Chapter 2

In the _Gest_, compiled as it is from ballads of both cycles, no attempt was made to reconcile their various topographies; but it can be seen that the general geography of the first division of the _Gest_ (Fyttes I. II. and IV.) is that of Barnsdale, while the second division (Fyttes III. V. and VI.), dealing with the Sheriff of Nottingham, mainly centres round Sherwood. In the seventh Fytte, the King goes, presumably from London (322.3), to Nottingham _via_ Lancashire; and the eighth jumps from Nottingham to Kirksley.[11]

In _Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne_ (certainly an early ballad, although the Percy Folio, which supplies the only text, is _c._ 1650), the scene is specified as Barnsdale; yet at the end the Sheriff of Nottingham flees to his house as if it were hard by, whereas he had a fifty-mile run before him. The later ballads forget Barnsdale altogether.

[Footnote 10: It should be remembered that Wyntoun says that Robin Hood plied his trade in Inglewood and Barnsdale (see ante, p. xiv.).]

[Footnote 11: Child, in saying that ‘Robin Hood has made a vow to go from London to Barnsdale’ (v. 51) seems to assume that the ‘king’s court’ (_Gest_, 433) implies London, which, however, is not specified.]

BARNSDALE

The majority of the places mentioned in the northern or Barnsdale cycle will be found in the south of the West Riding of Yorkshire, a district bounded by the East Riding and Lincolnshire to the east, Derby and Nottingham shires to the south, and the river Calder to the north. To the west, the natural boundary is the high ground of the Peak, which divides Manchester from Sheffield.

The town of Barnsley lies slightly to the east of a line joining Leeds and Sheffield; Barnsdale itself is east and north of Barnsley, where the high backbone of the Pennines drops towards the flats surrounding the river Humber. The great North Road (‘Watling Street,’ _Gest_, 18.2) between Doncaster and Pontefract, crosses the small slow river Went at Wentbridge (probably referred to in st. 135 of the _Gest_), which may be taken as the northern boundary of Barnsdale. That this part of the North Road was considered unsafe for travellers as early as Edward I.’s reign is shown by the fact that a party going from Scotland to Winchester, and for most of the journey guarded by a dozen archers, saw fit to increase their number of guards to twenty between Pontefract and Tickhill, the latter being on the border of Yorkshire and Nottingham, south of Doncaster.

The remaining places, except those explained in the footnotes, may be dealt with here.

‘Blyth’ (_Gest_, 27.4, 259.4), twice mentioned as a place at which to dine, is a dozen miles south of Doncaster, and in Nottingham; it is almost exactly half-way between Barnsdale and Sherwood.

‘Verysdale’ (_Gest_, 126.4) may be Wyersdale, a wild tract of the old Forest of Lancashire, near Lancaster.

‘Holderness’ (_Gest_, 149.1) is the nose of Yorkshire; between the south-easterly turn of the Humber below Hull and the North Sea.

‘Kyrkesly’ (_Gest_, 451.3, 454.3), or ‘Churchlees’ (_Robin Hood’s Death_, 1.3). Kirklees Priory is on the left or north bank of the river Calder, a few miles north of Huddersfield.

‘St. Mary Abbey’ is ‘here besyde’ (_Gest_, 54.4) and in York (84.4).

SHERWOOD

The name of Sherwood is not mentioned in the _Gest_, though that of Nottingham is frequent. The old forest was a district about twenty-five miles square, lying to the north of Nottingham, between that town and Worksop, including Mansfield and, to the north, the district now known as ‘the Dukeries,’ _i.e._ the parks of Welbeck, Clumber and Rufford. There is a village of Sherwood, a northern suburb of Nottingham, and a Sherwood Hall near Mansfield; between the two may be found Friar Tuck’s Well, Robin Hood’s Well, Robin Hood’s Stable, and a Robin Hood Hill. But, as has been pointed out above, these names have little significance in view of the fact that similarly-named objects can be found in other counties.

