abuse is, that you (because you will loose no tyme) doe use commonly to runne into woodes in the night time, amongst maidens, to fet bowes, in so muche as I have hearde of tenne maidens which went to fet May, and nine of them came home with childe."[162:A]
That, in consequence of this custom, effeminate and coxcomical men were sarcastically compared to Maid Marian, appears from a passage in a pamphlet by Barnaby Rich, who, satirising the male attire, as worn by the fops of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., cries out,—"From whence commeth this wearing, and this embroidering of long locks, this curiosity that is used amongst men, in frizeling and curling of their haire, this gentlewoman-like starcht bands, so be-edged and be-laced, fitter for Maid Marian in a Moris dance, than for him that hath either that spirit or courage that shold be in a gentleman."[162:B]
It will not seem surprising that the converse of this was occasionally applicable to the female sex; and that those women who adopted masculine airs and habits should be branded with a similarity to the clown who, though personating the lady of the May, never failed, however nice or affected he might be, to disclose by the boldness and awkwardness of his gesture and manner, both his rank and sex. Thus Falstaff is represented as telling the hostess, when he means to upbraid her for her masculine appearance and conduct, that "for woman hood Maid Marian may be the Deputy's wife of the ward to thee."[162:C] A fancy coronet of gilt metal, or interwoven with flowers, and a watchet coloured tunic, a kirtle or petticoat of green, as the livery of Robin Hood, were customary articles of decoration in the dress of the May-Queen.
Friar Tuck, the next of the four characters which we have mentioned as introduced into the May-games, was the chaplain of Robin
Hood, and is noticed by Shakspeare, who makes one of the outlaws, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, swear
"By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar."[163:A]
He is represented in the engraving of Mr. Tollet's window as a Franciscan friar in the full clerical tonsure; for, as Mr. T. observes in giving an account of his window, "when the parish priests were inhibited by the diocesan to assist in the May games, the Franciscans might give attendance, as being exempted from episcopal jurisdiction;" he adds that "most of Shakspeare's friars are Franciscans," and that in Sir David Dalrymple's extracts from the book of the Universal Kirk, in the year 1576, he is styled "chaplain to Robin Huid, king of May."[163:B]
The last of this groupe was the boon companion of Robin, the "brave Little John," as he is termed in one of the ballads on this popular outlaw, and who "is first mentioned," remarks Mr. Douce, "together with Robin Hood, by Fordun the Scotish historian, who wrote in the fourteenth century, and who speaks of the celebration of the story of these persons in the theatrical performances of his time, and of the minstrel's songs relating to them, which he says the common people preferred to all other romances."[163:C]
With these four personages therefore, who were deemed so inseparable, that a character in Peele's Edward I. says, "We will live and die together, like Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tucke, and Maide Marian[163:D]," the performers in the simple English Morris, the fool, Tom the Piper, and the Morris Dancers, peculiarly so called from their
dress and function, were, for a time, generally connected. Tom the Piper is thus mentioned by Drayton: