Maid Marian

For other uses, see Maid Marian (disambiguation).
Robin Hood and Maid Marian (poster, ca. 1880)

Maid Marian (or Marion) is the love interest of the legendary outlaw Robin Hood in English folklore. Maid Marian was in origin a "shepherdess" figure associated with May Day. Her character may also have been influenced by the image of the Virgin Mary. Her role as the love interest of Robin Hood dates to the 16th century.[1]

History

Maid Marian was originally a character in May Games festivities (held during May and early June, most commonly around Whitsun)[2] and is sometimes associated with the Queen or Lady of May of May Day. Jim Lees in The Quest for Robin Hood (p.81) suggests that Maid Marian was originally a personification of the Virgin Mary. Both a "Robin" and a "Marian" character were associated with May Day by the 15th century, but these figures were apparently part of separate traditions; the Marian of the May Games is likely derived from the French tradition of a shepherdess named Marion and her shepherd lover Robin, recorded in Adam de la Halle's Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, circa 1283.[3] It isn't clear if there was an association of the early "outlaw" character of Robin Hood and the early "May Day" character Robin, but they did become identified, and associated with the "Marian" character, by the 16th century. Alexander Barclay, writing in c. 1500, refers to "some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood".[4] Marian remained associated with May Day celebrations even after the association of Robin Hood with May Day had again faded.[5] The early Robin Hood is also given a "shepherdess" love interest, in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage (Child Ballad 149), his sweetheart is "Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses".[6] Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian.[7]

The "gentrified" Robin Hood character, portrayed as a historical outlawed yeoman emerges in the late 16th century. From this time, Maid Marian is also cast in terms of a noblewoman, even though her role was never entirely virginal and she retained aspects of her "shepherdess" or "May Day" characteristics; in 1592, Thomas Nashe described the Marian of the later May Games as being played by a male actor named Martin, and there are hints in the play of Robin Hood and the Friar that the female character in these plays had become a lewd parody. Robin was originally called Ryder.

In an Elizabethan play, Anthony Munday identified Maid Marian with the historical Matilda, daughter of Robert Fitzwalter, who had to flee England because of an attempt to assassinate King John (legendarily attributed to King John's attempts to seduce Matilda).[8][9] In later versions of Robin Hood, Maid Marian is commonly named as "Marian Fitzwalter."[10][11]

In Robin Hood and Maid Marian (Child Ballad 150, perhaps dating to the 17th century), Maid Marian is "a bonny fine maid of a noble degree" said to excel both Helen and Jane Shore in beauty. Separated from her lover, she dresses as a page "and ranged the wood to find Robin Hood," who was himself disguised, so that the two begin to fight when they meet. As is often the case in these ballads, Robin Hood loses the fight to comical effect, and Marian only recognizes him when he asks for quarter. This ballad is in the "Earl of Huntington" tradition, a supposed "historical identity" of Robin Hood forwarded in the late 16th century.[12]

20th-century pop culture adaptations of the Robin Hood legend have almost invariably featured a Maid Marian, and have mostly made her a highborn woman with a rebellious or "tomboy" character. In 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood, she is a courageous and loyal woman (played by Olivia de Havilland), and a ward of the court, an orphaned noblewoman under the protection of King Richard. Although always ladylike, her initial antagonism to Robin springs not from aristocratic disdain but out of an aversion to robbery.[13] In The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), she, despite being a lady-in-waiting to Eleanor of Aquitaine during the Crusades, is in reality a mischievous tomboy capable of fleeing boldly to the countryside disguised as a boy.[14] In the Kevin Costner epic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, she is a maternal cousin to the sovereign, while in the BBC TV Show adaption of 2006, she is the daughter of the former Sheriff and was betrothed to Robin prior to his leaving for the Holy Land.

Maid Marian's role as a prototypical strong female character has also made her a popular focus in feminist fiction. Theresa Tomlinson's Forestwife novels (1993–2000) are told from Marian's point of view, portray Marian as a high-born Norman girl escaping entrapment in an arranged marriage. With the aid of her nurse, she runs away to Sherwood Forest, where she becomes acquainted with Robin Hood and his men. Elsa Watson's Maid Marian takes a similar approach.

Literature

There have been several books based on the fictional character:

She is also a minor character in Angus Donald's Outlaw Chronicles based on the life of Alan-A-Dale and his exploits with Robin Hood. In the series she is known as Marie-Anne, Countess Of Locksley, and love interest of Robin Hood, who in the novel is formally known as Robert Odo.

Television

Movies

Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood giving Enid Bennett as Maid Marian a dagger

Music

References

  1. ↑ J. C. Holt (1982). Robin Hood. Thames & Hudson. p. 37. ISBN 0-500-27541-6.
  2. ↑ Knight. Robin Hood. pp. 11-12.
  3. ↑ Ronald Hutton. The Stations of the Sun, pp. 270-271.
  4. ↑ Richards. Swordsmen of the Screen, p. 190
  5. ↑ Ronald Hutton. The Stations of the Sun. p. 274. ISBN 0-19-288045-4
  6. ↑ J. C. Holt. Robin Hood, p. 165.
  7. ↑ Allen W. Wright. "A Beginner's Guide to Robin Hood".
  8. ↑ the "Matilda" theory of Maid Marian is further discussed in Thomson, Richard (1829). An Historical Essay on the Magna Charta of King John: To which are Added the Great Charter in Latin and English. London: J. Major and R. Jennings. pp. 505–507.
  9. ↑ Allen W. Wright, The Search for the Real Robin Hood
  10. ↑ Marian Fitzwalter, only child of the Earl of Huntingdon, is the Maid Marian in McSpadden, J. Walker (2006). Robin Hood. Project Gutenberg.
  11. ↑ "Maid Marion"
  12. ↑ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1888.
  13. ↑ Jeffrey Richards, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York, p 200, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lond, Henly and Boston, 1988
  14. ↑ Jeffrey Richards, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York, p 201, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lond, Henly and Boston, 1988
  15. ↑ Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King, 2003. (p.326-327) ISBN 1-880418-56-8

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Maid Marian.