It is more interesting to note that a pasture called ‘Robynhode Closse’ (_i.e._ close) is mentioned in the Nottingham Chamberlain’s accounts as early as 1485, and a ‘Robynhode Well’ in 1500.

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBIN HOOD

RITSON, Joseph. Robin Hood: A Collection of all the ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads, now extant, relative to that celebrated English Outlaw. 2 vols. London, 1795.

GUTCH, John Matthew. A Lytell Geste of Robin Hode, with other Ancient and Modern Ballads and Songs relating to this celebrated yeoman. 2 vols. London, 1847.

HUNTER, Rev. Joseph. The Ballad-Hero Robin Hood. London, 1852. (No. 4 of _Critical and Historical Tracts_.)

FRICKE, Richard. Die Robin-Hood-Balladen. In Herrig’s _Archiv_, lxix. 241-344. Also separately, Braunschweig, 1883.

BRANDL, Alois. Englische Volkspoesie. In Paul’s _Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie_. Strassburg, 1893.

KIESSMAN, R. Untersuchungen über die Motivs der Robin-Hood-Balladen. Halle, 1895.

CHAMBERS, E. K. The Mediæval Stage. 2 vols. Oxford, 1903. (Vol. i, chap. viii.)

HEUSLER, A. Lied und Epos. Dortmund, 1905.

HART, W. M. Ballad and Epic. In _Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature_. Vol. xi. Boston, 1907.

CLAWSON, W. H. The Gest of Robin Hood. In _University of Toronto Studies_. Toronto, 1909.

ARTICLES

The London and Westminster Review. March 1840. Vol. xxxiii.

The Academy (correspondence). 1883. Vol. xxiv.

The Quarterly Review. July 1898.

A GEST OF ROBYN HODE

‘Rebus huius Roberti gestis tota Britannia in cantibus utitur.’ --MAJOR.

+The Text.+--There are seven texts of the _Gest_, to be distinguished as follows:--

(i.) begins ‘Here begynneth a gest of Robyn Hode’; an undated printed fragment preserved with other early pieces in a volume in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh. It was reprinted in 1827 by David Laing, who then supposed it to be from the press of Chepman and Myllar, Edinburgh printers of the early sixteenth century; but he afterwards had reason to doubt this opinion. It is now attributed to Jan van Doesborch, a printer from Antwerp. The extent of this fragment is indicated below. Internal evidence (collected by Child, iii. 40) shows it to be an older text than

(ii.) ‘Here begynneth a lytell geste of Robyn hode’--so runs the title-page; at the head of the poem are added the words--‘and his meyne [= meinie, company], And of the proude Sheryfe of Notyngham.’ The colophon runs ‘Explycit. kynge Edwarde and Robyn hode and Lytell Johan Enprented at London in fletestrete at the sygne of the sone By Wynken de Worde.’ This also is undated, and Child says it ‘may be anywhere from 1492 to 1534.’ Recent bibliographical research shows that Wynkyn de Worde moved to Fleet Street at the end of the year 1500, which gives the downward limit; and as the printer died in 1584, the _Lytell Geste_ must be placed between those dates.[1] The text is complete save for two lines (7.1 and 339.1), which have also dropped from the other early texts. The only known copy is in the Cambridge University Library.

(iii., iv. and v.) Three mutilated printed fragments, containing about thirty-five, seventy, and fifteen stanzas respectively, preserved amongst the Douce fragments in the Bodleian (the last presented by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps). The first was lent to Ritson in or before 1790 by Farmer, who thought it to be Rastell’s printing; in Ritson’s second edition (1836) he says he gave it to Douce, and states without reason that it is of de Worde’s printing ‘probably in 1489.’

(vi.) _A mery geste of Robyn Hoode_, etc., a quarto preserved in the British Museum, not dated, but printed ‘at London vpon the thre Crane wharfe by wyllyam Copland,’ who printed there about 1560. This edition also contains ‘a newe playe for to be played in Maye games, very plesaunte and full of pastyme.’

