Robin
Hood, relationships between liminal figures can go either way.
The king's friendship with the outlaw is thus not so surprising after all in this
narrative tradition full of paradoxes. Towards the end of the Gest there is a
climactic scene of anomaly and confusion: the reconciled king and outlaw ride
together into Nottingham dressed in green, so that the townspeople think that
the outlaw has slain the king and has come to ravage the town.54 But the king
remains the king, and the outlaw ultimately returns to being an outlaw. Nonethe-
less, Robin stays in the king's court for a while, and temporarily the distinction
between the 'centre' and 'periphery' of society is blurred.

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 THE PARADOXES OF ROBIN HOOD 203

As one who exists between several oppos

culture and nature, knight and yeoman, eve
identity is unfixed and malleable. This lac
distinct advantage. Robin is a master of disgu
various identities - incognito he enters Nott
sailors and ships, and strikes up relationship
characterized by his hood, which perhaps su
which is a way of life for him. In 'Robin H
attempts to enter Nottingham without disg
danger. Robin's effectiveness lies in his limin
identities and thus penetrate different level
John, who also has a knack for disguises, co
both Nottingham and the king's court in th
same ballad. "
Robin Hood not only disguises himself frequently: he can disguise others as
well or confuse their identities. In The Gest, after the outlaw captures the sheriff
in the greenwood, the paradigmatic enforcer of law is dressed in the green
clothes of Robin's men and the outlaw threatens to change the sheriffs identity
altogether:

All this twelve months, sayde Robin,

Thou shalt dwell with me;
I shall thee teche, proude sheriff,
An outlawe for to be.56

When in the forest with Robin, the king asks the outlaw to give him some green
to wear, so that the king too experiences a confusion of identity in Robin's
company.57 In 'Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne,' the outlaw assumes his
enemy's identity and mutilates the latter's corpse so that it will be
unrecognizable.58 The lack of identity which is a reflection of the outlaw's
anomaly is clearly infectious in the greenwood.
The world depicted in the Robin Hood ballads is a shifting, dangerous world,
where identity and relationship can change very suddenly. The story pattern in
several of the ballads features Robin confronting a stranger in the wilderness;
their relationship changes from one of intense antagonism to one of friendship in
the course of the story. The stanger is revealed to be a sturdy fellow, who can
defeat Robin in combat, and he becomes a member of the outlaw band;
sometimes the stranger turns out to be an unrecognized kinsman.59 The world of
Robin Hood is one where appearances are deceiving and where the regularity of
normal life is non-existent.
Oddly, together with this fluidity there exists a kind of stability in Robin's
world, for the ethos of Robin Hood, an outlaw liv-ing beyond society, is actually
based on essential social concepts and values, which at times in the ballads seem
to be more operative in the world of outlaws than in the social world of the
sheriff and the church establishment. As mentioned above, the Robin of the Gest
is a model of gentility - he doffs his hood or kneels in the presence of the knight,
the monk and the king,60 while the monk shows his rudeness by not doffing his
hood in front of his 'host' Robin,61 and the sheriff reveals his deceitful nature

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 204 J.F.NAGY

when he has Robin

them.62 In his tim
society, but he fin
enemies, Robin H
chapel in the gr
respects and loves
not really revolt
exemplifies severa
the 'trystell tree,'
knight, who goes t
friendship to Rob
environment in w
among them or be
nature and social order.

Robin Hood and his band in the wilderness function as a paradigm of the
proper relationship betwen master and man. In the Gest, when the king observes
how Robin's men serve him he thinks:

Here is a wonder semely syght

Me thynketh, by Goddes pyne,
His men are more at his byddynge
Than my men be at myn.6"

