Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood
Ballad | |
---|---|
Child | 132 |
Title | The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood |
Versions | 1 |
Variants | More than 5 |
Stanzas | 15 |
Date | c. 1775 |
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
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
Editions
Primary editions
Child 132
RVW 21
- Williams, Ralph Vaughan, coll. & transcr.; Palmer, Roy, ed. Folk Songs (London; Melbourne; Toronto 1983), pp. 35-37.
Scholarly editions
Also see under Primary editions above.
- 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. 154-55. Additions and corrections: vol. V, p. 240.
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
- ↑ 1.0 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.
- ↑ Williams, Ralph Vaughan, coll. & transcr.; Palmer, Roy, ed. Folk Songs (London; Melbourne; Toronto 1983), p. 35.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.