In the case of Bush v. Leake, B. R. Trin. 23 G. 3, Buller, justice, cited the case of Coulthurst v. Coulthurst, C. B. Pasch. 12 G. 3 (an action on bond), and observed, “There a case in Yelverton was alluded to, where the court said, you might as well say, by way of inducement to a traverse, Robin Hood in Barnwood stood.”
It is almost unnecessary to observe, because it will be shortly proved, that Barnwood, in the preceding quotations, ought to be Barnsdale.[65] With respect to Whood, the reader {lxxix} will see, under Note [19], a remarkable proof of the antiquity of that pronunciation, which actually prevails in the metropolis at this day. See also the word “whodes” in Note [34]. So, likewise, Bale, in his Actes of English Votaries, 1560, says, “the monkes had their cowles, caprones or whodes;” and in Stow’s Survey, 1598, p. 120, have “a fooles whoode.”
This celebrated and important line occurs as the first of a foolish mock-song, inserted in an old mortality, intitled “A new interlude and a mery of the nature of the iiii elementes,” supposed to have been printed by John Rastall about 1520; where it is thus introduced:
“Hu[manyte].
let us some lusty balet syng.
Yng[norance]. Nay, syr, by the hevyn kyng:
For me thynkyth it servyth for no thyng,
All suche pevysh prykeryd song.
Hu. Pes, man, pryk-song may not be dyspysyd,
For therwith God is well plesyd.
Yng. Is God well pleasyd, trowest thou, therby?
Nay, nay, for there is no reason why.
For is it not as good to say playnly
Gyf me a spade,
As gyf me a spa ve va ve va ve vade?
But yf thou wylt have a song that is good,
I have one of Robyn Hode,
The best that ever was made. {lxxx}
Hu. Then a feleshyp, let us here it.
Yng. But there is a bordon, thou must here it,
Or ellys it wyll not be.
Hu. Than begyn, and care not for . . .
Downe downe downe, &c.
Yng. Robyn Hode in Barnysdale stode,
And lent hym tyl a mapyll thystyll;
Than cam our lady & swete saynt Andrewe;
Slepyst thou, wakyst thou, Geffrey Coke?[66]
A c. wynter the water was depe,
I can not tell you how brode;
He toke a gose nek in his hande,
And over the water he went.
He start up to a thystell top,
And cut hym downe a holyn clobbe;
He stroke the wren betwene the hornys,
That fyre sprange out of the pygges tayle.
Jak boy is thy bow i-broke,
Or hath any man done the wryguldy wrange?
He plukkyd muskyllys out of a wyllowe,
And put them in to his sachell.
Wylkyn was an archer good,
And well coude handell a spade;
He toke his bend bowe in his hand,
And set him downe by the fyre.
He toke with hym lx. bowes and ten,
A pese of befe, another of baken.
Of all the byrdes in mery Englond,
So merely pypys the mery bottel.”
“The lives, stories, and giftes of men which are contained in the bible, they [the papists] read as thinges no more pertaining unto them than a tale of Robin Hood” (Tyndale, Prologue to the prophecy of Jonas, about 1531).
Gwalter Lynne, printer, in his dedication to Ann, Duchess of Somerset, of “The true beliefe in Christ and his sacramentes,” 1550, says, “I woulde wyshe tharfore that al men, {lxxxi} women, and chyldren, would read it. Not as they haue bene here tofore accustomed to reade the fained storyes of Robin-hode, Clem of the Cloughe, wyth such lyke to passe the tyme wythal,” &c.
In 1562, John Alde had license to print “a ballad of Robyn god,” a mistake, it is probable, for Robyn Hod.
Alexander Hume, minister of Logie, about 1599, says in one of his “Hymnes or Sacred Songs,” printed in that year, that
Who loath to taste of intellectual food,
Yet surfeit on old tales of Robin Hood.”
Complaint of Scotland, Edin. 1801, Dissertation, p. 221.