Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood: Difference between revisions

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=== Variants ===
=== Variants ===
Child knew only the variant printed by Dixon, but subsequently the song has often been recorded by folk song collectors in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world.
Child knew only the variant printed by Dixon, but subsequently the song has often been recorded by folk song collectors in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world. For particulars see below under Editions: Primary sources.


=== Editions ===
=== Editions ===

Revision as of 09:34, 27 June 2017

Ballad
Child 132
Title The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood
Versions 1
Variants More than 5
Stanzas 15
Date c. 1775
The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood [and] The Trysting Tree. Such 390 / From Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2014-09-03. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-06-27.

The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood belongs to the large group of mostly late ballads in which the outlaw and/or members of his band accost a stalwart stranger, who usually represents some trade, and engage in a fight with him. In this case the stranger turns out to be a cousin of Robin Hood's named Gamble Gold. As Child notes, this ballad is essentially a traditional version of Robin Hood Newly Revived and therefore, like it, preserves a distant echo of the tale of Gamelyn.

Plot

A pedlar with a pack on his back is accosted by Robin Hood and Little John. The latter asks him what he is carrying. The pedlar says his pack is full of suits of green silk and silken bow-strings. Little John wants half of it. The pedlar says he can have it all if he can make him yield an inch. Little John pulls out his sword, and the two fight. Taunting them, Robin says he could find a smaller man who could thrash them both. Little John in response challenges Robin to try his luck with the pedlar. This he does until the blood flows in streams. Robin wants to know the stranger's name, but he will know the outlaws' names first. After the attackers have introduced themselves, the pedlar tells them he is Gamble Gold who had left England for killing a man. 'Then you are my cousin', says Robin. They sheath their swords and go to a tavern to eat and drink.

Date

According to J.H. Dixon, who first recorded this ballad from oral recitation before 1846, "[t]his ballad is of considerable antiquity, and no doubt much older than some of those inserted in the common garlands".[1] I can see no reason why this should be the case; Dixon does not give any. The elderly lady from whose recitation the ballad was taken down told Dixon she had often heard her grandmother sing it,[1] but this would take us no further back than the second half of the 18th century, and nothing in the ballad itself seems particularly archaic to me. I am inclined to believe that its absence from the garlands is due to its having come into being after their contents had become more or less fixed. Roy Palmer is almost certainly correct in suggesting an 18th century date of origin.[2]

Variants

Child knew only the variant printed by Dixon, but subsequently the song has often been recorded by folk song collectors in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world. For particulars see below under Editions: Primary sources.

Editions

Primary sources

Child 132
CS/Francis
RVW/Denny
Such 390


RVW 21

Scholarly and literary editions

Child 132

Also see under Primary editions above.

Sources and analogues

Stanzas Matter Title Analogue
1-15 Similarity of plot etc. Robin Hood Newly Revived Child notes that Pedlar is a traditional variant of Newly Revived.[3]
11-15 Similarity in dialogue Robin Hood's Delight Child notes similarity of Pedlar sts. 11-12, 15 to Delight sts. 19-20, 24.[4]
13-14 Similarity in dialogue Robin Hood Newly Revived Child notes similarity of. Pedlar sts. 13-14 Newly Revived sts. 17-18.[5]

Also see

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 * Dixon, James Henry, transcr. [MS of the ballad Robin Hood and the Bold Pedlar (C132) as recited by an aged female in Bermondsey, Surrey. Present whereabouts unknown] ([No later than 1846]), p. 71.
  2. ↑ Williams, Ralph Vaughan, coll. & transcr.; Palmer, Roy, ed. Folk Songs (London; Melbourne; Toronto 1983), p. 35.
  3. ↑ Child, Francis James, ed.; [Kittredge, G. L.], ed.; [Ireland, Catharine Innes], bibl. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Boston and New York; Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, ©1882-98), vol. III, pp. 144 n. *, 154.
  4. ↑ Child, Francis James, ed.; [Kittredge, G. L.], ed.; [Ireland, Catharine Innes], bibl. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Boston and New York; Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, ©1882-98), vol. III, p. 154.
  5. ↑ Child, Francis James, ed.; [Kittredge, G. L.], ed.; [Ireland, Catharine Innes], bibl. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Boston and New York; Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, ©1882-98), vol. III, p. 154.


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