by Kai Roberts
This narrative amply illustrates the ballads’ animosity towards the wealth and corruption of the Church, represented by the merciless abbot and the dishonest monk. Moreover, it portrays Robin as a fundamentally honest thief. It is implied that had the monk only told the truth about the amount of money he was carrying, the outlaws would not have seized it. Meanwhile, Robin not only refuses to steal from the honest knight but offers to lend him assistance. He later declines the knight’s attempts to repay him when his band no longer need the money, on grounds that reinforce the ballads’ affinity with the emergent yeoman class. Doubtless these were all sentiments which a late medieval audience would have lapped up, contributing greatly to the ballads’ popularity.
Another prevalent feature of the earlier ballads is the combat narrative and in a period when quarterstaff contests were a favourite local pastime, whilst archery practice was compulsory for all men between the ages of fifteen and sixty, these aspects were also a noteworthy factor in the legend’s wide appeal. Perhaps most common are the ‘Robin meets his match’ tales, in which a local character is shown equalling Robin’s skill and is subsequently asked to join the outlaws’ band. These stories seem to have been designed to flatter regional pride, conveying the message that the named locality is special because it produced an opponent capable of giving Robin Hood, one of the most skilled combatants who ever lived, a run for his money.
Two notable examples of such ballads take place in Yorkshire. The first is ‘The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield’, the earliest reference to which occur in the Stationers’ Register for 1557-9. A pinder is an obsolete medieval profession, an officer of the lord of the manor charged with looking after the town pinfold: an enclosure in which animals that had strayed onto common land were held until they were recovered by their owners, upon the payment of a fine. It was a position of petty authority but at the start of the ballad, the eponymous ‘jolly pinder’ boasts that such was his power, not even a baron would dare to trespass at Wakefield.
Robin, Little John and Will Scarlett overhear his remark, and determine to take the pinder down a notch and confront him. The pinder asks them to leave the common and return to the highway, but when they refuse, a melee ensues. Despite being outnumbered three-to-one, the pinder is true to his word and proves a match for the outlaws, who are so impressed by his skill in combat, that they ask him to join them. The pinder offers them some food and replies that he will wait until Michaelmas when his wage from the lord of the manor is due, and then proceed to join them in the greenwood.
The second example is ‘Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar’ which takes place in the vicinity of Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian monastery founded in 1132, near Ripon in North Yorkshire. The earliest surviving version of the ballad is a garland from 1663, although similarities to the play fragment from 1475 suggest that it may have circulated for some considerable time before that printing. A medieval origin is also suggested by the involvement of the friar, as this order of Christian mendicants was abolished in England during the Protestant Reformation. Some later sources have identified the friar in this tale with Friar Tuck, although the name is never used in the original ballad.
In the ballad, Robin speculates that there is no match for Little John within 100 miles, to which Will Scarlett replies that there is rumour of a friar near Fountains Abbey who could best him. Robin finds the friar beside the River Skell and, pretending to be a weary traveller, asks to be carried across the water. The friar agrees, but halfway across throws the outlaw from his back and challenges him to a duel. The two fight with swords for a considerable time until an exhausted Robin begs a favour: to let him blow his horn. The friar assents and Robin uses the horn to summon his men, who appear on the bank with their bows. The friar then begs a favour from Robin: to let him whistle. Robin agrees and the Friar summons a pack of hunting-dogs. Admitting that he is well-matched, Robin refuses to fight further and asks the friar to join his band.
Whilst both ‘The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield’ and ‘The Curtal Friar’ represent typical examples of the early ballads’ milieu, Yorkshire is also the scene for two of the most unique episodes in the canon. The ballad known as ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’ (or ‘Robin Hood’s Preferment’) is the only narrative with a nautical theme and despite this departure from the familiar environment, it was seemingly one of the most popular ballads during the seventeenth century, circulating widely in broadside and garland form. It is possibly a late invention, with the coastal setting suggesting that the legend had spread far from its original territory by the time of the ballad’s composition. Certainly, no references or analogues exist before an entry in the Stationers’ Register for 1631.
‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’ sees the hero grow weary of life in the greenwood and retire to Scarborough, on the North Yorkshire coast, where he takes work as a fisherman. Unsurprisingly, life as an outlaw has not prepared him for such a trade and he is mocked by the crew, who deny him a share of their catch. After several days at sea, the fishing boat is pursued by a French warship; the crew fear they will be captured and taken to France as prisoners, but Robin takes up his bow and picks off most of the French sailors, before boarding the ship with his sword to finish the job. There he discovers £12,000 in gold, which he offers to split with the fishermen. They refuse on the grounds that Robin won it himself, at which he vows to use the spoils to found a haven for the dispossessed.
Although ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’ might be atypical in its setting, stylistically and thematically it is consistent with many other ballads. The tone is knock-about picaresque and the narrative concludes with a familiar display of Robin’s graciousness and largesse. Far more unusual is the account of Robin’s death, one of the most momentous episodes in the canon and tonally quite unlike any other ballad. A fatalistic atmosphere pervades the narrative and it closes on a downbeat note – it is the only episode to end in Robin’s defeat, and a terminal one at that. Whilst many of the earliest tales of Robin Hood were comedies, without consequences or connection to any wider context, the narrative of the outlaw’s death brings a stark and tragic nemesis.
There are two principle sources for the death narrative. The first is the final segment of the ‘Gest’, but whilst this can be securely dated to the late fifteenth century, the account is synoptic and lacks much in the way of detail or motivation. A fuller account is found in the ballad ‘Robin Hood’s Death’, which regrettably only exists in a damaged fragment of indeterminate date. This manuscript was discovered by Bishop Percy in the 1760s, and dates from the mid-seventeenth century. However, there is internal evidence to suggest that the ballad itself was composed much earlier, probably in the late Middle Ages, and may have been the original source for the truncated version of the narrative which appears in the ‘Gest’.
In ‘Robin Hood’s Death’, after living many years as an outlaw, an elderly Robin falls ill and announces his intention to travel to Kirklees Priory, near Huddersfield, to have his blood let – a common medieval cure for a variety of maladies. Will Scarlett warns him against the journey, reminding him that he must travel close to the home of the antagonistic Roger of Doncaster, to which Robin replies that he has nothing to fear, as the prioress is his cousin and would never allow harm to come to him. Nonetheless, he is persuaded to take Little John along with him, but as the two proceed, the foreshadowing grows darker when they encounter an old woman at the crossing of a river, who curses Robin’s name.
Robin Hood’s Grave at Kirklees. (John Billingsley)
Upon their arrival at Kirklees, Robin sends Little John to wait for him nearby and allows the prioress to lead him to an upstairs room and open his vein. However, true to Will Scarlett’s warning, treachery is afoot. Robin’s faithless cousin locks him in the chamber and leaves him to bleed out, both for the wrong the outlaw has done to the Church and to appease her lover, Roger of Doncaster. After the hero has suffered substantial blood loss, he is confronted by Roger and a fight ensues, but even in his weakened state, Robin proves a formidable
opponent and slays the villain with a knife to the throat. The prioress retreats and with the last of his strength, Robin blows his horn to summon Little John.
Robin’s faithful companion arrives, breaking down doors in his wake, and begs his master to let him burn the nunnery to the ground. Robin refuses this request, stating that he has never harmed a woman and would not allow harm to come to any now. He merely asks that Little John hear his final confession, and then bury his body beside the highway nearby, with his sword at his head, his arrows by his side and his bow at his feet. In later versions of the ballad, Robin chooses the exact site of his grave by loosing a final arrow from the window of the priory and instructing Little John to inter him where it lands. However, whilst this has become the defining image of the outlaw’s demise, it does not appear in the original sources and appears to be a Romantic embellishment of the eighteenth century.
