No. 120: Robin Hood's Death
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes (Found at the end of Child's Narrative)
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Texts A-B (Changes to make the B b text are found in End-Notes)
5. Endnotes
6. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 120. Robin Hood's Death
A. Roud No. 3299: Robin Hood's Death (14 Listings)
2. Sheet Music: 120. Robin Hood and the Monk (Bronson's music examples and texts)
3. US & Canadian Versions
4. English and Other Versions (Including Child versions A-B with additional notes)]
Child's Narrative: Robin Hood's Death
A. 'Robin Hoode his Death,' Percy Manuscript, p. 21; Hales and Furnivall, I, 58.
B. 'Robin Hood's Death and Burial.'
a. The English Archer, Paisley, John Neilson, 1786: Bodleian Library, Douce, F.F. 71 (6), p. 81.
b. The English Archer, York, printed by N. Nickson, in Feasegate, n.d.: Bodleian Library, Douce, F.F. 71 (4), p. 70.
B is given in Ritson's Robin Hood, 1795, II, 183, "from a collation of two different copies" of a York garland, "containing numerous variations, a few of which are retained in the margin."
A. Robin Hood is ailing, and is convinced that the only course for him is to go to Kirklees priory for blooding. Will Scarlet cannot counsel this, unless his master take fifty bowmen with him; for a yeoman lives there with whom there is sure to be a quarrel. Robin bids Scarlet stay at home, if he is afraid. Scarlet, seeing that his master is wroth, will say no more.[1] Robin Hood will have no one go with him but Little John, who shall carry his bow. John proposes that they shall shoot for a penny along the way, and Robin assents.
The opening of the ballad resembles that of Robin Hood and the Monk. There Robin's soul is ill at ease, as here his body, and he resolves to go to Nottingham for mass; Much, the Miller's son, advises a guard of twelve yeomen; Robin will take none with him except John, to bear his bow;[2] and John suggests that they shall shoot for a penny as they go.
A very interesting passage of the story here followed, of which we can barely guess the contents, owing to nine stanzas having been torn away. Robin Hood and John keep up their shooting all the way, until they come to a black water, crossed by a plank. On the plank an old woman is kneeling, and banning Robin Hood. Robin Hood asks why, but the answer is lost, and it is not probable that we shall ever know: out of her proper malignancy, surely, or because she is a hired witch, for Robin is the friend of lowly folk. But if this old woman is banning, others, no doubt women, are weeping, for somehow they have learned that he is to be let blood that day at the priory, and foresee that ill will come of it. Robin is disturbed by neither banning nor weeping; the prioress is his cousin, and would not harm him for the world. So they shoot on until they come to Kirklees.
Robin makes the prioress a present of twenty pound, with a promise of more when she wants, and she falls to work with her bleeding-irons. The thick blood comes, and then the thin, and Robin knows that there has been treason. John asks, What cheer? Robin answers, Little good. Nine stanzas are again wanting, and again in a place where we are not helped by the other version. John must call from the outside of the building, judging by what follows. An altercation seems to pass between Robin and some one; we should suppose between Robin and Red Roger. Robin slips out of a shot-window, and as he does so is thrust through the side by Red Roger. Robin swoops off Red Roger's head, and leaves him for dogs to eat. Then Red Roger must be below, and John is certainly below. He would have seen to Red Roger had they both been within. But John must be under a window on a different side of the building from that whence Robin issues, for otherwise, again, he would have seen to Red Roger. We are driven to suppose that the words in st. 19 pass between Robin above and Roger below.
Though Robin is near his last breath, he has, he says, life enough to take his housel. He must get it in a very irregular way, but he trusts it will "bestand" him.[3] John asks his master's leave to set fire to Kirklees, but Robin will not incur God's blame by harming any woman ["widow"] at his latter end. Let John make his grave of gravel and greet, set his sword at his head, his arrows at his feet, and lay his bow by his side.[4]
B, though found only in late 'garlands, is in the fine old strain. Robin Hood says to Little John that he can no longer shoot matches, his arrows will not flee; he must go to a cousin to be let blood. He goes, alone, to Kirkley nunnery, and is received with a show of cordiality. His cousin bloods him, locks him up in the room, and lets him bleed all the livelong day, and until the next day at noon. Robin bethinks himself of escaping through a casement, but is not strong enough. He sets his horn to his mouth and blows thrice, but so wearily that Little John, hearing, thinks his master must be nigh to death. John comes to Kirkley, breaks the locks, and makes his way to Robin's presence. He begs the boon of setting fire to Kirkley, but Robin has never hurt woman in all his life, and will not at his end. He asks for his bow to shoot his last shot, and where the arrow lights there his grave shall be.[5] His grave is to be of gravel and green, long enough and broad enough, a sod under his head, another at his feet, and his bow by his side, that men may say, Here lies bold Robin Hood.
