Robin Hood and the Beggar
"Robin Hood and the Beggar" is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is a pair out of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads. These two ballads share the same basic plot device in which the English folk hero Robin Hood meets a beggar.
Ballad I
"Robin Hood and the Beggar, I" is Child Ballad 133.[1]
One day, Robin Hood sets off on his horse wearing his green mantle, intent on adventure. On his way to Nottingham, he meets a "jolly" beggar wearing a patched coat and with many bags on his person, which especially attract Robin's attention (5.4). The beggar begs, but Robin refuses to offer him charity because, he explains, he is Robin Hood the outlaw and has no money himself. Robin offers to fight him, and the beggar agrees to the fight and lays into him, hoping to injure him and steal his purse. They fight until the blood trickles down Robin's head. Eventually, Robin calls for a truce in which Robin agrees to give over his mantle and horse, and the beggar his coat and bags. They exchange clothing, and Robin, now in the guise of a beggar "brave and stout" (II.7.5), approvingly examines the bags and their contents: "For now I have a bag for my bread, / [...] / So have I another for Corn, / I have one for Mault, and another for salt, / And one for my little Horn" (II.8.1-5). Robin goes to Nottingham as a beggar, where he hears three yeomen are sentenced to hang for poaching the king's deer. He begs their lives from the sheriff, but the Sheriff refuses to release the men, disregarding Robin's plea because he appears as a beggar. Just as the men are about to be hanged at the gallows, Robin blows his horn, summoning his hundred archers. They rescue the three through violence and return to the green wood, celebrating the yeomen's entrance into Robin Hood's band.
Ballad II
"Robin Hood and the Beggar, II" is Child Ballad number 134.[2]
Robin Hood meets and demands money from a beggar. The beggar refuses, and Robin Hood goes to shoot him, but the beggar strikes a blow that breaks both bow and arrow. They fight, and the beggar wounds him, leaving him unconscious. Three of Robin Hood's men find him and manage to revive him. He sends them after the beggar. They know the country and are able to catch him. The beggar offers them money. They decide to take it and kill him, so that Robin Hood would not know. He opens a bag of meal and throws it in their faces. Though Robin Hood would have preferred revenge, he found his men's fate amusing.
Historical and cultural significance
This ballad is part of a group of ballads about Robin Hood that in turn, like many of the popular ballads collected by Francis James Child, were in their time considered a threat to the Protestant religion.[3] Puritan writers, like Edward Dering writing in 1572, considered such tales "'childish follye'" and "'witless devices.'"[4] Writing of the Robin Hood ballads after A Gest of Robyn Hode, their Victorian collector Francis Child claimed that variations on the "'Robin met with his match'" theme, such as this ballad, are "sometimes wearisome, sometimes sickening," and that "a considerable part of the Robin Hood poetry looks like char-work done for the petty press, and should be judged as such."[5] Child had also called the Roxburghe and Pepys collections (in which some of these ballads are included) "'veritable dung-hills [...], in which only after a great deal of sickening grubbing, one finds a very moderate jewel.'"[6]
However, as folklorist and ethnomusicologist Mary Ellen Brown has pointed out, Child's denigration of the later Robin Hood ballads is evidence of an ideological view he shared with many other scholars of his time who wanted to exclude cheap printed ballads such as these from their pedigree of the oral tradition and early literature.[7] Child and others were reluctant to include such broadsides in their collections because they thought they "regularized the text, rather than reflecting and/or participating in tradition, which fostered multiformity."[7]
On the other hand, the broadsides are significant in themselves as showing, as English jurist and legal scholar John Selden (1584–1654) puts it, "'how the wind sits. As take a straw and throw it up in the air; you shall see by that which way the wind is, which you shall not do by casting up a stone. More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as ballads and libels.'"[8] Even though the broadsides are cultural ephemera, unlike weightier tomes, they are important because they are markers of contemporary "current events and popular trends."[8]
It has been speculated that in his time Robin Hood represented a figure of peasant revolt, but the English medieval historian J. C. Holt has argued that the tales developed among the gentry, that he is a yeoman rather than a peasant, and that the tales do not mention peasants' complaints, such as oppressive taxes.[9] Moreover, he does not seem to rebel against societal standards but to uphold them by being munificent, devout, and affable.[10] Other scholars have seen the literature around Robin Hood as reflecting the interests of the common people against feudalism.[11] The latter interpretation supports Selden's view that popular ballads provide a valuable window onto the thoughts and feelings of the common people on topical matters: for the peasantry, Robin Hood may have been a redemptive figure.