Contrary to popular belief, Kirklees is the only site to have been consistently associated with Robin Hood’s death since the Middle Ages. Perhaps more remarkably, a monument purporting to be ‘Robin Hood’s Grave’ still exists on land that once belonged to Kirkless Priory. Some commentators have dismissed this site as a gentrified folly, but whilst the grave was enclosed during the eighteenth century to protect it from vandals and a mock epitaph erected alongside it, the gravestone itself shows evidence of being much older. Furthermore, the earliest independent textual reference to the site dates from 1536 – prior to the dissolution of the priory – whilst supporting references continue throughout the sixteenth century. Although the exact provenance of the monument remains a mystery, its relative antiquity cannot be disputed.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the grave has attracted further folklore over the years. In the eighteenth century, local navvies believed that chippings from the stone offered protection from toothache – one of the main factors in the grave’s regrettable depredation. More eerily, in 1730, the historian Thomas Gent recorded that a local knight had not long ago removed the tombstone to use for a hearth in his great hall. However, each morning he rose to find that it had been ‘turned aside’ by some mysterious force, compelling him to return it to its proper place. Significantly, it required only half the number of animals to drag it back than it had taken to take it away. Both these traditions are common migratory legends, frequently associated with ancient monuments, from prehistoric megaliths to medieval memorials.
All the preceding stories were taken from ballads, and the advent of the printing press formalised and preserved such oral narratives, which may have extended far back into the Middle Ages. However, as the legend grew in popularity during the sixteenth century, a panoply of apocryphal local traditions began to emerge, the origins of which remain controversial. Some may represent lore as old as the ballads themselves, whilst others were probably later inventions inspired by the circulation of those ballads. As J.C. Holt observes, ‘There are two obvious causes of the proliferation … The first was psychological: those who told or listened to the stories tried to add to their realism by transferring the hero’s name to familiar places in the immediate locality. The second was commercial: innkeepers and other could attract custom by claiming that “Robin Hood was here”.’
One of the most oft-repeated examples of these apocryphal traditions is that Robin was born at Loxley, near Sheffield. The belief was first noted in the early seventeenth century in an anonymously written and undated prose chronicle of the outlaw’s life. known as the Sloane Manuscript and by the noted antiquary Roger Dodsworth, writing in 1620. Meanwhile, a land survey of 1637 records the ruins of a house at Little Haggas Croft in which the outlaw was supposed to have been born, and which could be seen until 1884. The Loxley legend further maintains that the young Robin was forced into life as an outlaw after he killed his stepfather with a scythe, whilst they were working land at Loxley Chase Farm. He then spent several years hiding out in a cave on Loxley Edge, before he was forced to flee the area altogether.
Robin Hood’s Bay, where the legendary outlaw kept a fishing boat. (Phil Roper)
Another location irrevocably associated with the outlaw – this time by virtue of its name – is the picturesque North Yorkshire fishing village, Robin Hood’s Bay. The settlement was first recorded under that title by John Leland in 1536, and two legends account for its nomenclature. One asserts that Robin loosed an arrow from Stoupe Brow and vowed to build a town wherever it landed – perhaps the haven he swore to found in ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’. The second version reports that Robin’s notoriety grew so great that the king sent a great force of soldiers from London to detain him, forcing the outlaw to take refuge on the moors near Whitby. Whilst in the area, he moored a boat at the inlet where Robin Hood’s Bay now stands, so that he could escape to sea if necessary and often took it out fishing to pass his days in hiding.
A related legend claims that during this period, the abbot of Whitby invited Robin and Little John to dine with him at the abbey. Whilst they were enjoying his hospitality, the abbot requested a demonstration of their famed archery skill and so the pair ascended to the roof of the building where they each loosed an arrow in the direction of Hawsker. The arrows fell a mile away near Whitby-Laithes, one at each side of the road and Little John’s some 100 feet further than Robin’s. The abbot was reputedly so impressed that he erected a stone pillar where each arrow landed to commemorate the feat, and whilst the original pillars are no more, the fields in which the arrows supposedly came to ground are still marked as Robin Hood and Little John Close.
