Popular Music Of The Olden Time Vol 2

Ancient Songs, Ballads, & Dance Tunes, Sheet Music & Lyrics - online book

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	ROBIN HOOD.                                                        393
	In the Pepys Collection, i. 463, there is a ballad to the tune of In Summer time, but in quite a different metre, and therefore to another tune. It is " The Rimer's new Trimming. To the tune of In Sommer time ; " beginning— " A rimer of late in a barter's shop Sate by fpr a trimming tcrtake his lot, Being minded with mirth, until his turn came, To drive away time he thus began;" in Etanzas of four lines, and "imprinted at London by T. Langley." The ballad of "Robin Hood and the curtal Friar" is reprinted in Ritson's Robin Hood, ii. 59; in Evans' Old Ballads, ii. 152 ; &c. Douce explains " curtal" to mean " curtailed," or Franciscan friar; because, conformably to the injunction of their founder, they wore short habits. He quotes Staveley's Romish Horseleech to prove that Franciscans were so called. Illustrations of Shahspeare, i. 60, 8vo., 1807.
	ROBIN HOOD AND THE PINDER OF WAKEFIELD. This ballad was entered at the Stationers' Hall to Mr. John Wallye and Mrs. Toy<, in the first year of the registers, 1557-8. It was so popular as to be twice alluded to by Shakespeare, in his Henry IV., Part H., act v., sc. 3; and in The Merry Wives of Windsor, act i., sc. 1. Also in Beaumont and Fletcher's Philmster, act v., sc. 4; and quoted in Munday's Downfall of Robert, Earl of Hunington, and Munday and Chettle's Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington; both printed in 1601. It is sometimes quoted as " Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John;" sometimes as "The Pinder of Wakefield" (a "pinder" being the pen or pound-keeper for impounding stray cattle) ; and the tune occasionally entitled Wakefield on a green, from the ditty. Two copies are to be found, under that name, among • the lute manuscripts (said to be Dowland's) in the Public Library, Cambridge (D. tl. ii. 11, and D. d. iii. 18); a third is contained in a manuscript volume of