Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight
Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight is an 18th century ballad of the death of Robin Hood. The song, written in Modern English, was included in the popular "garlands" (collections) of Robin Hood stories and songs published in the 18th and early 19th centuries, generally at the end as a suitable close to the garland. It was later published by Francis James Child as Child ballad #153 in his influential collection of popular ballads.[1][2]
The ballad is influenced by the story Robin Hood's Death, which was generally the older and more popular of the versions. Still, Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight was used either on its own in the late 18th century, or as the penultimate story set up to precede Robin Hood's Death in the early 19th century.[2]
Synopsis
'They'd have me surrender,' quoth Robin Hood,
'And lie at their mercy then;
But tell them from me, that never shall be,
While I have full seven score men.'
Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight, Stanza 13[2]
The king and nobles meet to consider what to do about Robin Hood. They send Sir William with a hundred bowmen into the greenwood. Sir William presents Robin with a letter from the king ordering Robin to surrender. When Robin refuses, Sir William attempts to seize him on the spot. Both Sir William and Robin summon their men. Sir William is killed in the first wave of arrows, but the battle continues "from morning til almost noon." After the battle, Robin takes ill. The monk summoned to let his blood (a common medical procedure at the time) "took his life away," and Robin dies. His men all flee the country. The song concludes with an epitaph on Robin's grave honouring him as "no archer like him was so good."[2]
Analysis
The full title in the earliest collections is "Robin Hood and the valiant Knight; together with an Account of his Death and Burial, etc." with a notation that it is to be sung to the "Tune of Robin Hood and the fifteen Foresters." No seventeenth-century copies of the work survive if it even existed then, and it only seems to have begun regularly appearing in garlands around 1750.[2]
Like many other Robin Hood ballads, the work adopts a rhyme scheme of ABCB that rhymes the second and fourth line of each stanza, also known as a ballad stanza. It also generally includes a middle rhyme in the third line of each stanza (C), such as stanza 2 having "For to quell their pride, or else, they reply'd."[2]
Sir William is a figure only seen in this story and not in the wider literature, although he might be the inspiration for Sir William Dale in Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. There is another Merry Man called William Locksley mentioned briefly, which seems to be a liberty taken with the last name "Locksley" sometimes given to Robin himself. The total number of Merry Men is given at seven score (140), the usual size of Robin's company in the ballads.[2]
Bleeding was also the means of his death in the earlier Robin Hood's Death, but that version had it done by an abbess who was his cousin, rather than a monk. The Valiant Knight version is somewhat vague on whether the monk killed Robin via treachery or mere incompetence, saying only that the monk was responsible and that Robin "was murder'd." This version also omits Robin's reconciliation with the king.
The version is criticized on its literary merits by some scholars of Robin Hood. Child wrote that the piece "surpasses in platitude everything that has gone before" and disliked how authority won out in the end.[1] R. B. Dobson and John Taylor considered Valiant Knight one of the very latest "traditional" ballads to be composed and was likely created as a way to bring printed garlands to a satisfactory close. They criticized the work for the casual liberties taken with the source material and wrote it "has strong claims to be regarded as the least distinguished Robin Hood ballad ever composed."[2]
Adaptations
Howard Pyle used this ballad's account of a battle between a knight named Sir William and the King's forces against the Merry Men as part of the epilogue of the popular 1883 novel The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, with it immediately preceding the older story of the abbess from Robin Hood's Death for his depiction of the death of Robin.[3]
References
- ^ a b Child, Francis, ed. (1888). The English and Scottish popular ballads. Vol. 3. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. pp. 225–226.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Dobson, R. B.; Taylor, John (1997) [1976]. Rymes of Robin Hood. Sutton. pp. 183–186. ISBN 0-7509-1661-3.
- ^ Pyle, Howard (1883). "Epilogue" . The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood – via Wikisource.