Robin Hood toponyms such as these abound throughout Yorkshire. The earliest recorded example is Robin Hood’s Stone, mentioned in a cartulary of Monk Bretton Priory, dated 1422. The exact location of the stone has been lost, but it was appropriately somewhere in Barnsdale. Some scholars have suggested it was close to the site of Robin Hood’s Well, which sat beside the Great North Road a short distance south-east of Barnsdale Bar. The well was first recorded by Roger Dodsworth in 1622 and it was the site of a brisk trade for many hundreds of years. Today, however, the spring itself is lost beneath the dual-carriageway of the A1; all that remains is the well house, designed by the illustrious Sir John Vanbrugh c. 1720, and now relocated to the side of the road.
Another Robin Hood’s Well could once be found on Stanbury Moor near Haworth, accompanied by Little John’s Well and Will Scarlett’s Well nearby. Although they were practically lost by the time their tradition was recorded in 1899, local legend claimed that the outlaws once drank from these springs. Indeed, if such lore is to be believed, Robin and his men spent a lot of time in this tract of West Yorkshire. Not far away at Rivock Edge, above Keighley, there is a vast boulder known as Robin Hood’s Stone beneath which he supposedly slept, whilst similar stories are told of an earthfast boulder known as Robin Hood’s Chair and a natural rock-shelter called Robin Hood’s House, both at Baildon.
Robin’s name seems to have attached itself to a number of monoliths in Yorkshire, both natural and man-made. In some cases, he merely visited the feature but in others, he is responsible for its very existence in the landscape. As the Halifax historian, Reverend John Watson, noted in 1775, ‘The country people here attribute everything of the marvellous kind to Robin Hood.’ In these stories, Robin takes on the characteristics of a giant – as if his stature has grown to match the magnitude of his deeds – and doubtless his name was transposed over much older legends concerning the deeds of giants, whose titles are now long forgotten. It is a role adopted by King Arthur in other counties across Britain, but in Yorkshire it belongs exclusively to Robin.
Robin Hood’s Penny Stone at Wainstalls near Halifax was one such example. This large natural boulder topped by a rocking stone was broken up for building material in the nineteenth century, but prior to that locals claimed Robin Hood once ‘used this stone to pitch with at a mark for his amusement.’ There is another boulder known as Robin Hood’s Penny Stone just over a mile away on Midgley Moor which still survives today. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of t
he Calder Valley, there was once a standing stone known as Sowerby Lad which Robin was supposed ‘to have thrown … off an adjoining hill with a spade as he was digging.’ Sadly, this stone has also been destroyed.
A little further away atop Blackstone Edge, on the very border of Yorkshire with Lancashire, there is a rock formation called Robin Hood’s Bed. The outlaw is supposed to have slept here and used it as a lookout to observe movement on the ancient highway below. In his gigantic guise, he took one of the many boulders strewn about that place and flung it across the border, where it came to rest 6 miles away on Monstone Edge, and acquired the name Robin Hood’s Quoit. The Quoit was in fact a prehistoric burial cairn, and this connection between the outlaw and megaliths is another common theme. A row of tumuli dubbed ‘Robin Hood’s Butts’ near Robin Hood’s Bay were supposedly set up by the outlaw for target practice, and the story of the arrows fired from Whitby Abbey may have been a back-formation to account for the names of two ancient standing stones.
Robin Hood’s Pennystone on Midgley Moor, hurled by the legendary outlaw? (Kai Roberts)
Traditions such as these illustrate the difficulties with a purely historical conception of Robin Hood. Although many of his legends take place in a more recognisably historical milieu than those of King Arthur, Robin represents a similarly mythic figure in that the narratives associated with him primarily express the worldviews of communities across time and space, the character acting as a concept onto which humans project their dominant concerns. As a result, to some he is an outlaw, whilst to others he is a giant. What is certain is that he will never be a single, identifiable figure and nor should we wish him to be. Like so many folkloric entities mentioned in this book, he is fundamentally liminal and ambiguous; a shape-shifting trickster who will forever re-emerge in different guises according to the needs of those who imagine him.
