Perplexed and vexed, and troubled in mind,
Shee drest her self like a page,
And ranged the wood to find Robin Hood,
The bravest of men in that age.
With quiver and bow, sword, buckler, and all,
Thus armed was Marian most bold,
Still wandering about to find Robin out,
Whose person was better then gold.
But Robin Hood, hee himself had disguisd,
And Marian was strangly attir’d,
That they provd foes, and so fell to blowes,
Whose vallour bold Robin admir’d.
They drew out their swords, and to cutting they went,
At least an hour or more,
That the blood ran apace from bold Robins face,
And Marian was wounded sore.
‘O hold thy hand, hold thy hand,’ said Robin Hood,
‘And thou shalt be one of my string,
To range in the wood with bold Robin Hood,
To hear the sweet nightingall sing.’
When Marian did hear the voice of her love,
Her self shee did quickly discover,
And with kisses sweet she did him greet,
Like to a most loyall lover.
In these lovely verses from “Robin Hood and Maid Marian” (Child Ballad No. 150), the standard method of recruitment to the Merry Men (meet Robin in the woods and fight him until he’s impressed and says “hey, you’re pretty good at fighting, care to join me?” — several ballads follow that pattern) is applied to Maid Marion, currently disguised as a boy, and fully armed.
The illustration is from a 1795 collection of Robin Hood ballads, edited by Joseph Ritton. There the ballad is credited to “an old black letter copy in the collection of Anthony à Wood”, and its full title is “A famous battle between Robin Hood and Maid Marian ; declaring their love, life, and liberty.” Anthony Wood (1632-1695) was an antiquarian who bequeathed his considerable library to Oxford, so the ballad is probably 17th century. Not earlier though, because Robin Hood here is the Earl of Huntington, and that name first appeared in a play around 1600.
If you want to sing it (follow the link and take the lyrics from the start, you gotta know where the with a hey down, down, a down, down goes), it’s to the tune of Robin Hood and the Tanner.
Child didn’t like it, he calls it a “foolish ditty”. Ritton didn’t like it either, he says it was perhaps “not worth inserting” in his collection. Fortunately for us, he did insert it, and it’s fucking awesome.
In sollid content together they livd,
With all their yeomen gay;
They livd by their hands, without any lands,
And so they did many a day.
They lived by their hands without any lands! The noble couple! And they have a merry banquet in the woods eating (the king’s) venison. That’s some subtly radical shit, if you ask me, in the century of the English Civil War, of the Diggers and the Levellers.
[originally posted on tumblr]
Roguish 