Library/archival holdings
The English Broadside Ballad Archive at the University of California, Santa Barbara holds seventh seventeenth-century broadside ballad versions of this tale: three in the Pepys collection at Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge (2.113, 2.102, and 2.104), three in the Roxburghe ballad collection at the British Library (3.20-21, 3.418-19, and 3.14-15), and one in the Crawford collection at the National Library of Scotland.[12]
See also
References
- ^ Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "Robin Hood and the Beggar, I"
- ^ Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "Robin Hood and the Beggar II"
- ^ Watt (1993), pp. 39–40
- ^ Watt (1993), pp. 39–40, quoting Edward Dering, A brief and necessary instruction (1572), sig.A2v.
- ^ Child (2003), p. 42
- ^ Brown (2010), p. 67; Brown's italics
- ^ a b Brown (2010), p. 69
- ^ a b Fumerton & Guerrini (2010), p. 1
- ^ Holt (1989), pp. 37–38
- ^ Holt (1989), p. 10
- ^ Singman (1998), p. 46, and first chapter as a whole
- ^ "Ballad Archive Search - UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive".
Bibliography
- Brown, Mary Ellen (2010). "Child's ballads and the broadside conundrum". In Patricia Fumerton; Anita Guerrini; Kris McAbee (eds.). Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500–1800. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. pp. 57–72. ISBN 978-0-7546-6248-8.
- Child, Francis James, ed. (2003) [1888–1889]. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Vol. 3. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
- Fumerton, Patricia; Guerrini, Anita (2010). "Introduction: straws in the wind". In Patricia Fumerton; Anita Guerrini; Kris McAbee (eds.). Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500–1800. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. pp. 1–9. ISBN 978-0-7546-6248-8.
- Holt, J. C. (1989). Robin Hood. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27541-6.
- Singman, Jeffrey L. (1998). Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-30101-8.
- Watt, Tessa (1993). Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521458276.
External links
- Link to a facsimile sheet of an early modern version of this ballad at the English Broadside Ballad Archive at the University of California, Santa Barbara: [1]
- Link to an audio recording of this ballad: [2]
- Robin Hood and the Beggar, I
- Link to the website of The Robin Hood Project, a collection of webpages chronicling the development of Robin Hood from his medieval origins to modern depictions, at the Robbins Library at the University of Rochester: [3]
- Link to a fairly comprehensive website on all things Robin Hood, including historical background on the real Robin Hood and other characters of the legend, texts and recordings of Robin Hood stories, resources for teachers and students, information about adaptations, and more: [4]
- v
- t
- e
- Sir Aldingar
- Alison and Willie
- Allison Gross
- Andrew Lammie
- Archie o Cawfield
- Kinmont Willie
- Auld Matrons
- Babylon
- The Baffled Knight
- The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington
- Barbara Allen
- The Battle of Otterburn
- The Beggar-Laddie
- Adam Bell
- The Bent Sae Brown
- Bessy Bell and Mary Gray
- Blancheflour and Jollyflorice
- The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood
- Bonnie Annie
- The Bonnie Earl O' Moray
- Bonnie George Campbell
- Bonny Baby Livingston
- Bonny Bee Hom
- The Bonny Birdy
- The Bonny Hind
- The Bonnie House of Airlie
- The Bonny Lass of Anglesey
- Bonny Lizie Baillie
- The Boy and the Mantle
- Broom of the Cowdenknowes
- The Broomfield Hill
- Broughty Wa's
- Brown Adam
- The Brown Girl
- Brown Robin
- Brown Robyn's Confession
- Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane
- Burd Isabel and Earl Patrick
- Captain Ward and the Rainbow
- Captain Wedderburn's Courtship
- The Carnal and the Crane
- The Cherry-Tree Carol
- The Ballad of Chevy Chase
- Child Maurice
- Child Owlet
- Child Waters
- Christopher White
- Clerk Colvill
- Clerk Saunders
- The Clerk's Twa Sons o Owsenford
- The Crafty Farmer
- Crow and Pie
- The Cruel Brother
- The Cruel Mother
- The Daemon Lover
- The Death of Parcy Reed
- The Death of Queen Jane
- Dick o the Cow
- Dives and Lazarus
- The Dowie Dens o Yarrow
- Dugall Quin
- The Duke of Athole's Nurse
- The Duke of Gordon's Daughter
- Earl Brand
- Earl Crawford
- The Earl of Errol
- The Earl of Mar's Daughter
- Earl Rothes
- Edom o Gordon
- Edward
- The Elfin Knight
- Eppie Morrie
- Erlinton
- Fair Annie
- The Fair Flower of Northumberland
- Fair Janet
- Fair Margaret and Sweet William
- Fair Mary of Wallington
- The False Lover Won Back
