Go to Robyn Hod and the Shryff of Notyngham: Introduction

ADAM BELL, CLIM OF THE CLOUGH, AND WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLEY: NOTES

Abbreviations: A = John Byddell (c. 1536); B = Wynkyn de Worde (c. 1510); C = Copeland (c. 1550).

7 the. Child emends to thre as the outlaws are consistently mentioned as a threesome, but while this makes sense it does not seem necessary.

16 Englysshe wood. Child prints the name without a gap, presumably on the model of Inglewood, the usual name for this forest. It is mentioned in the first quasi-historical reference to Robin Hood and Little John, that is, in the chronicle by Andrew of Wyntoun written in the 1420s; it is also a forest of adventure in The Awntyrs of Arthur, a fifteenth-century alliterative poem. However, little is made of the forest as a location in this ballad.

50 The source reads "In woulde," and while a construction could begin this way, it is more likely that "In" is an error for "I," as Child emends.

74 saye. Child emends to sayne for the sake of the rhyme, which seems unnecessary.

80 Child inserts as (not in any of the sources) after fast, but this is an acceptable Middle English condensed idiom and the emendation is not necessary.

84 Child inserts they (not in any of the sources) before hyed, presumably on metrical grounds, but this is not necessary.

95 hys. A: hy.

99 commeth. Not cometh, as Child has it.

132 bow. A: bo.

133 spercles is an unusual version of "sparks," here apparently meaning "embers."

174 there. Child emends to fayre and Dobson and Taylor (1976, p. 264) add fayre to there. There seems no ground for either of these versions.

191 reste. A: reate. Child spells it as reaste as if the s has dropped out, rather than being misread by A, which is more likely.

204 Child leaves a gap here, but does not insert a fitt marker. He does the same at each later fitt break.

211 At this point Child begins to use the source he calls B, a fragmentary print which does appear to have some good readings, but is not here always accepted, as C seems in several instances better.

227 Child's source B provides two before messengers, but C seems to have the sharper line and is accepted here.

228 come ryght. This is the C reading, where the B fragment has comen streyght which, like two in the previous line, seems the sort of expansion and banalization that comes with a later text.

241 Child prints got from B after have; this (as in line 228) seems a weaker reading and is here not accepted.

249 Child follows B in reading Now we are in (though Now is from C, as B here is cropped). However, the C reading Now are we in is better Middle English, inverting subject and verb after an initial conjunction or adverbial. Therefore C is accepted.

250 Child prints Therof, but in fact C, from which he draws the initial letter (B is still cropped), has Wherof.

268 lyeth is Child's reading, which is accepted; it is presumably an emendation of C which reads lyveth (B lacks lines 268-70), an inappropriate term for being in captivity compared with the familiar collocation with lie: see line 277, where William lay in a cart.

270 This action is a preparation for shooting seriously; if the bow strings are twisted, not running straight between the two ends of the bow, the arrow may veer off course.

275 swerers. B's reading is clearly much better than C and the rest with the meaningless squyeres: the swerers, or jurors, formed the jury.

285 Clowdyslé, not as Child has it Clowdeslye.

293 This is a five-line stanza, presumably because the author added a rhyming line, thinking market place ended the second, not third line. This casts some light on the irregularities found elsewhere, when it does not always seem that a line is missing when a stanza is deficient.

301-30 Child is again using B and providing the opening words from C as the B leaf is cropped in these lines.

346 an oute-horne. Skeat suggested this should be emended to a noute-horne, that is, a horn which was sounded at need (noute). Child accepted this, but it is clear (as Dobson and Taylor note, 1976, p. 267) that an "out horn" was sounded to bring every body out in the streets, and the text can stand.

347 A peal of bells is rung "backward," that is, out of their usual order, for an alarm.

353 For theyr lyves stode in doubt. The more elaborate C version For of theyr lyves they stode in great doubt appears derived from B, and the C editor or compositor has personalized the idiom "to stand in doubt." Therefore, Child's B reading is accepted here.

360 yll, from B, seems a better reading than C's evyll: yll implies an injury, but evyll is less well focussed.

394 The B fragment here lacks the word wepe at the end of the line, but although this is an elaboration, the line seems so much weaker without it, that it is accepted.

402 Child feels there is a line missing, and employs one found in a later print. This is accepted here, though it is curious that, as in a number of other cases where the regular four-line-stanza pattern seems disrupted, the rhyme scheme is related to a line in the previous stanza. Could this in fact be an irregular seven-line stanza? While this is conceivable, it seems simpler to print, following Child, the extra line.

406 The B fragment only has chyldre but although this, a version of childer, is an acceptable plural for child, the text is cropped hereabouts: the final n, found in C, has probably been lost, and is printed here. However, B is unlikely to have had room for thre before clipping, and this is omitted as a C filler.

452 At this point Child adopts the A fragment as a basis of his text, and this is followed here; it is distinctly earlier than Copland's C text and has some good readings.

455 Child finds chyde invisible and adds it from a later text, but it is in fact just readable.

480 deed. Child emends the spelling to dead, but deed is perfectly acceptable as a spelling.

512 A reads toures and towne and while this might seem a sensible reading, the king does shortly refer to townes being on offer (line 519), so Child's plural emendation seems sensible.

525 C reads they comfort not comfort they as Child has it.

527 For the cultural significance of hand washing before a meal, see the note to line 164 of Robin Hood and the Potter. See also lines 125 and 921 in the Gest.

536 fare. Child emends to fareth, but in fact the subject is plural, being both justice and, in the next line, sherife.

546 than. MS: an. Emended by Child to than, as is found in later texts and seems essential.

576 With the C text Child reads buske but this would make a very dramatic historic present, not supported by anything else in context, and it seems the later texts are right to use a past tense busked.

594 This describes the hardest test of shooting; elsewhere (see Gest, lines 1165-66, 1600-01) archers aimed simply at peeled wands set in the ground. Sometimes the wands carried circular targets, like wreaths, but even then to split the wands was the greatest skill.

602 a bearyng arow, as Dobson and Taylor note (1976, p. 271), is the opposite of a "broad arrow," and is designed for distance rather than causing damage; it is also called a "flight arrow." When William uses a "broad" or heavy arrow to split the apple (line 614) the range of 120 paces makes the feat all the more remarkable.

637 lange. Child emends to longe for rhyme, but this is unnecessary in the context of the relaxed practices of ballad rhyming.

642 The A fragment is used by Child as the basis of his text until the end of the text, see note to line 452.

673 The A text alone says To Rome streyght wyll we wende, and Dobson and Taylor suggest that the fact that it is torn after this point is a result of this Catholic statement (1976, p. 273). However, if sectarian feeling had interfered with the text, it would be probable that the Catholic statement would be destroyed, and casual damage is a more likely reason for the missing lines. Sectarianism is, however, evident in the fact that all the post-reformation texts read To some bishop we will wende.