The account of Robin Hood's death which is given in The Gest, agrees as to the main items with what we find in A. The prioress of Kirkesly, his near kinswoman, betrayed him when he went to the nunnery to be let blood, and this she did upon counsel with Sir Roger of Donkester, with whom she was intimate. The Life of Robin Hood in the Sloane Manuscript, which is mostly made up from The Gest, naturally repeats this story.
Grafton, in his Chronicle, 1569, citing "an olde and auncient pamphlet," says: For the sayd Robert Hood, beyng afterwardes troubled with sicknesse, came to a certain nonry in Yorkshire, called Bircklies, where, desiryng to be let blood, he was betrayed and bled to death: edition of 1809, p. 221. So the Harleian Manuscript, No 1233, article 199, of the middle of the seventeenth century, and not worth citing, but cited by Ritson. According to Stanihurst, in Holinshed's Ireland (p. 28 of ed. of 1808), after Robin Hood had been betrayed at a nunnery in Scotland called Bricklies, Little John was fain to flee the realm, and went to Ireland, where he executed an extraordinary shot, by which he thought his safety compromised, and so removed to Scotland, and died there.
Martin Parker's True Tale of Robin Hood, which professes to be collected from chronicles, ascribes Robin Hood's death to a faithless friar, who pretended "in love to let him blood," when he had a fever, and allowed him to bleed to death. Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight, a late and thoroughly worthless broadside ballad, says simply, He sent for a monk to let him blood, who took his life away.
A Russian popular song has an interesting likeness to the conclusion of Robin Hood's Death. The last survivor of a band of brigands, feeling death to be nigh, exclaims:
Bury me, brothers, between three roads,
The Kief, and the Moscow, and the Murom famed in story.
At my feet fasten my horse,
At my head set a lif e-bestowing cross,
In my right hand place my keen sabre.
Whoever passes by will stop;
Before my life-bestowing cross will he utter a prayer,
At the sight of my black steed will he be startled,
At the sight of my keen sword will he be" terrified.
'Surely this is a brigand who is buried here,
A son of the brigand, the bold Stenka Razín.'
Sakharof, Skazaniya Russkago Naroda, I, iii, 226.[6]
Dimos, twenty years a Klepht, tells his comrades to make his tomb wide and high enough for him to fight in it, standing up, and to leave a window, so that the swallows may tell him that spring has come and the nightingales that it is May: Fauriel, I, 56; Zambelios, p. 607, 13; Passow, p. 85. This is a song of the beginning of the present century.
B is translated in Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1838, p. 126 f; by Loève-Veimars, p. 223; by Cantù, Documenti alla Storia Universale, V, III, p. 801; Anastasius Grün, p. 200; Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, No 20.
Footnotes:
1. "You shall never hear more of me" might mean something stronger, but it is unlikely that Will is so touchy as to throw up fealty for a testy word from a sick man. A stanza or more seems to be lost here. Arthur is equally hasty with Gawain. He makes his vow to be the bane of Cornwall King. It is an unadvised vow, says Gawain.
And then bespake him noble Arthur,
And these were the words said he:
Why, if thou be afraid, Sir Gawaine the gay,
Goe home, and drink wine in thine own country.
I, 285, sts 33-35.
2. John is again his sole companion when Robin goes in search of Guy of Gisborne. The yeoman in stanza 3 should be Red Roger; but a suspicion has more than once come over me that the beginning of this ballad has been affected by some version of Guy of Gisborne.
3. I can make nothing of "give me mood," in 231,2 'Give me God,' or 'Give me my God,' may seem a bold suggestion: at any rate I have no example of God used simply for housel.
4. A few verses are wanting at the end. The "met-yard" of the last line is one of the last things we should think Robin would care for.
5. It seemed to me at one time that there was a direction to shoot an arrow to determine the place of a grave also in No 16, A
3, I, 185.
Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,
Shoot frae thy bow an arrow, and there let me lye.
But upon considering the corresponding passage in 16 B, C, and in 15 B, the idea seems rather to he, that the arrow is to leave the bow at the moment when the soul shoots from the body.
6. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 46, who cites B 17, 18. Mr. Ralston observes that most of the so-styled Robber Songs of the Russians are reminiscences of the revolt of the Don Cossacks against Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich. Stenka Razín, the chief of the insurgents, after setting for several years the forces of the Tsar at defiance, was put to a cruel death in 1672: p. 45, as above.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
A very interesting passage of the story is lost in A, owing to the tearing- away of nine stanzas of the manuscript at st. 8. Robin Hood and John are on their way to Kirklees. They keep up their shooting all the way, until they come to a black water, crossed by a plank. On the plank an old woman is kneeling, and banning Robin Hood. Robin asks why the old woman is banning him, but the answer is lost, and it is not probable that we shall ever know: out of her proper malignity, surely, or because she is a hired witch, for Robin is the friend of lowly folk. But if this old woman is banning, others (no doubt women) are weeping, for somehow they have learned that he is to be let blood that day at the priory, and foresee that ill will come of it. At the middle of st. 18 nine stanzas are again wanting, and again in a place where we are not helped by the other version. John must call from the outside of the building, judging by what follows. An altercation seems to pass between Robin and Red Roger. Robin slips out of a shot-window, and as he does so is thrust through the side by Red Roger. Red Roger must be below, and John is certainly below. He would have seen to Red Roger had they both been within. But John must be under a window on a different side of the building from that whence Robin issues, for otherwise, again, he would have seen to Red Roger. We are driven to suppose that the words in st. 19 pass between Robin above and Roger below. The account of Robin Hood's death in the Gest agrees in the main with what we find in A. B, though found only in late garlands, is in the fine old strain.
Child's Ballad Texts
'Robin Hoode his Death'- Version A; Child 120 Robin Hood's Death
Percy Manuscript, p. 21; Hales and Fnrnivall, I, 53.
1 'I will neuer eate oor drinke,' Robin Hood said,
'Nor meate will doo me noe good,
Till I haue beene at merry Churchlees,
My vaines for to let blood.'
2 'That I reade not,' said Will Scarllett,
'Master, by the assente of me,
Without halfe a hundred of your best bowmen
You take to goe with yee.
3 'For there a good yeoman doth abide
Will be sure to quarrell with thee,
And if thou haue need of vs, master,
In faith we will not flee.'
4 'And thou be feard, thou William Scarlett,
Att home I read thee bee:'
'And you be wrothe, my deare master,
You shall neuer heare more of mee.'
* * * * *
5 'For there shall noe man with me goe,
Nor man with mee ryde,
And Litle Iohn shall be my man,
And beare my benbow by my side.'
6 'You'st beare your bowe, master, your selfe,
And shoote for a peny with mee:'
'To that I doe assent,' Robin Hood sayd,
'And soe, Iohn, lett it bee.'
7 They two bolde children shotten together,
All day theire selfe in ranke,
Vntill they came to blacke water,
And over it laid a planke.
8 Vpon it there kneeled an old woman,
Was banning Robin Hoode;
'Why dost thou bann Robin Hoode?' said Robin,
. . . .
* * * * *
9 . . . .
'To giue to Robin Hoode;
Wee weepen for his deare body,
That this day must be lett bloode.'
10 'The dame prior is my aunts daughter,
And nie vnto my kinne;
I know shee wold me noe harme this day,
For all the world to winne.'
11 Forth then shotten these children two,
And they did neuer lin,
Vntill they came to merry Churchlees,
To merry Churchlee[s] with-in.
12 And when they came to merry Churchlees,
They knoced vpon a pin;
Vpp then rose dame prioresse,
And lett good Robin in.
13 Then Robin gaue to dame prioresse
Twenty pound in gold,
And bad her spend while that wold last,
And shee shold haue more when shee wold.
14 And downe then came dame prioresse,
Downe she came in that ilke,
With a pair off blood-irons in her hands,
Were wrapped all in silke.
15 'Sett a chaffing-dish to the fyer,' said dame prioresse,
'And stripp thou vp thy sleeue:'
I hold him but an vnwise man
That will noe warning leeve.
