1661 - Wood, Anthony - Survey of Antiquities of City of Oxford (1)

Anthony Wood, 1695, by M. Burg / John McCafferty (Twitter).)

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-02-17. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-06-10.

Allusion

At the same towne [i.e. the lost town of 'Seckworth', probably Seacourt, immediately west of Oxford] likewise [...] (give me leave to make a digression) was in the Saxons' times, as the rude vogue here runneth, a house or habitation of a king called Donny; and part of whose fort there also built of stone was thrown downe or sunk in the river running therby; and the like.

All which, you'l say, comming from the mouths of rusticks, may be accounted noe truer then the tales of Robin Hood and Little John. But, however, such constant tradition from each other among them may have somthing in the bottome therof of truth, though much of it lost by [...] the longinquity of time since acted; as indeed this, wee have here laid downe, hath.

Source notes

IRHB's brackets. At the ellipses I have left out a reference to an irrelevant footnote and an editorial indication of change of MS folio.

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

• Wood, Anthony; Clark, Andrew, ed. Survey of the Antiquities of the City of Oxford, composed in 1661-6 (Oxford Historical Society, vols. 15, 17, 37) (Oxford, 1889-99), vol. I, p. 325.

Background

• Wikipedia: Anthony Wood.

Notes