(vii.) _A Merry Iest of Robin Hood_, etc., printed at London for Edward White; no date, but perhaps the ‘pastorall plesant commedie’ entered to White in the Stationers’ Registers, May 14, 1594. There is a copy of this in the Bodleian, and another was in the Huth Library.

+The Text+ here given is mainly the Wynkyn de Worde text, except where the earlier Edinburgh fragment is available; the stanzas which the latter preserves are here numbered 1.-83.3, 113.4-124.1, 127.4-133.2, 136.4-208.3, and 314.2-349.3, omitting 2.2,3 and 7.1. A few variations are recorded in the footnotes, it being unnecessary in the present edition to do more than refer to Child’s laborious collation of all the above texts.

The spelling of the old texts is retained with very few exceptions. The reason for this is that although the original texts were printed in the sixteenth century, the language is of the fifteenth, and a number of Middle English forms remain; these are pointed out by Child, iii. 40, and elaborately classified by W. H. Clawson, _The Gest of Robin Hood_, 4-5. A possible alternative was to treat the _Gest_ on the plan adopted for fifteenth-century texts by E. K. Chambers and the present editor in _Early English Lyrics_ (1907); but in that book the editors were mostly concerned with texts printed from manuscript, whereas here there is good reason to suspect the existence of a text or texts previous to those now available. For the sounded e (ë) I have mostly followed Child.

The _Gest_ is not a single ballad, but a conglomeration of several, forming a short epic. Ballads representing its component parts are not now extant; although on the other hand there are later ballads founded on certain episodes in the _Gest_. The compiler availed himself of incidents from other traditional sources, but he produced a singularly original tale.

The word _gest_, now almost obsolete, is derived through Old French from the Latin _gesta_, ‘deeds’ or ‘exploits.’ But as the word was particularly applied to ‘exploits as narrated or recited,’ there came into use a secondary meaning--that of ‘a story or romantic tale in verse,’ or ‘a metrical chronicle.’ The latter meaning is doubtless intended in the title of the _Gest of Robyn Hode_. A further corruption may be noticed even in the titles of the later texts as given above; Copland adds the word ‘mery,’ which thirty years later causes White to print a ‘Merry Jest.’

I have kept the original divisions of the story into eight ‘fyttes,’ but it falls more naturally into three main sections, in each of which a complete story is narrated. These may he distinguished thus:--

1. +Robin Hood and the Knight.+ (Fyttes First, Second, and Fourth.)

2. +Robin Hood, Little John, and the Sheriff of Nottingham.+ (Fyttes Third, Fifth, and Sixth.)

3. +Robin Hood and King Edward.+ (Fyttes Seventh and Eighth.)

An argument and general notes are prefixed to each fytte.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Charles Sayle puts it ‘before 1519’ in his catalogue of the early printed books in the University Library.]

THE FIRST FYTTE (1-81)

+Argument.+--Robin Hood refuses to dine until he finds some guest to provide money for his entertainment. He sends Little John and all his men to bring in any earl, baron, abbot, or knight, to dine with him. They find a knight, and feast him beneath the greenwood tree: but when Robin demands payment, the knight turns out to be in sorry plight, for he has sold all his goods to save his son. On the security of Our Lady, Robin lends him four hundred pounds, and gives him a livery, a horse, a palfrey, boots, spurs, etc., and Little John as squire.

Robin’s unwillingness to dine until he has a guest appears to be a parody of King Arthur’s custom of refusing dinner until he has had an adventure. (See Child, i. 257, note ‡.) The offer of the Virgin as security for a loan is apparently derived from a well-known miracle of Mary, in which a Christian, wishing to borrow money of a Jew, takes him to a church and makes him lay his hand on a statue of the Virgin and Child, praying that, if he fails to return the money on the day fixed to the lender, but gives it to the statue, Christ will return it to the Jew. This miracle eventually takes place, but is attributed rather to the Virgin than to her Son. (See Child, iii. 52.)