16 Shee laid the blood-irons to Robin Hoods vaine,
Alacke, the more pitye!
And pearct the vaine, and let out the bloode,
That full red was to see.
17 And first it bled, the thicke, thicke bloode,
And afterwards the thinne,
And well then wist good Robin Hoode
Treason there was within.
18 'What cheere my master?' said Litle Iohn;
'In faith, Iohn, litle goode;'
. . . .
. . . .
* * * * *
19 'I haue upon a gowne of greene,
Is cut short by my knee,
And in my hand a bright browne brand
That will well bite of thee.'
20 But forth then of a shot-windowe
Good Robin Hood he could glide;
Red Roger, with a grounden glaue,
Thrust him through the milke-white side.
21 But Robin was light and nimble of foote,
And thought to abate his pride,
Ffor betwixt his head and his shoulders
He made a wound full wide.
22 Says, Ly there, ly there, Red Roger,
The doggs they must thee eate;
'For I may haue my houzle,' he said,
'For I may both goe and speake.
23 'Now giue me mood,' Robin said to Litle Iohn,
'Giue me mood with thy hand;
I trust to God in heauen soe hye
My houzle will me bestand.'
24 'Now giue me leaue, giue me leaue, master,' he said,
'For Christs loue giue leaue to me,
To set a fier within this hall,
And to burne vp all Churchlee.'
25 'That I reade not,' said Robin Hoode then,
'Litle Iohn, for it may not be;
If I shold doe any widow hurt, at my latter end,
God,' he said, 'wold blame me;
26 'But take me vpon thy backe, Litle Iohn,
And beare me to yonder streete,
And there make me a full fayre graue,
Of grauell and of greete.
27 'And sett my bright sword at my head,
Mine arrowes at my feete,
And lay my vew-bow by my side,
My met-yard wi . .
----------
'Robin Hood's Death and Burial'- Version B a; Child 120 Robin Hood's Death
a. The English Archer, Paisley, printed by John Neilson for George Caldwell, Bookseller, near the Cross, 1786, p. 81, No 24.
b. The English Archer, York, printed by N. Nickson, in Feasegate, n.d., p. 70.
1 When Robin Hood and Little John
Down a down a down a down
Went oer yon bank of broom,
Said Robin Hood bold to Little John,
We have shot for many a pound.
Hey, etc.
2 But I am not able to shoot one shot more,
My broad arrows will not flee;
But I have a cousin lives down below,
Please God, she will bleed me.
3 Now Robin he is to fair Kirkly gone,
As fast as he can win;
But before he came there, as we do hear,
He was taken very ill.
4 And when he came to fair Kirkly-hall,
He knockd all at the ring,
But none was so ready as his cousin herself
For to let bold Robin in.
5 'Will you please to sit down, cousin Robin,' she said,
'And drink some beer with me?'
'No, I will neither eat nor drink,
Till I am blooded by thee.'
6 'Well, I have a room, cousin Robin,' she said,
'Which you did never see,
And if you please to walk therein,
You blooded by me shall be.'
7 She took him by the lily-white hand,
And led him to a private room,
And there she blooded bold Robin Hood,
While one drop of blood would run down.
8 She blooded him in a vein of the arm,
And locked him up in the room;
Then did he bleed all the live-long day,
Until the next day at noon.
9 He then bethought him of a casement there,
Thinking for to get down;
But was so weak he could not leap,
He could not get him down.
10 He then bethought him of his bugle-horn,
Which hung low down to his knee;
He set his horn unto his mouth,
And blew out weak blasts three.
11 Then Little John, when hearing him,
As he sat under a tree,
'I fear my master is now near dead,
He blows so wearily.'
12 Then Little John to fair Kirkly is gone,
As fast as he can dree;
But when he came to Kirkly-hall,
He broke locks two or three:
13 Until he came bold Robin to see,
Then he fell on his knee;
'A boon, a boon,' cries Little John,
'Master, I beg of thee.'
14 'What is that boon,' said Robin Hood,
'Little John, [thou] begs of me?'
'It is to burn fair Kirkly-hall,
And all their nonnery.'
15 'Now nay, now nay,' quoth Robin Hood,
'That boon I'll not grant thee;
I never hurt woman in all my life,
Nor men in woman's company.