In 'Robin Hood and the Monk' the outlaw leader acts unfairly towards Little
John, but, despite a period of alienation, John remains faithful to his master and
rescues him.'6 When Robin and his men join the king's retinue in the Gest, he
loses most of them because Robin cannot support them within society; he
returns to the greenwood and re-assembles his band. 7o The paradigm of Robin
and his men functions only in their liminal world. Robin in the wilderness, as
opposed to Robin in the king's court, is such a popular employer that he can lure
members of society away from their social masters into his world of outlawry. 71
In many of the ballads, Robin, a master of disguise and deception, ironically is
very concerned about exposing falsehood and finding out the truth. In the Gest
he takes from his victims only the valuables which they do not declare72 - thus
he points out the truth or falsehood of their statements, or he makes false
statements 'true' by taking away what the victims claim not to have. The outlaw
wants the travellers whom he meets to tell the truth; and those who do, he does
not molest. In 'Robin Hood's Golden Prize,' the hero refuses to take the word of
two clerics who claim to have no money:
I an much afraid, said bold Robin Hood,
That you both do tell a lye;
And now before that you go hence,
I am resolvd to try.73

After Robin has exposed them as liars, he even 'reforms' them:

You shall be sworn, said bold Robin Hood,
Vpon this holy grass,
That you will never tell lies again,
Which way soever you pass.74

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 THE PARADOXES OF ROBIN HOOD 205

The result of most of the confrontations be

people passing through the wilderness in the ba
natures are revealed. In the Gest Robin's first 'gu
his integrity in his dealings with the outlaw. An
on the other hand, to be a 'chorle.'7' The king go
cleric, but when he becomes Robin's guest in the
soon revealed.76 The sheriff, another 'guest,
afterwards, the outlaw enters the sheriffs archer
the sheriff to be treacherous, and ultimately slay
word, such as the knight, prosper in the world
status and property are restored to him. 78 But t
as the sheriff, perish. Robin Hood himself is captur
breaks his word to Little John in 'Robin Hood a
master of deceit like Robin,80 can see through t
their true selves in 'Little John a Begging,' where
to be actually neither infirm nor poor.8' John's o
strength, is revealed in his first meeting with R
they fight:

And now, for thy sake, a staff will I take,

The truth of thy manhood to try. 82

In the ballads which feature a confrontation between Robin and a mysterious

stranger, the outlaw is usually beaten, but at least he attains his goal of testing the
stranger's mettle.
Closely linked to Robin Hood's desire for the truth is his insistence on 'fair
play,' or on sharing and reciprocity between himself and the people whom he
meets in the greenwood. After the outlaw has found the money which the clerics
denied having in 'Robin Hood's Golden Prize,' he says:

We will be sharers now all alike

Of the money that we have;
And there is never a one of us
That his fellows shall deceive. "

In the Gest Robin expects the knight, the monk, and the king - his 'guests' - to
share their money with him, just as he shares his dinner with them; 84 when the
sheriff is captured in the greenwood and forced to eat with Robin and his men,
he is served on dinnerware stolen from his own home."5
Rarely in the ballads do Robin or his men commit an outright act of theft; the
taking of goods is often described, albeit whimsically, as the collecting of a debt,
or a matter of indirect reciprocity. In the Gest Robin takes the monk's money as
payment of the debt which the knight owes the outlaw - the monk is from an
abbey dedicated to Mary, who is the surety in the transaction between Robin and
the knight.86 Thus, Robin is taking what belongs to him. In 'Robin Hood and
the Potter,' the outlaw does not want to rob the craftsman but only claim the toll
which is due to him as a kind of'guardian' of the road; 7 when Robin assumes
the potter's identity and goes into Nottingham, he virtually gives his wares

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 206 J.F.NAGY

away, 88 yet he
says to her husb

Now haffe yow pa

That Roben gaffe

When Robin tak

The outlaw is '
nothing without
the outlaw reali

Call in the reckon

For me thinks it g

Nothing comes f
services are rend
Hood and the Bi
the outlaw:

For I well remember, one Saturday night

Thou bought me both shoos and hose;
Therefore I'le provide thy person to hide,
And keep thee from thy foes.91