THE FIRST FYTTE

1. Lythe and listin, gentilmen, That be of frebore blode; I shall you tel of a gode yeman, His name was Robyn Hode.

2. Robyn was a prude outlaw, Whyles he walked on grounde; So curteyse an outlaw as he was one Was never non yfounde.

3. Robyn stode in Bernesdale, And lenyd hym to a tre; And bi him stode Litell Johnn, A gode yeman was he.

4. And alsoo dyd gode Scarlok, And Much, the miller’s son; There was none ynch of his bodi But it was worth a grome.

5. Than bespake Lytell Johnn All untoo Robyn Hode: ‘Maister, and ye wolde dyne betyme It wolde doo you moche gode.’

6. Than bespake hym gode Robyn: ‘To dyne have I noo lust, Till that I have som bolde baron, Or som unkouth gest.

7. ... ... ... ‘That may pay for the best, Or some knyght or som squyer That dwelleth here bi west.’

8. A gode maner than had Robyn: In londe where that he were, Every day or he wold dyne Thre messis wolde he here.

9. The one in the worship of the Fader, And another of the Holy Gost, The thirde was of Our dere Lady That he loved allther moste.

10. Robyn loved Oure dere Lady; For dout of dydly synne, Wolde he never do compani harme That any woman was in.

11. ‘Maistar,’ than sayde Lytil Johnn, ‘And we our borde shal sprede, Tell us wheeler that we shall go And what life that we shall lede.

12. ‘Where we shall take, where we shall leve, Where we shall abide behynde; Where we shall robbe, where we shall reve, Where we shall bete and bynde.’

13. ‘Thereof no force,’ than sayde Robyn; ‘We shall do well inowe; But loke ye do no husbonde harme That tilleth with his ploughe.

14. ‘No more ye shall no gode yeman That walketh by grene-wode shawe; Ne no knyght ne no squyer That wol be a gode felawe.

15. ‘These bisshoppes and these archebishoppes, Ye shall them bete and bynde; The hye sherif of Notyingham, Hym holde ye in your mynde.’

16. ‘This worde shalbe holde,’ sayde Lytell Johnn, ‘And this lesson we shall lere; It is fer dayes; God sende us a gest, That we were at our dynere.’

17. ‘Take thy gode bowe in thy honde,’ sayde Robyn; ‘Late Much wende with thee; And so shal Willyam Scarlok, And no man abyde with me.

18. ‘And walke up to the Saylis And so to Watlinge Strete, And wayte after some unkuth gest, Up chaunce ye may them mete.

19. ‘Be he erle, or ani baron, Abbot, or ani knyght, Bringhe hym to lodge to me; His dyner shall be dight.’

20. They wente up to the Saylis, These yemen all three; They loked est, they loked weest, They myght no man see.

21. But as they loked in to Bernysdale, Bi a dernë strete, Than came a knyght ridinghe; Full sone they gan hym mete.

22. All dreri was his semblaunce, And lytell was his pryde; His one fote in the styrop stode, That othere wavyd beside.

23. His hode hanged in his iyn two; He rode in symple aray; A soriar man than he was one Rode never in somer day.

24. Litell Johnn was full curteyes, And sette hym on his kne: ‘Welcome be ye, gentyll knyght, Welcom ar ye to me.

25. ‘Welcom be thou to grenë wode, Hendë knyght and fre; My maister hath abiden you fastinge, Syr, al these ourës thre.’

26. ‘Who is thy maister?’ sayde the knyght; Johnn sayde, ‘Robyn Hode’; ‘He is a gode yoman,’ sayde the knyght, ‘Of hym I have herde moche gode.

27. ‘I graunte,’ he sayde, ‘with you to wende, My bretherne, all in fere; My purpos was to have dyned to day At Blith or Dancastere.’

28. Furth than went this gentyl knight, With a carefull chere; The teris oute of his iyen ran, And fell downe by his lere.

29. They brought him to the lodgë-dore; Whan Robyn gan hym see, Full curtesly dyd of his hode And sette hym on his knee.

30. ‘Welcome, sir knight,’ than sayde Robyn, ‘Welcome art thou to me; I have abyden you fastinge, sir, All these ouris thre.’

