US Versions: 102. Willie & Earl Richard's Daughter
[There are no known traditional US versions of this ballad. Aunt Molly Jackson's "version" (below) was based on the Child B text and is included as a US version although it is a receation of the ballad.]
CONTENTS:
Excerpt from Aunt Molly Jackson and Robin Hood: A Study in Folk Re-Creation
Aunt Molly Jackson and Robin Hood: A Study in Folk Re-Creation
by John Greenway
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 69, No. 271 (Jan. - Mar., 1956), pp. 23-38
Though times have fallen hard upon the main line of the Robin Hood legend, they have fallen harder still upon the tradition carried on in Aunt Molly's birth ballads. All collectors who have had dealings with either text of "The Birth of Robin Hood" have denied it a place in the Robin Hood canon. Even the sympathetic Jamieson, from whose collection Child obtained the A text, said, "This ballad does not belong to the recognized cycle of Robin Hood ballads, but it may be appreciated on its own merits."[11]
Unhappily, the B text, the original of Aunt Molly's "The Birth of Robin Hood," is from the labors of the much-maligned Peter Buchan, "Buchan the Untrusted," Child's poisoner of wells, whose integrity was first impugned in 1835 by an anonymous writer who said, "Of Mr. Peter B uchan's work, one-half seems the compilation of his own brain, fertile in tares and sterile of wheat, and m uch of the other half old and modern ballad verse, unworthy of a printer's type." [12] Apparently only Scott and Grundtvig saw any value in Buchan's work until Gavin Greig salvaged what was left of his reputation in his Last Leaves. Certainly Buchan can be relied upon for the longest text and the most industrious and gratuitous editing a mong the early collectors.
It is doubly unfortunate that his text of the birth ballad has no close analogue. The only accessible parallel cited by Greig as corroborator the Danish ballad, "Medelwold and Sidselille," is merely the story of an illegitimate birth in the woods, an incident of no infrequent occurrence in traditional literature. Most damaging of all, perhaps, are the extremely improbable names, Archibald and Clementine. Child, needless to say, rejected this as a genuine Robin Hood ballad, and gave the hapless A rchibald to a more c ongeniaml ate, Earl Richard's daughter, insulating it by fifteen ballads from the gathered R obin Hood material. Possibly Child's s ensibilities were offended by the imputation th at Robin w as illegitimate; at any rate, he contended th at the identification of the baby with Robin Hood came through the ballad personage Robin Brown. But in the C text of "Jellon Grame" (Child 90) the baby is called "Robin" after Robin Hood,[13] and it is the usual legendary practice to have the heroics on of low-born parents fathered by someone other than his mother's husband. Since the genealogy of Robin Hood is far from being settled even at this writing, it does not seem entirely a miss to consider seriously the possibility of his being, as Buchan and Aunt Molly contend, the illegitimate son of the Earl of Huntington's steward.
THE BIRTH OF ROBIN HOOD
(Child 102: Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter)
(3)
1. Robinhood's father was the earl's own steward
He sprang from some small pedigree
His mother was Earl Huntington's daughter
His only child was she, she, she,
His only child was she.
2. He was got in the earl's own house,
And in a lady's tower;
He was born in the lone green woods
At a sad and dreadful hour.[14]
3. When nine months was near at an end,
The eighth month already gone,
Her cheeks was always wet with tears
When she was all alone.
4. "What shall I say, my love, Archibald,
This day for you and me?
A son asleep in a cold graveyard,
And you may be hanged over me."
5. "What aileth you, my love Clementine,
What makes you weep and moan?"
"You know that I am with child by you,
And the ninth month is almost gone."
6. "Will you go to my mother's bower
That stands on that mountain green?
Or will you go to the lone green woods
Where you will not be seen?"
7. "I will not go to your mother's bower
That stands on the mountain green,
But I will go to the lone green woods
Where I will not be seen."
His only child was she.
8. Then he girded his sword by his side
And took his lady by the hand,
And led her to the lone green woods
Where his lady took her stand.
9. So slowly and sadly did this couple walk
Till theyt raveledt wo miles or three;
His lady was in hard labor pains
And she lay down by a tree.