When Robin takes someone's clothes in order to disguise himself, he gives his
own clothes in return;92 when the takes the potter's or the butcher's goods in
order to assume their roles in society, he pays them." The various adventures
and crimes of the outlaw paradoxically revolve around the concepts of fairness
and reciprocity.
In this paper I have emphasized two aspects of the world of Robin Hood in the
traditional ballads. It is an in-between world, where separate categories are
blended and liminal figures abound; the greenwood is rife with confusion and
sudden change, elements that set it apart from society proper, which, however, is
occasionally 'infected' by the anomaly of the greenwood, in the person of Robin
Hood. The world of the outlaw is peripheral to society. Yet it is to an extent a
mirror of society, for the world of Robin Hood is based on essential social values
such as truth, loyalty, honesty, reciprocity, and religiosity; the outlaw's
adventures are a context for the reaffirmation of these values, which seem in the
ballads to be barely operative in society proper.
In his study of initiation rituals,94 the anthropologist Victor Turner has noted
that the liminal period of time during the initiate passes from one social state to
another is marked by the ritual representation of important cultural concepts and
values, which the initiate experiences as part of his social education. Liminality,
a state in which normal distinctions and order are transcended, is a context for
the recreation and reformulation of order, a 'clean slate' upon which culture is
rewritten. In the context of liminality cultural concepts and values appear in
unique, paradoxical, almost chaotic forms. This confusion of seperate categories
is a means of reinforcing the separateness of those categories in the mind of the
initiate:

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 THE PARADOXES OF ROBIN HOOD 207

During the liminal period, neophytes are alternately for

their cosmos, and the powers that generate and sustain
a stage of reflection. In it those ideas, sentiments, and fa
bound up in configurations and accepted unthinki
constituents. These consituents are isolated and made int
such processes as componental exaggeration and dissoc

This reaffirmation of social values in a lim

apparent in the Robin Hood tradition, thoug
with here is a liminal context communicated
unit of liminal space or time marked out
present a liminal world where basic social v
with their seeming opposites: truth with dece
with outlawry. Thereby these values are hig
richess and complexity. In such a context of
society can stand out more clearly than they
The Robin Hood narrative tradition origina
but the values which these narratives commu
medieval world as well, and the liminal cont
continued to exert a fascination. Thus, though
as existing between the yeomanry and the g
changes that society underwent, the Robin
down to the eighteenth century. They continu
a liminal world that mirrors and interacts w
whose adventures are an indirect expression
which they are seemingly so alienated.

NOTES

1. A history of the Robin Hood tradition is presented in Rymes of Robyn Hood: A

to the English Outlaw, R.B. Dobson and J. Taylor (Chatham, 1976), pp. 1-64.
2. Maurice Keen gives a history of the outlaw figure in English literature and
Outlaws of Medieval Legend (London, 1961).
3. In this paper I do not deal with the Robin Hood of English folk ritual and fe
described by W.E.Simeone in 'The May Games and the Robin Hood Legend,' Journ
Folklore, LXIV (1951), 265-74.
.4. The pioneering work on liminality in ritual was Arnold van Gennep's Les ri
(Paris, 1909); more recent explorations of the function of liminality and anomaly in m
are to be found in the work of the anthropologists Claude LEvi-Strauss (esp
Mythologiques, 4 vols. [Paris, 1964-71]), Mary Douglas (especially in Purity and Danger
of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, revised edition [London, 1970]), and Victor Tu
'Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,' in The Forest of Symb
Ndembu Ritual [Ithaca, 1967], pp. 93-111).
5. Stanza 377. The edition of the Gest used for this paper is that in Dobson an
79-112, which is an attempt to come as close as possible to the first written versio
(probably of the fifteenth century) through the published versions of the Gest from
century (see pp. 72-73). All other Robin Hood poems referred to in this paper have
in the edition of Francis J. Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5
1882-98).
6. 'Had Robyn dwelled in the kynges courte/But twelve monethes and thre,/That he had spent
an hondred pounde,/And all his mennes fe' (stanza 433).

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 208 J.F.NAGY
7. Stanza 446.
8. See 'Robin Hood and the Potter' (Child Number 121) and 'Robin Hood and the Butch
(Child 122) for instances of the outlaw penetrating society.
9. Child 122B, stanza 20.
10. Ibid., stanza 25.
11. Stanza 188.

12. Dobson and Taylor, pp. 18-24.

13. Ibid., p. 24.
14. Child 121, stanzas 5, 11-13.
15. 'Robin Hood and Little John,' Child 125.
16. 'Robin Hood's Death,' Child 120A, stanza 26.
17. Stanza 375.

