[581] Such phrases occur as ‘the May-play called Robyn Hod’ (Kerry, Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading, 226, s. a. 1502), ‘Robin Hood and May game’ and Kynggam and Robyn Hode’ (Kingston Accounts, 1505-36, in Lysons, Environs of London, i. 225). The accounts of St. Helen’s, Abingdon, in 1566, have an entry ‘for setting up Robin Hood’s bower’ (Brand-Hazlitt, i. 144). It is noticeable that from 1553 Robin Hood succeeds the Abbot of Mayvole in the May-game at Shrewsbury (Appendix E). Similarly, in an Aberdeen order of 1508 we find ‘Robert Huyid and Litile Johne, quhilk was callit, in yers bipast, Abbat and Prior of Bonacord’ (Representations, s. v. Aberdeen). Robin Hood seems, therefore, to have come rather late into the May-games, but to have enjoyed a widening popularity.
[582] The material for the study of the Robin Hood legend is gathered together by S. Lee in D. N. B. s. v. Hood; Child, Popular Ballads, v. 39; Ritson, Robin Hood (1832); J. M. Gutch, Robin Hood (1847). Prof. Child gives a critical edition of all the ballads.
[583] Piers Plowman, B-text, passus v. 401.
[584] Fabian, Chronicle, 687, records in 1502 the capture of ‘a felowe whych hadde renewed many of Robin Hode’s pagentes, which named himselfe Greneleef.’
[585] Cf. p. 177.
[586] Kühn, in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, v. 481.
[587] Ramsay, F. E. i. 168.
[588] In the Nottingham Hall-books (Hist. MSS. i. 105), the same locality seems to be described in 1548 as ‘Robyn Wood’s Well,’ and in 1597 as ‘Robyn Hood’s Well.’ Robin Hood is traditionally clad in green. If he is mythological at all, may he not be a form of the ‘wild-man’ or ‘wood-woz’ of certain spring dramatic ceremonies, and the ‘Green Knight’ of romance? Cf. ch. ix.
[589] The earliest mention of her is (†1500) in A. Barclay, Eclogue, 5, ‘some may fit of Maide Marian or else of Robin Hood.’
[590] Hist. MSS. i. 107, from Convocation Book, ‘pecuniae ecclesiae ac communitatis Welliae ... videlicet, provenientes ante hoc tempus de Robynhode, puellis tripudiantibus, communi cervisia ecclesiae, et huiusmodi.’