1841 - Daniel, George - Merrie England in the Olden Time
By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-07-28. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-07-28.
Allusion
The several rehearsals being over, and all things put in order for their approaching campaign, the exhibitors were about to depart, when it occurred to Uncle timothy that he had not paid his footing for being admitted behind the scenes. He addressed the real wild Indian, and begged her to call for what best pleased her palate; which call resolved itself into a rasher on the coals, a Welsh rabbit, a rummer of nutbrown, and a thimblefull of brandy to keep off the spasms. She was then escorted to her tea-kettle, and put under cover for the night. The bear and the monkey having been similarly disposed of, their respective shavers made merry with the rest of the show-folk. Uncle Timothy took the poor little Italian boys under his own care, and feasted them plenteously. At this moment a rival tea-kettle drew up, with a caravan in the rear.
'Pray, madam,' said a tragedy queen, peeping through a bit of ragged green curtain that depended before teh entrance of the tea-kettle, toa dwarf in the caravan, 'do you put up at Mother Red-Cap's?' {p. 370:] 'Not I, madam,' responded the Lilliputian lady, 'I stops at the Robin Hood at merry Hoxton; none but the lower orders stops at Mother Red-Cap's!' And the caravan moved on as fast as the wall-eyed, half-starved anatomy of a Rosinante could drag it.[1]
Source notes
Italics as in source. IRHB's brackets.
IRHB comments
For the once well-known public house in Hoxton allued to above, see Robin Hood and Little John.
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.
Editions
Background
Notes