1897 - Collyer, Robert - Untitled poem

Allusion
Date	c. 1897?
Author	Collyer, Robert
Title	Untitled poem
Mentions	Robin Hood

Robert Collyer (1903) / Public Domain, via Wikipedia.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2020-06-22. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-17.

Allusion

To the merry green-wood went bold Robin Hood,
With his strong-hearted yeomanry ripe for the fray,
Driving the arrow into the marrow
Of all the proud Normans who came in his way:
Scorning the fetter, fearless and free.
Winning by valour, or foiling by wit.
Dear to our Saxon folk ever is he.
That jolly old rogue with the Saxon grit.^[1]

Source notes

Untitled poem in five eight-line stanzas rhyming ababcdcd, printed as a motto to a section on 'The Norman Period' in J. Horsfall Turner's Ancient Bingley (1897). The following footnote occurs in lieu of a source reference:

The author, Rev. Robert Collyer, D.D., New York, was born at Keighley, and fetched his first wife from Bingley. In Bingley Church Register, we have, "1847, May 25, Robert Collyer, of full age, batchelor, blacksmith, Ilkley, son of Samuel Collyer, blacksmith, to Harriet Watson, of full age, spinster, straw-bonnet maker, Bingley, daughter of Elisha Watson: married by J. Cheadle, vicar, in presence of Thomas Stephenson and John Walker."^[2]

IRHB comments

Born in Keighley, Yorkshire, Collyer was raised at Blubberhouses and Ilkley. He became a methodist minister in 1849, The following year he emigrated to the USA, where he continued as a Methodist preacher. However, as his adherence to abolitionism made him unpopular with Methodist leaders he switched to Unitarianism. Those of his writings published in book form do not seem to include poetry, and it is possible his poem on Saxon resistance was first published in, and perhaps written for, Horsfall's book. The two had collaborated on a book on Ilkley local history published in 1885.^[3]

Lists

Not included in Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), pp. 315-19.
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

Turner, J. Horsfall. Ancient Bingley: or, Bingley, its History and Scenery (Bingley, 1897), p. 54.

Background

Notes

Allusions links1801-1900texts

[source-1] Turner, J. Horsfall. Ancient Bingley: or, Bingley, its History and Scenery (Bingley, 1897), p. 54.

[2] Turner, J. Horsfall. Ancient Bingley: or, Bingley, its History and Scenery (Bingley, 1897), p. 54 and n. *.

[3] Collyer, Robert; Turner, J. Horsfall. Ilkley: Ancient & Modern (Otley; Leeds; Idel, Bradford, 1885).

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