January 21st, 2009

Clement of the Glen asked me a question;

Have you read the ballad Robin and Gandelyn (Child 115). I would be interested to hear your opinions on this beautiful ballad.

—Clement of the Glen

Well, Clement, here is what I’ve recently discovered about the ballad. I hope it’s interesting!

Robyn and Gandeleyn is a medieval ballad, an enigmatic ballad. It is blatantly patched together, and I have patched together ballads before, so I know what they look like. It has also been ignored. At least, even Dobson & Taylor (a somewhat definitive work on the subject) makes the claim …

Only one thing seems certain: by no stretch of the imagination can the ‘Robyn’ of this lyric be properly identified with the Robin Hood of the other ballads.

When I read this ballad, it surprised me. I was shocked, and mystified. However, it is not wise to discount things even if they seem to contradict your notions! You can analyze them of course. But still, it’s best to remain open-minded, and not to assume there’s no explanation.

For those who wish to read the full ballad, click here

In the ballad, we meet Robin and his comrade (or knave) Gandeleyn, who go to hunt deer, and are described in rich greenwood terms, and are oddly called children—

Strong thieves were tho children none
But bowmen good and hind (in its usual sense, hind means gentle, noble)
They wenten to wood to getten them flesh
If God wold it them send

They hunt all day and then they see fifty fat fallow deer—’and all they wern fair and fat enow’—

Robyn bent his jolly bow
Therein he set a flo (an arrow)
The fattest deer of all
The heart he clef in two

But then—there is apparently somebody who’s been lying in wait for Robin! And, to fit the children theme, he’s called a boy. This fellow is Wrennok. If you continue reading, we shall see that this was not originally a child. The story gets a little more complex.

He (Robyn) had not the deer i-flaw (flayed)
Ne half out of the hide,
There came a shrewd arrow out of the west,
That felled Robert’s pride.

Follow up:

Gandeleyn lookit him east and west
By every side
“Who hat(h) my master slain?
Who hat done this deed?
Shall I never out of greenwood go
Till I see side-s bleed.”

Then, with all redunduncy,

Gandeleyn lookit him east and west
And south under the sun
He saw a little boy
They cleppen (called) Wrennok of Donne

A good bow in his hand
A broad arrow therein
And four and twenty good arrows (this is actually a description of jolly Robin stuck in the wrong place by the ancient reconstructer!)
Truss-ed in a thrumm (bundle)
“Beware thee, ware thee, Gandeleyn,
Here of, thou shalt have some.

Then Wrennok and Gandeleyn shoot at each other, and Gandeleyn kills Wrennok—

Gandeleyn bent his good bow
And set there in a flo
He shot through his green kirtle
His heart he clef in two.(this is borrowed from above, from Robin killing the deer.)

Then follow two verses between which the reconstructioner could not apperantly choose, and which are nearly identical, the upshot of which is that Wrennok will never boast that he slew good Robin and his knave Gandeleyn. And then, most enigmatic of all, a phrase repeated at the beginning and the end which is:

Robin lyeth in greenwood bounden

This is odd. It has no apparent relation to the ballad! If Robin is killed by Wrennok, this does not make sense. You don’t bind your foe after he’s dead.

But then again, the plot is simplified. The story is merely thus—

Robin and Gandeleyn in the greenwood as children
Robin hurt or caught by someone called Wrennok
Robin rescued by his comrade

And that’s enough to link it up with some other ballads

Follow to Part 2: Robin Nory and Willie