31. Than answered the gentyll knight, With wordës fayre and fre: ‘God thee save, goode Robyn, And all thy fayre meynë.’

32. They wasshed togeder and wyped bothe, And sette to theyr dynere; Brede and wyne they had right ynoughe, And noumbles of the dere.

33. Swannes and fessauntes they had full gode, And foules of the ryvere; There fayled none so litell a birde That ever was bred on bryre.

34. ‘Do gladly, sir knight,’ sayde Robyn; ‘Gramarcy, sir,’ sayde he; ‘Suche a dinere had I nat Of all these wekys thre.

35. ‘If I come ageyne, Robyn, Here by thys contrë, As gode a dyner I shall thee make As thou haest made to me.’

36. ‘Gramarcy, knyght,’ sayde Robyn; ‘My dyner whan that I it have, I was never so gredy, by dere worthy God, My dyner for to crave.

37. ‘But pay or ye wende,’ sayde Robyn; ‘Me thynketh it is gode ryght; It was never the maner, by dere worthi God, A yoman to pay for a knyght.’

38. ‘I have nought in my coffers,’ saide the knyght, ‘That I may prefer for shame’: ‘Litell John, go loke,’ sayde Robyn, ‘Ne let not for no blame.

39. ‘Tel me truth,’ than saide Robyn, ‘So God have parte of thee’: ‘I have no more but ten shelynges,’ sayde the knyght, ‘So God have parte of me.’

40. ‘If thou have no more,’ sayde Robyn, ‘I woll nat one peny; And yf thou have nede of any more, More shall I lend the.

41. ‘Go nowe furth, Littell Johnn, The truth tell thou me; If there be no more but ten shelinges, No peny that I se.’

42. Lyttell Johnn sprede downe hys mantell Full fayre upon the grounde, And there he fonde in the knyghtës cofer But even halfe a pounde.

43. Littell Johnn let it lye full styll, And went to hys maysteer full lowe; ‘What tydynges, Johnn?’ sayde Robyn; ‘Sir, the knyght is true inowe.’

44. ‘Fyll of the best wine,’ sayde Robyn, ‘The knyght shall begynne; Moche wonder thinketh me Thy clothynge is so thinne.

45. ‘Tell me one worde,’ sayde Robyn, ‘And counsel shal it be; I trowe thou wert made a knyght of force, Or ellys of yemanry.

46. ‘Or ellys thou hast been a sori husbande, And lyved in stroke and strife; An okerer, or ellis a lechoure,’ sayde Robyn, ‘Wyth wronge hast led thy lyfe.’

47. ‘I am none of those,’ sayde the knyght, ‘By God that madë me; An hundred wynter here before Myn auncetres knyghtes have be.

48. ‘But oft it hath befal, Robyn, A man hath be disgrate; But God that sitteth in heven above May amende his state.

49. ‘Withyn this two yere, Robyne,’ he sayde, ‘My neghbours well it knowe, Foure hundred pounde of gode money Ful well than myght I spende.

50. ‘Nowe have I no gode,’ saide the knyght, ‘God hath shapen suche an ende, But my chyldren and my wyfe, Tyll God yt may amende.’

51. ‘In what maner,’ than sayde Robyn, ‘Hast thou lorne thy rychesse?’ ‘For my greate foly,’ he sayde, ‘And for my kyndënesse.

52. ‘I hade a sone, forsoth, Robyn, That shulde have ben myn ayre, Whanne he was twenty wynter olde, In felde wolde just full fayre.

53. ‘He slewe a knyght of Lancashire, And a squyer bolde; For to save him in his ryght My godes beth sette and solde.

54. ‘My londes beth sette to wedde, Robyn, Untyll a certayn day, To a ryche abbot here besyde Of Seynt Mari Abbey.’

55. ‘What is the som?’ sayde Robyn; ‘Trouth than tell thou me.’ ‘Sir,’ he sayde, ‘foure hundred pounde; The abbot told it to me.’

