Robin Hood and the Tanner
Robin Hood and the Tanner is
Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads, perhaps only surpassed in its breadth by the Roud Folk Song Index
.
Synopsis
The story follows the exploits of a
pikestaff on shoulder, sets off through Sherwood Forest to see the red deer there. Along the way, he encounters Robin Hood, who accuses him of poaching. Arthur challenges Robin with his pikestaff ("For thy sword & thy bow I care not a straw" [2.6]) and curses at him ("If thou get a knock upon the bare scop, / thou canst as well sh[*]t[*] as shoot" [2.9-10]). Robin cautions him to speak more cleanly, but Arthur refuses, and so Robin intends to discipline him, but wants to fight with a staff of equal length. Arthur rudely challenges him again and Robin knocks him on the head hard enough to make the blood trickle down; when he recovers, Arthur strikes Robin with the same result. The sight of his own blood makes Robin "[rave] like a wild Boar" (3.16). The two men fight so energetically that they are like "two wild Boars in a chase" and "all the wood [rings] at every bang" (3.23, 29). After two hours, Robin calls a stop to the fighting and promises that Arthur is free to roam Sherwood Forest from now on. In return, Arthur promises that he will tan Robin's hide for free. Robin then reveals his identity and makes a further offer: that Arthur give up his trade and come to live with him, for pay, in Sherwood Forest. Arthur accepts and asks after Robin's side-kick, Little John
, to whom he is related on his mother's side. Robin blows on his horn and Little John appears. Robin explains his combative stance by telling him that Arthur is certainly a tanner, as he has tanned his hide. At first not understanding that Robin approves of Arthur, Little John offers to have his "hide" "tanned," too: "[I]f such a feat he can do / If he be so stout, we will have a bout, / and he shall tan my hide too" (4.30-32). But Robin stops Little John by explaining Arthur's moral character and his relation to him. Little John then throws his pike aside and clasps Arthur around the neck, weeping for joy. The three men dance together around an oak-tree to celebrate their new identity as a band of three.
In other variants, Arthur is not related to Little John.
Historical and cultural significance
This ballad is part of a group of ballads about
J. C. Holt has argued that the tales developed among the gentry, that he is a yeoman rather than a peasant, and that the tales do not mention peasants' complaints, such as oppressive taxes.[8] Moreover, he does not seem to rebel against societal standards but to uphold them by being munificent, devout, and affable.[9] Other scholars have seen the literature around Robin Hood as reflecting the interests of the common people against feudalism.[10]
The latter interpretation supports Selden's view that popular ballads provide a valuable window onto the thoughts and feelings of the common people on topical matters: for the peasantry, Robin Hood may have been a redemptive figure.
Library and archival holdings
The English Broadside Ballad Archive at the University of California, Santa Barbara holds three seventeenth-century broadside ballad versions of this tale: one in the Euing collection at the Glasgow University Library (304), another in the Pepys collection at Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge (2.111), and another in the Crawford collection at the National Library of Scotland (665).[11]
Recordings
An audio recording of this ballad is available online.[12]
An instrumental recording of this ballad by Richard Searles is available online.[13]
The ballad has been recorded by A. L. Lloyd (on "Bramble Briars and Beams of the Sun") and Roy Harris (on "The Bitter and the Sweet").
References
- ^ "Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Roud 332 entry".
- ^ Watt (1993), pp. 39–40
- ^ Watt (1993), pp. 39–40, quoting Edward Dering, A brief and necessary instruction (1572), sig.A2v.
- ^ Child (2003), p. 42
- ^ Brown (2010), p. 67; Brown's italics
- ^ a b Brown (2010), p. 69
- ^ a b Fumerton & Guerrini (2010), p. 1
- ^ Holt (1989), pp. 37–38
- ^ Holt (1989), p. 10
- ^ Singman (1998), p. 46, and first chapter as a whole
- ^ "Ballad Archive Search - UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive". Ebba.english.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2015-05-31.
- ^ "EBBA ID: 31721 - UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive". Ebba.english.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2015-05-31.
- ^ "Richard Searles - Robin Hood and the Tanner". YouTube.com. 2010-06-19. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 2015-05-31.
Bibliography
- Brown, Mary Ellen (2010). "Child's ballads and the broadside conundrum". In Patricia Fumerton; Anita Guerrini; Kris McAbee (eds.). Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500–1800. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. pp. 57–72. ISBN 978-0-7546-6248-8.
- Child, Francis James, ed. (2003) [1888–1889]. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Vol. 3. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
- Fumerton, Patricia; Guerrini, Anita (2010). "Introduction: straws in the wind". In Patricia Fumerton; Anita Guerrini; Kris McAbee (eds.). Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500–1800. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. pp. 1–9. ISBN 978-0-7546-6248-8.
- ISBN 0-500-27541-6.
- Singman, Jeffrey L. (1998). Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-30101-8.
- Watt, Tessa (1993). Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. ISBN 9780521458276.
External links
- Link to a facsimile sheet of an early modern version of this ballad at the English Broadside Ballad Archive at the University of California, Santa Barbara: [1]
- Robin Hood and the Tanner
- Robin Hood and the Tanner with commentary (a version in which Little John is not related to Arthur the tanner)
- Link to the website of The Robin Hood Project, a collection of webpages chronicling the development of Robin Hood from his medieval origins to modern depictions, at the Robbins Library at the University of Rochester: [2]