- The Famous Flower of Serving-Men
- The Farmer's Curst Wife
- Fause Foodrage
- The Fause Knight Upon the Road
- The Friar in the Well
- The Gardener
- The Gay Goshawk
- Geordie
- The George Aloe and the Sweepstake
- A Gest of Robyn Hode
- Get Up and Bar the Door
- Gil Brenton
- Glasgerion
- Glasgow Peggie
- Glenlogie
- The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry
- The Grey Cock
- Gude Wallace
- The Raggle Taggle Gypsy
- Battle of Harlaw
- The Heir of Linne
- Hind Etin
- Hind Horn
- Hobie Noble
- Hughie Graham
- James Hatley
- Jamie Douglas
- Jellon Grame
- Jock o' the Side
- Jock the Leg and the Merry Merchant
- John Dory
- John of Hazelgreen
- Johnie Cock
- Johnie Scot
- Johnnie Armstrong
- The Jolly Beggar
- The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
- Judas
- Katharine Jaffray
- The Keach i the Creel
- Kemp Owyne
- Kempy Kay
- King Arthur and King Cornwall
- King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth
- King Estmere
- King Henry
- King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France
- King John and the Bishop
- The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood
- The King's Dochter Lady Jean
- Lang Johnny More
- The Kitchie-Boy
- The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter
- The Knight's Ghost
- The Knoxville Girl
- The Lads of Wamphray
- Lady Alice
- Lady Diamond
- Lady Elspat
- Lady Isabel
- Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
- Lady Maisry
- The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea
- The Laird o Drum
- The Laird o Logie
- Lamkin
- The Lass of Roch Royal
- Leesome Brand
- Sir Lionel
- Little John a Begging
- Lizie Lindsay
- Lizie Wan
- The Lochmaben Harper
- Lord Ingram and Chiel Wyet
- Lord Lovel
- Lord Maxwell's Last Goodnight
- The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward
- Lord Randall
- Lord Saltoun and Auchanachie
- Lord Thomas and Fair Annet
- Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret
- Lord Thomas Stuart
- Lord William
- The Maid and the Palmer
- The Maid Freed from the Gallows
- The Marriage of Sir Gawain
- Mary Hamilton
- Matty Groves
- The Mermaid
- The Mother's Malison
- The New-Slain Knight
- The Noble Fisherman
- Northumberland Betrayed By Douglas
- Old Robin of Portingale
- Sir Orfeo
- Prince Heathen
- Prince Robert
- Proud Lady Margaret
- Queen Elanor's Confession
- The Queen of Elfan's Nourice
- The Queen of Scotland
- The Rantin Laddie
- Redesdale and Wise William
- Richie Story
- Riddles Wisely Expounded
- Robin Hood and Allan-a-Dale
- Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
- Robin Hood and Little John
- Robin Hood and Maid Marian
- Robin Hood and Queen Katherine
- Robin Hood and the Beggar
- Robin Hood and the Bishop
- Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
- Robin Hood and the Butcher
- Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar
- Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow
- Robin Hood and the Monk
- Robin Hood and the Pedlars
- Robin Hood and the Potter
- Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon
- Robin Hood and the Ranger
- Robin Hood and the Scotchman
- Robin Hood and the Shepherd
- Robin Hood and the Tanner
- Robin Hood and the Tinker
- Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight
- Robin Hood Newly Revived
- Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires
- Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly
- Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage
- Robin Hood's Chase
- Robin Hood's Death
- Robin Hood's Delight
- Robin Hood's Golden Prize
- Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
- Robyn and Gandeleyn
- The Rose of England
- Rose the Red and White Lily
- Saint Stephen and Herod
- Sheath and Knife
- Sir Cawline
- Sir James the Rose
- Sir Patrick Spens
- The Suffolk Miracle
- The Sweet Trinity
- Sweet William's Ghost
- Tam Lin
- Thomas o Yonderdale
- Thomas the Rhymer
- The Three Ravens
- Tom Potts
- A True Tale of Robin Hood
- The Twa Brothers
- The Twa Magicians
- The Twa Sisters
- The Unquiet Grave
- Walter Lesly
- The Wee Wee Man
- The West Country Damosel's Complaint
- The White Fisher
- The Whummil Bore
- The Wife of Usher's Well
- The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin
- Will Stewart and John
- Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter
- Willie and Lady Maisry
- Willie o Douglas Dale
- Willie o Winsbury
- Willie's Fatal Visit
- Willie's Lady
- Willie's Lyke-Wake
- The Wylie Wife of the Hie Toun Hie
- Young Andrew
- Young Beichan
- Young Benjie
- The Young Earl of Essex's Victory over the Emperor of Germany
- Young Hunting
- Young Johnstone
- Young Peggy
- Young Ronald
- Young Waters