Go to Robin Hood and Maid Marian: Introduction

ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A DALE: NOTES

1 The "Come all ye" opening is only found in a few "commercial" Robin Hood ballads (Robin Hood and Will Scarlet, Robin Hood and the Bishop and, in restrained form, Parker's A True Tale). A more usual opening would be line 5; presumably this opening has been introduced in the process of production as a broadside.

9 Scarlet seems a suitable color for a lover, but there are early references to the outlaws wearing scarlet. Green as a color may itself be part of an early "green wood" consciousness. In the later development of the tradition, Allin a Dale and Will Scarlet often become confused, partly because they play the role of ingenu, perhaps also because of this shared color.

13 It is unusual to have this double opening; Robin usually stands still, sees something, and goes into action. This ballad seems structurally composite from the beginning.

22 Nick is presumably based on a misreading of Much, perhaps in a form closer to OE mycel (see Midge in Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar, line 18. Dobson and Taylor emend to Midge [p. 173]). See also Munday's The Downfall, line 523, where Warman's wife calls Much Nich.

27 The ballad begins as if Allin is a stranger, about to be robbed by the outlaw. But his honesty takes the outlaws off on another narrative track, and the sequence resembles the opening of the episode with Sir Richard in Fitt 1 of the Gest.

44 There are no other references to this character in the ballads. In the post-Ritson development of the myth, Allin is usually a minor figure, perhaps reaching his zenith as Alan A. Dale, played by Bing Crosby in Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964).

50 Like the knight in the Gest, Allin offers fidelity rather than money, and Robin accepts this as a basis for helping him.

63 Disguise as a harper is one of the most familiar versions of this motif; the reference to the north countrey (line 64) does not necessarily set this story in the north: harpers would be expected to come from the less urbanized parts of Britain.

83 The motif of the young hero who joins a band and at once becomes a leading figure because of his quality is common in folklore; another instance is in Gamelyn.

91 The bishop refers to the requirement to announce a forthcoming marriage three times -- "calling the banns" -- usually over a three-week period. John burlesques the tradition by asking the congregation seven times on the wedding day, a tricksterish feature.

96 The comment is both ironical and quite searching: in earlier culture clothes did in some sense establish the powers of the person. Hence the many "sumptuary" laws which regulated the clothing to be worn by specific grades of people. In this instance, a man of the cloth (the bishop) loses his cloth (clothes).

107-08 As with so many of these ballads, the final sequence is a festival in the forest, linking in some way with the nature rituals of the Robin Hood play-game.