10. "Oh, g ive me a drink of your cherry wine
To cheer my heart again;
Go bring to me a good midwife
To relieve me of my pain."
11. "I'll give you a drink of my cherry wine
To cheer your heart again,
And I will be your good midwife
To ease you of your pain."
12. "Go far away from me, Archibald,
For it will never be
The father of my unborn child
Will be midwife to me.
13. "Go take your small sword by your side,
Your buckler and your bow;
Go hunt around the green hillside
Till you find me a nice fat doe.
14. "And I will give birth to your child for you
While I am all alone;
And when you have killed me a nice young deer
Straight back to me you'll come."
15. He hunted around until he found
A nice young tender deer;
He killed it with his bow and arrow
And brought it back to her.
16. She pressed her feet against the trunk of a tree
And pulled the grass by her side;
She gave birth to her baby boy,
Then she closed her eyes and died.
17. When Archibald come back to his love,
He sadly bowed his head,
For lying there by the green oak tree
His lady love was dead.
18. The sweet young baby his love had borne
Right lively seemed to be;
"Alas, alas," said young Archibald,
"This mournful sight to see."
19. "Although my sweet baby is alive
This does increase my woe;
Just how to nurse a motherless babe
Is more than I do know."
20. Then he looked east and he looked west
To see what he could see;
He spied Earl Huntington and twenty men
Nearby the green oak tree.
21. Then Archibald he fled away
Among the leaves so green,
So he could hear what might be said
And see what might be seen.
22. The Earl come rushing through the woods
Till he come to the green oak tree;
And there he found his daughter dead-
"Oh God! How can this be?"
23. When he saw her living child
So mournfully did he grieve;
Then he picked up his little grandson
And wrapped him in his own shirtsleeve.
24. He held him closely to his heart
And gently carried him home,
Saying, "My daughter died when you was born
And left to me a son.
25. "And if you live until I die
My fortune yours shall be;
And if ever I find your father in life,
I'll hang him to a tree."
26. He buried his daughter in the old churchyard
As quietly as he could;
And he brought her son to the church that day
And christened him Robin Hood.
To anyone familiar with the turgid Buchan texts, it would be supposed that the greatest changes made in this ballad by folk transmission would be verbal, and this is what occurs in Aunt Molly's version. There is little change in structure; Aunt Molly's ballad is 26 stanzas long, Buchan's 28. She deletes stanza one, which is a bit of introductory indirection; 16, which is repetition with little increment; and 28, a typical Buchan appendage. She adds her new stanza 16, a fine description of the birth which owes something to her experience as a midwife; 24, for which less can be said; and combines the meaningful passages of Buchan's twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth stanzas. Rime is similar in 20 stanzas.
Of the verbal changes, the most notable is her emendation of the meaningless "O for a few of yon junipers" of Buchan's eleventh stanza, which disturbed the editor of the Danish analogue, R. C. A. Prior.[15] Aunt Molly changes this to "Oh, give me a drink of your cherry wine," leaving the junipers for those who run about to births with pots of boiling water. It is interesting to see that Aunt Molly misses the symbolism of the white hind in Buchan's text, and instead of Archibald's waiting to see the spirit of his dead leman flit him by, he must wait for the more prosaic appearance of a "nice fat doe." Aunt Molly's brilliant emendation of the useless junipers loses a little in lustre by her failure to appreciate that a woman about to die in child birth is not particularlyin terested in gorging herself on fat venison. Perhapsw e can salvages ome of Aunt Molly's reputation by comparing several of the other emendations she has made in this ballad with Buchan's originals:
BUCHAN AUNT MOLLY
And born into gude greenwood He was born in the lone green woods
Throm ony c auld w inter's hower At a sad a nd dreadful hour
I will be laid in cauldi rons A sona sleepi n a coldg raveyard
As fast as they could gang Where his lady took her stand
Her living child her wi Oh God! How can this be?
"Had far awa frae me, Archibald "Go far away from me, Archibald,
For this will never dee; For it will never be
That's n ae the fashion o our land The father of my unborne hild
And it's nae be used by me!" Will be midwife to me."