It is not impossible that "Robin o' the Wood" may have been a general name for any such outlaws as these and that Robin Hood, as well as "Roberd the Robbere" may stand for some earlier and forgotten hero of Saxon tradition. It may be remarked that "Robin" is the Norman diminutive of "Robert", and that the latter is the name by which we should have expected to find the doings of a Saxon hero commemorated. It is true that Norman and Saxon soon came to have their feelings and traditions in common; but it is not the less curious to find the old Saxon name still traditionally applied by the people, as it seems to have been from the Vision of Piers Ploughman.
Whether Robin Goodfellow and his German brother "Knecht Ruprecht" are at all connected with Robin Hood, seems very doubtful. The plants which, both in England and in Germany, are thus named, appear to belong to the elf rather than to the outlaw. The wild geranium, called "Herb Robert" in Gerarde's time, is known in Germany as "Ruprecht's Kraut". "Poor Robin", "Ragged Robin", and "Robin in the Hose", probably all commemorate the same "merry wanderer of the night."
RICHARD JOHN KING.
ON A PASSAGE IN "THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR," AND ON CONJECTURAL EMENDATION.
The late Mr. Baron Field, in his Conjectures on some Obscure and Corrupt Passages of Shakspeare, published in the "Shakspeare Society's Papers," vol. ii. p. 47., has the following, note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 2.:—
"'Falstaff. I myself sometimes having the fear of heaven on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, you rogue, will esconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour.'
"Pistol, to whom this was addressed, was an ensign, and therefore rags can hardly bear the ordinary interpretation. A rag is a beggarly fellow, but that will make little better sense here. Associated as the phrase is, I think it must mean rages, and I find the word used for ragings in the compound bard-rags, border-ragings or incursions, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, ii. x. 63., and Colin Clout, v. 315."
Having on one occasion found that a petty larceny committed on the received text of the poet, by taking away a superfluous b, made all clear, perhaps I may be allowed to restore the abstracted letter, which had only been misplaced and read brags, with, I trust, the like success? Be it remembered that Pistol, a braggadocio, is made up of brags and slang; and for that reason I would also read, with Hanmer, bull-baiting, instead of the unmeaning "bold-beating oaths."
I well know with what extreme caution conjectural emendation is to be exercised; but I cannot consent to carry it to the excess, or to preserve a vicious reading, merely because it is warranted by the old copies.