Essays on Subjects Connected with the Literatur, Popular Superstitions and History of England in the Middle Ages Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...not give a stronger proof of this than his derivation of 3/eoman from yew-man, i. e. archer (p. 11). His theory is, that the hero of the cycle, Robin Hood, was one of the Saxons who became outlaws in opposing the intrusion and rapacity of the Normans---that the ballads were originally written in alliterative verse at the beginning of the thirteenth century--and that in their transformed shape they still picture to us the feelings of the Saxon peasantry towards their Norman governors. Before, however, considering this hypothesis as to the hero, and as to the origin of the cycle, we will describe and arrange what appear to be the remains of the cycle in its earlier form. These de Litterature sur les Vicissitudes et les Transformations du Cycle populaire de Robin Hood. Paris, 1832. It was necessary to the character of the hero of a popular cycle in England, during some centuries after the Conquest, that he should be signalized by his depredations upon the king's deer. The sherifi' and his officers, who enforced the severe forest-laws of the Norman kings, were the oppressors against whom the heroes of the popular romance must make war, and in deceiving whom they must show their craftiness and activity. It is curious, however, that this hostile feeling is always directed against the persons, and not against the authority with which they were armed. In the ballads, the peasantry of England appears always loyal; and one of their most popular cycles was that in which the monarch is represented as being benighted or misled in some one of his forests, and meet ing there with some of the destroyers of his deer, who by their loyalty and joviality obtain his forgiveness and favour. One of' the earliest poems on the subject to...