18. John G. Bellamy describes outlawry and the outlaw bands of medieval England in Crime and
Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1973), pp. 69-88.
19. Dobson and Taylor, p. 29.
20. For instance, in 'Robin Hood and the Potter,' Child 121.
21. 'Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires,' Child 140.
22. 'Robin Hood and Allen a Dale,' Child 138.
23. 'Robin Hood and the Monk.' Child 119.
24. Dobson and Taylor, pp. 18-20.
25. On the royal forests and the forest laws of medieval England, see Doris Mary Stenton, En
Society in the Early Middle Ages (1066-1307), fourth edition (London, 1965), pp.100-122. A
twelfth-century official of the king's court put it: 'In the forests are the secret places of the kings a
their great delight. To them they go for hunting, having put off their cares, so that they may enjoy
little quiet. There, away from the continuous business and incessant turmoil of the court, they
for a little time breathe in the grace of natural liberty, wherefore it is that those who com
offences there lie under the royal displeasure alone.' (Quoted in ibid., p.101).
26. In particular, see R.H.Hilton, 'The Origins of Robin Hood,' Past and Present, 14 (1
30-44, and Maurice Keen, 'Robin Hood - Peasant or Gentleman?,' Past and Present, 19 (1
7-15, where it is argued that the narrative tradition was aimed at a peasant audience. See a
J.C.Holt, 'The Origins and Audience of the Ballads of Robin Hood,' Past and Present, 18 (19
89-110, and Holt's response to Keen's article cited above, Past and Present, 19, 16-18, where
argues that the tradition was aimed at a gentry audience.
27. Stanzas 3, 20, 26, and elsewhere.
28. Stanzas 13-14.
29. Stanza 269.

30. 'The word [yeoman] as used in the ballads is almost certainly meant to imply neither a servi
man (except in one place) nor a rich peasant, but simply a peasant of free personal status.' (Hilton
p. 37).
31. Stanza 14.
32. Stanzas 67-81.
33. Child 140.

34. The idea that Robin Hood was an unjustly outlawed nobleman appears to have bee
sixteenth-century literary invention - see Dobson and Taylor, p. 44. It should be noted, howe
that the notion of Robin Hood as a nobleman turned social outcast is consistent with the lim
nature of this figure.
35. On Robin's attitude towards the knight, see Holt, Past and Present, 18, 97.
36. Stanza 37.

37. 'So curteyse an outlawe as he was one/Was never non founde' (Gest, stanza 2). On the
connotation of 'courtesy,' see Dobson and Taylor, p. 32.
38. Or, 'to contemporaries he [i.e. Robin Hood] may well have presented a "double image" as
figure who could appeal both to the lesser gentry and to the yeoman,'(ibid., p.36).
39. 'This infant was called John Little, quoth he [(i.e. one of Robin's men],/Which name shall b
changed anon;/The words we'll transpose, so where-ever he goes,/His name shall be called Littl
John' ('Robin Hood and Little John,' Child 125, stanza 33). John's initiation into the band and r
naming are humorously referred to as a baptism (stanza 30).

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 THE PARADOXES OF ROBIN HOOD 209

40. 'Robin Hood and Maid Marian,' Child 150.

41. A notable example of the hero's reverence towards women is to be found in the ballad 'Robin
Hood's Death,' where the dying outlaw does not allow Little John to destroy the nunnery of
Kirklees in revenge for the prioress' treachery, because (says Robin): 'I never hurt fair maid in all
my time,/Nor at mine end shall it be,' (Child 120B, stanza 16).
42. 'Robyn loved Oure dere Lady;/For dout of dydly synne/Wolde he never do compani
harme/That any woman was in,' (Gest, stanza 10).
43. Stanza 66 (repeated in stanza 250).
44. Stanzas 334-39.
45. Child 140C, stanza 1; cf. 140B, stanza 2.
46. Child 129.

47. Child 145; see also the 'sequel' to this ballad, 'Robin Hood's Chase,' Child 146, in which
queen again mediates between her husband and the outlaw.
48. Child 121, stanza 38; in the closely parallel ballad 'Robin Hood and the Butcher,' Child 1
the outlaw, disguised as a butcher, is once again invited by the sheriff's wife (122A, stanza 1
49. Child 148.
50. Child 143.