16 'I never hurt fair maid in all my time,
Nor at mine end shall it be;
But give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I'll let flee;
And where this arrow is taken up,
There shall my grave digged be.
17 'Lay me a green sod under my head,
And another at my feet;
And lay my bent bow by my side,
Which was my music sweet;
And make my grave of gravel and green,
Which is most right and meet.
18 'Let me have length and breadth enough,
With a green sod under my head;
That they may say, when I am dead
Here lies bold Robin Hood.'
19 These words they readily granted him,
Which did bold Robin please:
And there they buried bold Robin Hood,
Within the fair Kirkleys.
End-Notes
A. 13. church Lees: cf. 113.
23. halfe 100d.
31. there is.
62. nor shoote. 71, 111. [unclear 71, 111, shotten in text]
2. 83, 182, 274. half a page gone.
121. church lees. 132, 204.
201. shop for shot.
203. grounding.
244. church lee.
B. a. Robin Hood's death and burial: shewing how he was taken ill, and how he went to his cousin at Kirkly-hall, in Yorkshire, who let him blood, which was the cause of his death. Tune of Robin Hood's last farewel, etc.
22. fly.
152. burnt for hurt.
194. Kirkly.
The ballad, as Ritson says, "is made to conclude with some foolish lines (adopted from the London copy" of R. H. and the Valiant Knight) in order to introduce the epitaph.
20 Thus he that never feard bow nor spear
Was murderd by letting blood;
And so, loving friends, the story it ends
Of valiant Robin Hood.
21 There 's nothing remains but his epitaph now,
Which, reader, here you have,
To this very day which read you may,
As it is upon his grave.
Hey down a derry derry down
The epitaph, however, does not follow.
b. Title as in a, omitting in Yorkshire and Tune of, etc. Printed in stanzas of two long lines. The burden is wanting.
12. over.
13. bold wanting.
22. broad wanting: flee.
31. he wanting.
32. coud wen.
41. when that.
42. knocked at.
54. I blood letted be.
64. You blood shall letted be.
72. let him into.
74. Whilst: down wanting.
81. in the vein.
82. in a.
83. There.
91. casement door.
92. to be gone.
94. Nor he: him wanting.
104. strong blasts.
112. under the.
113. now wanting.
122. he could.
131. see wanting.
141. quoth for said.
142. thou begs.
15. wanting.
161. neer.
162. at my.
164. my broad arrows.
171,2. To go with 163,4.
With verdant sods most neatly put,
Sweet as the green wood tree.
191. promisd him.
194. Near to: Kirkleys.
201. that feard neither.
203. it wanting.
204. valiant bold.
211. There is.
214. it was upon the.
After 19.
Kirkleys was beautiful of old,
Like Winifrid's of Wales,
By whose fair well strange cures are told
In legendary tales.
Upon his grave was laid a stone,
Declaring that he dy'd,
And tho so many years ago,
Time can't his actions hide.
At the end is the epitaph, wanting in a.
Robin Hood's Epitaph, set on his tomb by the Prioress of Kirkley Monastry, in Yorkshire.
Robert Earl of Huntington
Lies under this little stone.
No archer was like him so good,
His wildness nam'd him Robin Hood.
Full thirteen years and something more
These no[r]thern parts he vexed sore:
Such out-laws as he and his men
May England never know again.
Additions and Corrections
P. 103 a, note *. 'Give me my God' is not perhaps too bold a suggestion. We have /'yeve me my savyour' in the Romance of the Rose, Morris, v. 6436, translating 'le cors nostre seigneur.'
P. 103, note *, V, 240. Communion-bread called God (Lord). "For it was about Easter, at what times maidens gadded abroade, after they had taken their Maker, as they call it." Wilson, Arte of Logike, fol. 84 b. J.M. Manly.
"In oure louerd þat he had ynome wel ioyful he was þo." St. Edmund the Confessor, v. 573, Furnivall, Early English Poems, Philol. Soc., p. 86. "Preostes ... fette to þis holi maide godes flesch and his blod." St. Lucy, v. 168, ib. p. 106. G.L.K.
103, note †. The met-yard, being a necessary part of an archer's equipment for such occasions as p. 29, 148, 158; p. 75, 397; p. 93, 28; p. 201, 18, 21, may well enough be buried with him.
104. Russian. Similar directions as to the grave in Jakuskin, p. 99.