External links
- Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight
- The full text of Child's Ballads/153 at Wikisource, Child's version
- v
- t
- e
- Sir Aldingar
- Alison and Willie
- Allison Gross
- Andrew Lammie
- Archie o Cawfield
- Kinmont Willie
- Auld Matrons
- Babylon
- The Baffled Knight
- The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington
- Barbara Allen
- The Battle of Otterburn
- The Beggar-Laddie
- Adam Bell
- The Bent Sae Brown
- Bessy Bell and Mary Gray
- Blancheflour and Jollyflorice
- The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood
- Bonnie Annie
- The Bonnie Earl O' Moray
- Bonnie George Campbell
- Bonny Baby Livingston
- Bonny Bee Hom
- The Bonny Birdy
- The Bonny Hind
- The Bonnie House of Airlie
- The Bonny Lass of Anglesey
- Bonny Lizie Baillie
- The Boy and the Mantle
- Broom of the Cowdenknowes
- The Broomfield Hill
- Broughty Wa's
- Brown Adam
- The Brown Girl
- Brown Robin
- Brown Robyn's Confession
- Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane
- Burd Isabel and Earl Patrick
- Captain Ward and the Rainbow
- Captain Wedderburn's Courtship
- The Carnal and the Crane
- The Cherry-Tree Carol
- The Ballad of Chevy Chase
- Child Maurice
- Child Owlet
- Child Waters
- Christopher White
- Clerk Colvill
- Clerk Saunders
- The Clerk's Twa Sons o Owsenford
- The Crafty Farmer
- Crow and Pie
- The Cruel Brother
- The Cruel Mother
- The Daemon Lover
- The Death of Parcy Reed
- The Death of Queen Jane
- Dick o the Cow
- Dives and Lazarus
- The Dowie Dens o Yarrow
- Dugall Quin
- The Duke of Athole's Nurse
- The Duke of Gordon's Daughter
- Earl Brand
- Earl Crawford
- The Earl of Errol
- The Earl of Mar's Daughter
- Earl Rothes
- Edom o Gordon
- Edward
- The Elfin Knight
- Eppie Morrie
- Erlinton
- Fair Annie
- The Fair Flower of Northumberland
- Fair Janet
- Fair Margaret and Sweet William
- Fair Mary of Wallington
- The False Lover Won Back
- The Famous Flower of Serving-Men
- The Farmer's Curst Wife
- Fause Foodrage
- The Fause Knight Upon the Road
- The Friar in the Well
- The Gardener
- The Gay Goshawk
- Geordie
- The George Aloe and the Sweepstake
- A Gest of Robyn Hode
- Get Up and Bar the Door
- Gil Brenton
- Glasgerion
- Glasgow Peggie
- Glenlogie
- The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry
- The Grey Cock
- Gude Wallace
- The Raggle Taggle Gypsy
- Battle of Harlaw
- The Heir of Linne
- Hind Etin
- Hind Horn
- Hobie Noble
- Hughie Graham
- James Hatley
- Jamie Douglas
- Jellon Grame
- Jock o' the Side
- Jock the Leg and the Merry Merchant
- John Dory
- John of Hazelgreen
- Johnie Cock
- Johnie Scot
- Johnnie Armstrong
- The Jolly Beggar
- The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
- Judas
- Katharine Jaffray
- The Keach i the Creel
- Kemp Owyne
- Kempy Kay
- King Arthur and King Cornwall
- King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth
- King Estmere
- King Henry
- King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France
- King John and the Bishop
- The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood
- The King's Dochter Lady Jean
- Lang Johnny More
- The Kitchie-Boy
- The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter
- The Knight's Ghost
- The Knoxville Girl
- The Lads of Wamphray
- Lady Alice
- Lady Diamond
- Lady Elspat
- Lady Isabel
- Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
- Lady Maisry
- The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea
- The Laird o Drum
- The Laird o Logie
- Lamkin
- The Lass of Roch Royal
- Leesome Brand
- Sir Lionel
- Little John a Begging
- Lizie Lindsay
- Lizie Wan
- The Lochmaben Harper
- Lord Ingram and Chiel Wyet
- Lord Lovel
- Lord Maxwell's Last Goodnight
- The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward
- Lord Randall
- Lord Saltoun and Auchanachie
- Lord Thomas and Fair Annet
- Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret
- Lord Thomas Stuart
- Lord William
- The Maid and the Palmer
- The Maid Freed from the Gallows
- The Marriage of Sir Gawain
- Mary Hamilton
- Matty Groves
- The Mermaid
- The Mother's Malison
- The New-Slain Knight
- The Noble Fisherman
- Northumberland Betrayed By Douglas
- Old Robin of Portingale
- Sir Orfeo
- Prince Heathen
- Prince Robert
- Proud Lady Margaret
- Queen Elanor's Confession
- The Queen of Elfan's Nourice
- The Queen of Scotland
- The Rantin Laddie
- Redesdale and Wise William
- Richie Story
- Riddles Wisely Expounded
- Robin Hood and Allan-a-Dale
- Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
- Robin Hood and Little John
- Robin Hood and Maid Marian
- Robin Hood and Queen Katherine
- Robin Hood and the Beggar
- Robin Hood and the Bishop
- Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
- Robin Hood and the Butcher
- Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar
- Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow
- Robin Hood and the Monk
- Robin Hood and the Pedlars
- Robin Hood and the Potter
- Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon
- Robin Hood and the Ranger
- Robin Hood and the Scotchman
- Robin Hood and the Shepherd
- Robin Hood and the Tanner
- Robin Hood and the Tinker
- Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight
- Robin Hood Newly Revived
- Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires
- Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly
- Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage
- Robin Hood's Chase
- Robin Hood's Death
- Robin Hood's Delight
- Robin Hood's Golden Prize
- Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
- Robyn and Gandeleyn
- The Rose of England
- Rose the Red and White Lily
- Saint Stephen and Herod
- Sheath and Knife
- Sir Cawline
- Sir James the Rose
- Sir Patrick Spens
- The Suffolk Miracle
- The Sweet Trinity
- Sweet William's Ghost
- Tam Lin
- Thomas o Yonderdale
- Thomas the Rhymer
- The Three Ravens
- Tom Potts
- A True Tale of Robin Hood
- The Twa Brothers
- The Twa Magicians
- The Twa Sisters
- The Unquiet Grave
- Walter Lesly
- The Wee Wee Man
- The West Country Damosel's Complaint
- The White Fisher
- The Whummil Bore
- The Wife of Usher's Well
- The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin
- Will Stewart and John
- Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter
- Willie and Lady Maisry
- Willie o Douglas Dale
- Willie o Winsbury
- Willie's Fatal Visit
- Willie's Lady
- Willie's Lyke-Wake
- The Wylie Wife of the Hie Toun Hie
- Young Andrew
- Young Beichan
- Young Benjie
- The Young Earl of Essex's Victory over the Emperor of Germany
- Young Hunting
- Young Johnstone
- Young Peggy
- Young Ronald
- Young Waters