56. ‘Nowe and thou lese thy lond,’ sayde Robyn, ‘What shall fall of thee?’ ‘Hastely I wol me buske,’ sayd the knyght, ‘Over the saltë see,

57. ‘And se where Criste was quyke and dede, On the mount of Calverë; Fare wel, frende, and have gode day; It may no better be.’

58. Teris fell out of hys iyen two; He wolde have gone hys way; ‘Farewel, frende, and have gode day, I ne have no more to pay.’

59. ‘Where be thy frendës?’ sayde Robyn: ‘Syr, never one wol me knowe; While I was rych ynowe at home Great boste than wolde they blowe.

60. ‘And nowe they renne away fro me, As bestis on a rowe; They take no more hede of me Thanne they had me never sawe.’

61. For ruthe thanne wept Litell Johnn, Scarlok and Much in fere; ‘Fyl of the best wyne,’ sayde Robyn, ‘For here is a symple chere.

62. ‘Hast thou any frende,’ sayde Robyn, ‘Thy borrowe that woldë be?’ ‘I have none,’ than sayde the knyght, ‘But God that dyed on tree.’

63. ‘Do away thy japis,’ than sayde Robyn, ‘Thereof wol I right none; Wenest thou I wolde have God to borowe, Peter, Poule, or Johnn?

64. ‘Nay, by hym that me made, And shope both sonne and mone, Fynde me a better borowe,’ sayde Robyn, ‘Or money getest thou none.’

65. ‘I have none other,’ sayde the knyght, ‘The sothe for to say, But yf yt be Our dere Lady; She fayled me never or thys day.’

66. ‘By dere worthy God,’ sayde Robyn, ‘To seche all Englonde thorowe, Yet fonde I never to my pay A moche better borowe.

67. ‘Come nowe furth, Litell Johnn, And go to my tresourë, And bringe me foure hundred pound, And loke well tolde it be.’

68. Furth than went Litell Johnn, And Scarlok went before; He tolde oute foure hundred pounde By eight and twenty score.

69. ‘Is thys well tolde?’ sayde lytell Much; Johnn sayde: ‘What greveth thee? It is almus to helpe a gentyll knyght That is fal in povertë.

70. ‘Master,’ than sayde Lityll John, ‘His clothinge is full thynne; Ye must gyve the knight a lyveray, To lappe his body therein.

71. ‘For ye have scarlet and grene, mayster, And many a rich aray; Ther is no marchaunt in mery Englond So ryche, I dare well say.’

72. ‘Take hym thre yerdes of every colour, And loke well mete that it be.’ Lytell Johnn toke none other mesure But his bowë-tree.

73. And at every handfull that he met He lepëd fotës three; ‘What devylles drapar,’ sayd litell Much, ‘Thynkest thou for to be?’

74. Scarlok stode full stil and loughe, And sayd, ‘By God Almyght, Johnn may gyve hym gode mesure, For it costeth hym but lyght.’

75. ‘Mayster,’ than said Litell Johnn To gentill Robyn Hode, ‘Ye must give the knight a hors To lede home al this gode.’

76. ‘Take him a gray coursar,’ sayde Robyn, ‘And a saydle newe; He is Oure Ladye’s messangere; God graunt that he be true.’

77. ‘And a gode palfray,’ sayde lytell Much, ‘To mayntene hym in his right’; ‘And a peyre of botës,’ sayde Scarlok, ‘For he is a gentyll knight.’

78. ‘What shalt thou gyve him, Litell John?’ ‘Sir, a peyre of gilt sporis clene, To pray for all this company; God bringe hym oute of tene.’

79. ‘Whan shal mi day be,’ said the knight, ‘Sir, and your wyll be?’ ‘This day twelve moneth,’ saide Robyn, ‘Under this grene-wode tre.

80. ‘It were great shamë,’ said Robyn, ‘A knight alone to ryde, Withoutë squyre, yoman, or page, To walkë by his syde.

81. ‘I shal thee lende Litell Johnn, my man, For he shalbe thy knave; In a yeman’s stede he may thee stande, If thou greate nedë have.’