1832 - Scott, Walter - Inscription for Robin Hood's Well

Allusion
Date	1808-1832
Author	Scott, Walter?
Title	Inscription for Robin Hood's Well
Mentions	Robin Hood's Well (Fountains Abbey or Fountains Earth); bow; quiver

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-07-23. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-07.

Allusion

Beside this crystal font of old
Cooled his flushed brow an outlaw bold
His bow was slackened while he drank,
His quiver rested on the bank,
Giving brief pause of doubt and fear
To feudal lords and forest deer.
Long since the date — but village sires
Still sing his feats by Christmas fires,
And still old England's free-born mood
Stirs at the name of Robin Hood.^[1]

IRHB comments

According to W.C. Lefroy, who cites John Richard Walbran as his source, Walter Scott wrote these lines as an inscription for an arch which was to be built over Robin Hood's Well in the Fountains Abbey grounds. During a visit he was so fascinated with the story of Robin Hood's fight with, and subsequent ducking in the Skell by, the Curtal Friar within the abbey grounds close to the well that he suggested to Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence, the owner of the abbey grounds and ruins, that a cover or house be built over the well. This was done, but apparently without the inscription. Walbran (1817-69), among whose papers this story and the lines attributed to Scott are found, was a leading 19th century authority on Fountains Abbey, and the story may be true, but it is not mentioned in any of Scott's letters or by his chief biographer. Grainge^[2] cited the verse in 1863 in the context of a discussion of Robin Hood's Well in Fountains Earth in Nidderdale without any mention of the Fountains Abbey locality and without attributing the lines to Walter Scott (or anybody else for that matter). Since Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence (1760-1845) inherited Fountains Abbey in 1808 and Walter Scott died in 1832, the visit to the abbey, if it happened, must have taken place in the period 1808-32. See further Robin Hood's Well (Fountains Abbey).

Variant readings

Line	Lefroy	Grainge	Lefroy	Grainge	Lefroy	Grainge	Lefroy	Grainge
1	font	fount	old	old,
2	Cooled	Cool'd	flushed	flush'd	an	— an	bold	bold;
5	fear	fear,
6	deer.	deer: —
7	date —	date,	sires	sires,
8	fires,	fires;
9	free-born	free born,	mood	mood,

Lists

Not included in Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), pp. 314-19.
Outside scope of Sussex, Lucy, compil. 'References to Robin Hood up to 1600', in: Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 262-88.

Sources

Notes

Also see

Allusions links1801-1900texts

[1] Lefroy, William Chambers. The Ruined Abbeys of Yorkshire (London, 1891), pp. 121-22.

[2] Grainge, William. Nidderdale; or, An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive Sketch of the Valley of the Nidd, including Pateley Bridge, Bishopside, Dacre Banks, Hartwith, Brimham Rocks, Stonebeck Down, Ramsgill, Stonebeck up, Middlesmoor, Fountains Earth, Greenhow Hill, and the Stump Cross Caverns (Pateley Bridge and London, 1863), p. 185.

[1]

[2]