of his myth; and his myth was, as is evident from what we have already said and quoted, full-grown in the first half of the 14th century. Whatever may have been the immediate genesis of the myth —and it may well be sought in the heartless forest laws—its vitality was assured by the English love of archery and historical repetition. In the rolls of parliament of 1437 mention is made of Piers Venables, a robber who took to the woods “like as it had been Robin Hood and his meyné.” There are indications that Robin was identified or confused with Robert Locksley, a manslayer of Bradfield in Hallamshire. The former is said to have been born in “Merry sweet Locksley town.”
But whether he lived or not, and whenever he lived, it is certain that many mythical elements are contained in his story. Both his name and his exploits remind us of the woodland spirit Robin Goodfellow and his merry pranks. He is fond of disguising himself, and devoted to fun and practical jokes. These frolics suggest the wind. “The whole story,” says Mr H. Bradley, “is ultimately derived from the great Aryan sun-myth. Robin Hood is Hod, the god of the wind, a form of Woden; Maid Marian is Morgen, the dawn-maiden; Friar Tuck is Toki, the spirit of frost and snow.”
The name Robin (a French form from Rob, which is of course a short form for Robert) would serve both for “the shrewd and knavish sprite” — the German Knecht Ruprecht (see Grimm’s Teut. Myth. p. 504, trans. Stallybrass) — and for the bandit (see “Roberdes Knaues” in the Prologue of Piers the Plowman, 1. 44, and the note in Warton’s Hist. of Eng. Poet. ii. 95, ed. 1840). Hood is a very usual dialectal form of wood; and in his play Edward the First, George Peele actually alludes to the bandit as “Robin of the Wood.” Mr Gutch thus explains the origin of the name. It is still a common enough surname, of which the earlier shape is Odo (see “Houdart,” &c., in Larchey’s Dict. des Noms); notice, too, the name Hudson. But it also reminds one of the German familiar spirit Hudekin, or possibly of the German Witikind (see Wright’s Essays on the Middle Ages, ii. 207). Mr Sidney Lee suggests that Robin was a forest elf so called because elves wore hoods (see Dict. of National Biography, sub. “Robin Hood”). How certain it is that the Robin Hood story attracted to it and appropriated other elements is illustrated by its subsequent history—its history after the 14th century. Thus later on we find it connected with the Morris dance; but the Morris dance was not known in England before the 16th century or late in the 15th. The Friar Tuck and Maid Marian elements have been thought to have been introduced for the purpose of these performances, which were held on May-day and were immensely popular (see Latimer’s Frutefull Sermons (London, 1571), p. 75; also Paston Letters, ed. J. Gairdner, iii. 89). After 1615, the date of the pageant prepared for the mayoralty of Sir John Jolles, draper, by Anthony Munday and entitled Metropolis Coronata, a peer was imported into it, and the yeoman of the older version was metamorphosed into the earl of Huntingdon, for whom in the following century William Stukeley discovered a satisfactory pedigree! The earl of Huntingdon was probably a nickname for a hunter. At last, with the change of times, the myth ceased growing. Its rise and development and decay deserve a more thorough study than they have yet received.
What perhaps is its greatest interest as we first see it is its
expression of the popular mind about the close of the middle
ages. Robin Hood is at that time the people’s ideal as Arthur
is that of the upper classes. He is the ideal yeoman as Arthur
is the ideal knight. He readjusts the distribution of property:
he robs the rich and endows the poor. He is an earnest
worshipper of the Virgin, but a bold and vigorous hater of monks
and abbots. He is the great sportsman, the incomparable
archer, the lover of the greenwood and of a free life, brave,
adventurous, jocular, open-handed, a protector of women.