51. See 'Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar,' Child 123. On the figure of Friar Tuck, see Dob
and Taylor, pp. 41, 159.
52. Gest, stanzas 451-55; 'Robin Hood's Death,' Child 120. In 'Robin Hood and the Valia
Knight,' Child 153, the outlaw is betrayed and slain by a monk (stanza 20).
53. See p.6 above.
54. Stanza 428. 'Their [i.e. the outlaws' and the royal retinue's] bowes bente and forth t
went,/Shotynge all in fere,/Towarde the towne of Notyngham,/Outlawes as they were [i.e. as if t
were all outlaws]' (stanza 423).
55. 'Robin Hood and the Monk,' Child 119.
56. Stanza 199.
57. Stanza 418-423.

58. 'Robin pulled forth an Irish kniffe,/And nicked Sir Guy in the fface,/That hee was neuer on
woman borne/Cold tell who Sir Guye was.' (Child 118, stanza 42).
59. Examples of this kind of story pattern are to be found in 'Robin Hood and the Tanner,' Child
126, 'Robin Hood Newly Revived,' Child 128, and 'The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood,' Child 132
60. Stanzas 29, 226, and 410.
61. Stanza 226. 'He is a chorle, mayster, by dere worthy God,/Than sayd Lytell Johan,/There
no force, sayd Robyn,/For curteyse can [i.e. knows] he none' (stanza 227).
62. Stanzas 296-98.

63. Stanzas 59-60. The grateful knight says to Robin:. 'I love no man in all this worlde/So much
as I do the' (stanza 313).
64. Stanzas 8-9, 440.
65. Robin declares to the disguised king: 'I love no man in all the worlde/So well as I do my
kynge' (stanza 386).
66. Mentioned in the Gest in stanzas 274, 286, and elsewhere ('trystell' = 'tryst').
67. Stanzas 262, 274, 298.
68. Stanza 391.
69. Child 119.
70. Stanzas 433-50.

71. See the Gest, stanzas 163-71 (Little John convinces the sheriff's cook to become Robin's man),
and 'The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield,' Child 124 (Robin convinces the pinder, a kind of warden, to
leave his master and his profession).
72. Stanzas 40-41, 244-45.
73. Child 147, stanza 8.
74. Stanza 21.
75. Stanza 227.
76. Stanzas 409-10.

77. Stanzas 287, 347-48. After he has slain him, Robin says of the sheriff: 'There myght no man
to the[e] truste/The whyles thou were a lyve' (stanza 349).

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 210 J.F.NAGY
78. Stanza 432.

79. Child 119. Robin refuses to pay Little John the amount they had agreed on as the pr
shooting contest, and angrily they go their separate ways; thus, Robin enters Nottingham al
highly vulnerable (stanzas 10-16).
80. See 'Robin Hood and the Monk,' Child 119.
81. Child 142.
82. 'Robin Hood and Little John,' Child 125, stanza 11.
83. Child 147, stanza 15.
84. Stanzas 36-37, 222-60, 378, 387.
85. Stanza 191.
86. Stanzas 232-52.
87. Child 121, stanzas 5-13.
88. Child 121, stanzas 34-35; in 'Robin Hood and the Butcher,' Child 122, Robin, disguised a
butcher, virtually gives away his meat (122A, stanzas 13-15; 122B, stanzas 9-12) and then robs
sheriff.

89. Child 121, stanza 79.

90. Child 144A, stanza 18; cf. 144B, stanza 8.
91. Child 143, stanza 9.
92. 'Robin Hood and the Potter,' Child 121, stanza 24; 'Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires,'
Child 140A, stanzas 1-3, 140B, stanzas 10, 12; 'Robin Hood and the Bishop,' Child 143, stanza 10.
93. 'Robin Hood and the Potter,' Child 121, stanzas 81-82; 'Robin Hood and the Butcher,' Child
122B, stanzas 5-7.
94. See note 4 above.
95. Turner, p. 105.

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