ROBIN HOOD, English leg endary hero. The oldest datable mention of Robin Hood at present known occurs in the second edition of Piers Plowman, the date of which is about 1377. In that poem the figure of Sloth is represented as saying— "I can nou3te perfitly my paternoster, as the prest it syngeth: But I can rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erie of Chestre." He is next mentioned by Andrew of Wyntoun in his Original Chronicle of Scotland, written about 142o. Of his popularity in the latter half of the 15th and in the 16th centuries there are many signs. In the Elizabethan era and afterwards mentions abound. Of the ballads themselves, Robin Hood and the Monk is possibly as old as the reign of Edward II. (see Thomas Wright's Essays on England in the Middle Ages, ii. 174) Robin Hood and the Potter and Robyn and Gandelyn are certainly not later than the 15th century. Most important of all is A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, which was first printed about isio (see A. W. Pol lard's Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, 1903). This is evidently founded on older ballads; we read in The Seconde Fytte, I1. 176 and "He wente hym forthe full mery syngynge, As men have told in tale." In fact, it does for the Robin Hood cycle what a few years before Sir Thomas Malory had done for the Arthurian romances.
These are the facts about him and his balladry. Of conjectures there is no end. He has been represented as the last of the Saxons—as a Saxon holding out against the Norman conquerors so late as the end of the 12th century (see Augustin Thierry's Norman Conquest, and compare Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe). J. M. Gutch maintains that he was a follower of Simon de Mont fort. The Robin Hood story has probably some historical basis. Sloth in Langland's poem couples him with Randle, earl of Ches ter, whom we believe to have been the third Randle (see Bishop Percy's Folio Ms., ed. Hales and Furnivall, i. 26o) ; and, possibly enough, Hood was contemporary with that earl, who "flourished" in the reigns of Richard I., John and Henry III. His myth was, as is evident from what we have already said, full-grown in the first half of the 14th century.
That the Robin Hood story attracted to it and appropriated other elements is illustrated by its subsequent history. 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 Maid Marian (q.v.) element has 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 [1571] , p. 75; also Paston Letters,
(ed. J. Gairdner, iii. 89). After 1615, the date of the pageant pre pared for the mayoralty of Sir John Jolles, draper, by Anthony Munday and entitled Metropolis Coronata, 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. The rise, development and decay of the myth deserve thorough study.
What perhaps is its greatest interest is its expression of the pop ular mind about the close of the middle ages. Robin Hood was 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 re adjusts the distribution of property; he robs the rich and endows the poor. He is an earnest worshipper of the Virgin, but a vigorous hater of monks and abbots. He is the great sportsman, the in comparable archer, the lover of the greenwood and of a free life, brave, adventurous, jocular, open-handed, a protector of women. 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 J. Ritson (5795), F. J. Child in the 5th volume of his English and Scotch Popular Ballads (Boston, i888) ; and F. Jackson, Popular Ballads of the Olden Time, 4th Series (1912). See also F. B. Gummere, 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 some are of a unique character, and that on "Robin Hoode his death" is of singular interest. The earliest "Garland" was printed in 167o, and in 1678 appeared a prose version which was reprinted by W. J. Thomas in his Early English Prose Romances (vol. ii. 1858). Sir S. Lee's memoir in the Dictionary of National Biography is extremely erudite, and two valuable articles, contributed by Sir E. Brabrook to the Antiquary for June and July 5906, might be consulted. See also W. Stukeley, Paleographia Britannica, No. i. "5 (1795) ; A. Thierry, Conquete de l'Angleterre (183o) ; J. Hunter, Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood (5852).