Observe his instructions to Little John—
| “ | Loke ye do no housbonde harme That tylleth with his plough; No more ye shall no good yeman That walketh by grene wode shawe; Ne no knyght ne no squyer That wolde be a good felawe: These bysshoppes and thyse archebysshoppes Ye shall them bete and bynde; The hye sheryfe of Notynghame Hym holde in your mynde.” |
And we are told—
| “ | Robin loved our dere lady; For doute of dedely synne Wolde he never do company harme That ony woman was ynne.” |
See also Drayton’s Polyolbion, Song xxvi. The story is localized in Barnsdale and Sherwood, i.e. between Doncaster and Nottingham. In Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire a host of place-names testify to the popularity of the Robin Hood legend—Robin Hood’s Bay, Robin Hood’s Cave, Robin Hood’s Chase, Robin Hood’s Cup (a well), Robin Hood’s Chair, Robin Hood’s Pricks, and many more.
The best collections of Robin Hood poems are those of Ritson (8vo, 1795) and Gutch (2nd ed., 1847), and of Professor Child in the 5th volume of his invaluable English and Scotch Popular Ballads (Boston, 1888). See also Professor F. B. Gummere’s Old English Ballads (Boston, 1894). The versions in the Percy Folio (edited by Hales and Furnivall, 1867, vol. i.) are unhappily mutilated; but they should be consulted, for they are all more or less unique, and that on “Robin Hoode his death” is of singular interest. The literary and artistic value of many of the Robin Hood ballads cannot be pronounced considerable, but eight of them attain the high-water mark of their class. Robin Hood and the Monk and Guy of Gisborne are perhaps the best. There is, however, real vigour and force in this fragment on the hero’s death. The earliest “Garland” was printed in 1670, and in 1678 appeared a prose version which was reprinted by W. J. Thoms in his Early English Prose Romances (vol. ii., 1858). Mr Lee’s memoir in the Dictionary of National Biography is extremely erudite, and two valuable articles, contributed by Sir Edward Brabrook to the Antiquary for June and July 1906, might be consulted. See also Stukeley, Paleographia Britannica, No. i. 115; Thierry, Conquête de l’Angleterre (1830) ; and J. Hunter’s Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood (1852). (J. W. H.; F. J. S.)
ROBIN HOOD’S BAY, a seaside resort in the Whitby parliamentary division of the North Riding of Yorkshire, England,
6½ m. S.E. of Whitby by a branch of the North-Eastern railway.
The bay itself is a shallow indentation of the coast, and is
fringed with high picturesque cliffs, breached in places by steep sided
narrow gullies. The old fishing village overhangs the
cliffs, while the more modern watering-place is mostly built a
little inland. A fine stretch of sandy shore is exposed at low tide.
ROBINIA, or Locust-Tree, a genus of about six species
native of the United States and Mexico, belonging to the suborder
Papilionaceae of the great family Leguminosae. It was
named by Linnaeus in honour of lean Robin (1550–1629),
herbalist to the king of France and his son and successor,
Vespasien Robin (1579–1660) by whom the best-known species,
Robinia Pseudacacia, was introduced into Europe, in the Jardin
du Roi at Paris in 1636. This tree, the bastard acacia, or
false acacia, and often called erroneously acacia, is now widely
cultivated as an ornamental tree in this country and on the
European continent. It grows from 30 to 60 ft. high, and
bears long, graceful, compound leaves with 9 to 17 bright
green oblong leaflets, and white fragrant flowers in loose
pendulous racemes, recalling the laburnum in habit. There
are many varieties in English gardens varying in the method
of growth, the presence or absence of thorns (persistent spinose
stipules) on the branches and the colour of the flower.
In the eastern United States, where it is native, it grows from 70 to 80 ft. high with a trunk 3 or 4 ft. in diameter. It is one of the most valuable timber trees of the American forest. The wood is heavy, very hard, strong, close-grained and durable, and is extensively used in shipbuilding, also for posts and other purposes where durability in contact with the ground is essential.
Like many plants of the same family, the leaves show sleep movement, folding together at night and in dull or wet weather; for this reason it is less injurious than many trees to plants growing in its shade, as the rain is able more quickly to reach the ground beneath.
