The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1891-02-01

same manner of lives as the song and bal
lao makers, although responsible for their
legendary character, have Swallowed forth.
1 can take you into thousands of cabins
in Beyonshire, Cornwall and in Brittany
for King Arthur is even more a god TO
the Brltons than to the West of England
4Armorican Celts-where the books are
unknown; where no manner of literature
ever came; where history of clan and
sept have been preserved from father to
son; where the Arthurian legends live
more bright and glowing than in all the
printed tales OF the Table Round. These
absolutely bookless folk will take you to
tne very landing-place of King Uther !;
show you the real remains of
the twin castles Tintagel and Ter
rabbi relate how Uther Pendragen be-
sleged the Duke of Cornwall slew
MIN, and the same day wed his widow,
1grayne, to whom the child, Arthur, was
born, and reared by the enchanter, Mer-
lin, under the good Sir Ector's care, who
restored TO him the kingdom of Cornwall
on Pendragon's death; how the noble
King Arthur instituted the Order of
knights Of the Round Table, whose
sanity acts in the service of God and
man, until they fell into sin, were deeds
OF good and glory; how Arthur loved
only and wed Guinevere, betrayed by
Launcelot; and, at last, receiving his
death-wound in battle with his rebellious
nepheW's forces at Camelford (which the
poets make Camelot), Arthur babe the
loyal knight, Sir Believer, carry him TO
Dozmare Pool, fling his sword Excalibur
therein, when a boat, rowed by three
Queens, appeared. Into this Arthur was
lifted, and borne away to the island-vale
OF Avillion, that his grievous wound
might be healed. These folk say. and be-
Heve, that Arthur is still in fairy-land;
that his spirit often returns in the guise
OF bird, the enough, lowering about the
old scenes with pathetic murmering; and
that he viii surely come again."
Wearing the white flower of blameless
Hie,'
To reign as a King should and might
over his beloved England. Literature
never provided a hundred thousand
bookless folk with this. 1t remains, be-
cause in it has been preserved, without
books, q fadeless actually.
In like manner Robin Hoods Land be-
comes the whole OF England. Piercing
their armor of sodden reserve, you Will
find that the sober English peasant and
the grave English workman, have minds
full enough of chiyalry and romance.
Robin Hood IS immortal with these, be-
cause as ''leveler' of rank and class, he
represents an undefinable yet certain
power to buffet the church and the nobil-
ity. He is rescuer Of maids in distress
and men i'll duress. He embodies the
unconscious yet universal leaning to-
wards Communism among the English
lowly. Above all, he is the luminous
type of THAI dearest thing to every lowly
Briton's heart, fair play" whether in
frolic, freebooting or fight. Fairly de-
fined, Robin Hoods Land comprises the
shires of Nottingham and Lincoln with
the southern half OF Yorkshire. There is
not a plowman, forester, gamekeeper, and
[ would almost venture to say, any hui
man being among the lowly outside the
factories, in this portion of England, who
has not clearer conception of the life.
character and exploits of the merry
outlaw than all books could give. AS
is well known, the manuscript and
old-record researches by the Rev. Joseph
Hunter, an assistant keeper of the
public records of England, made
public in 1852, placed fairly within the do
main of authentic history the facts con-
corning the actual existence and career OF
Robin Hood. He was born about $780,
His family were of some station. and seat
ed at Wakefield. With many others he be-
came an outlaw from having espoused
the cause of the unfortunate Earl of Ian
caster. He retreated with a hundred or
mere of his comrades to the depths of
Sherwood Forest, not a score of miles
from his birthplace. By their uneoualed
Shlll III aICilSIy. SOOlitSS bIdi1bS W I'LL
Lords and Bishops; robberies of the high
to share with the lowly, and their ade-
quate wits in all eNigencies, they secured
the loyalty of the peasantry roundabout
and put to defiance the entire forces of
the crown. AT this juncture King Ed
ward wisely pardoned Robin Hood, Civ
ing him service as one of the wallets, por-
teurs de Ia chambre," in the royal house
hold. Here he remained for more
than year. to which existing
vouchers for his payment attest. But
the hunger for the greenwood was
too strong. Begging the King for per-
mission to visit the old chapel at Barns
dale, it was granted for s'ennight."
Having once rejoined his comrades, he
could not again be persuaded to leave
them; and he continued the old outlaws
life, until, resorting to the priory of
Kirkless for surgical aid, he died from
loss of blood, and was buried in the
grounds of the priory, now Kirkless
Hall, four miles north of Huddersfield,
and the seat of the noble family of
Armytage.
But, precisely as I have found with the
Cornish and Devonshire peasantry in
Identification of King Arthur and his
land, it is among the lowly of Nothing
hamshire and Yorkshire that are discoy-
cred innumerable proofs, in tradition, bal
lad and nomenclature, of the merry out
law and his men. Literature has not Gre
ated these for the delectation of an igno-
rant peasantry. The peasantry them
selves have furnished, by word of mouth,
the material-and but an infnitesimal
portion has been Notwithstanding writ
ers old and new to transfer the real Robin
Hood to the Robin Hood of fiction and
song. A close defining of Robin Hoods
Land would give it the area of Sherwood
Forest in \ ottinghamshire and Barnsdale
EnraSt N wi q fri,1
of country leading northeast through
southern Yorkshire, to the sea, near Scar
borough, the latter being occasionally
traversed by the outlaws when too closely
pressed by the Kings soldiery. In the
outlaws time but one highway traversed
the region. That was the old Roman
Road from London to Berwick. Perhaps
half a dozen hamlets, the one ancient city
of Nottingham, so old that its history has
been traced back $50 years before the
Christian era and its first inhabitants dug
holes in the rocks for homes, and a few
chapels, abbeys and priories of the rudest
construction, could have been found in
all the area. To-daya forest of chimneys
stands where stood the giant English
oaks. You can look from no open spot
within it, without your horizon being
clouded with their black silhouettes
against a smoke-laden sky. AS many
hundreds of towns and hamlets are in
Robin Hoods Land now as there were
single ones in the archer-outlaw's time.
But near the roaring of the forge, the
clatter of the looms and the mournful
songs of millions of spindles, like the
tiny nests of the meadow-larks escaping
the blades of the reapers, are little nests
of English peasants homes, bits of En-
glish copse and hedge, and patches of an
cient English oak, which modern in
dustry and modern landlordism have not
quite effaced; and it is among these, seek
ing the wraiths and traditions of the
olden Robin Hoods Land and the new,