Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jun 03 - 06:58 PM

Ha! If you can't do it, ridicule it, eh? Keep hammering away with your information, and eventually it might be taken as fact because it has been repeated so much.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 07 Jun 03 - 06:40 PM

Oak-ay, all that came to me while sitting and listening to the rustle of the wind through the oak leaves was this little poem I remember from childhood ...


A wise old owl sat in an oak
The more he saw, the less he spoke
The less he spoke, the more he heard
Why can't we all be like that bird?


Betcha that bird just wouldn't make the grade in a scholarly venue though! Academia's notorious penchant for endless debate as an end in itself (I call it 'twisting the neurons', or 'doing the neuron dance'), as well as intensely competitive (and quite predictably cyclical) criticism doesn't work very well with the wise old discipline of silence. So I'll leave it to the scholars to mince those mysteries right out of the myths, without mercy!

I love silence though, and I do like to practice it.   As an art, it balances my love of music very well! And it's a wonderful way to conserve energy. So, I guess Nerd's arse is safe for now!

daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 07 Jun 03 - 02:40 PM

menzze, thanks for sharing your beautiful song, it's wise and sensitive glimpse into the 'whys' of age-old human reverence for oak trees. The final verse brings to mind all of the other time-honoured legends and traditions surrounding the 'dying God', from Odin to Osiris, from the Oak King slain by the Holly King at Summer Solstice to the gospel stories of Jesus ...

" He cut down my stem and he cut down my life but I did feel no pain or fear them
The fire itself when it's warming their hearts shows a way to the land of the Oaktree
In that cold winternight when I's dying one by one when my whole life was one by one fading
I gave to my people like all time before I had given to them what they're needing"


Wow! And that reminds of the reason Robin Hood made his mysterious and magical way into this thread at all ... because of the traditions surrounding the Major Oak of Sherwood Forest. It is a very interesting "coincidence" (ha ha!) that Robin and his 12 merry men (... gee, how many? TWELVE? sounds so vaguely familiar!! ;>) ...) came to be associated with an ancient oak, the traditional dwelling-place of divinity!

Now I'm off into the local Greenwoods to sit beneath my sheltering old Oak and contemplate how and when to best kick Nerd's arse ... or if indeed such a whoopin is at all necessary! I shall return duly enlightened shortly....

:>)   daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 03 - 03:31 PM

refresh

want to see if Daylia will kick Nerd's arse...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST
Date: 31 May 03 - 10:38 AM

Hi Folks

not quiet shure wether it fits in at this point of this wonderful and interesting discussion, here's a song about an oaktree I wrote more than 20 years ago

I wrote this one for the band we had at the time wich was called Oaktree.

Come to the Land of the Oaktree by menzze 1980


Once upon a time so far away I was born with no mother or father
Grown with the wind and fed by the sun and the birds and the night and the water
The centuries passed and I arose grewing stronger and stronger and stronger
And here is the story that I have to tell, I can't keep it by myself for no longer

REF
Listen to me, listen to me
I'll show you the land of the Oaktree
Listen to me , listen to me
Come to the land of the Oaktree


In the first days of spring when the air was warm on my branches the first leaves where smiling
Two little children were dancing around my stem and their eyes they were laughing
Laughing and singing they made their way towards a life without hate fear or question
And the wind in the air gave life to my leaves and I sang and I danced along with them

REF

The years passed like months and the children they grew, when summer came I saw two lovers
Walking through a land as sweet as a dream holding hands and kissing geach other
They passed their day s in the dream they had made, he carved her name in my body
Though ages have gone her name is still there, like I still feel their soft love inside me

REF

My leaves turned to brown when the sun on her way reached the time that the people call autumn   
The country lay crying pain raged in it's heart brought to it from a land called Britannia
My two lovers were hungry the november so cold they'd nothing to eat or to live on
The young child they had shook of fear in his dream, saw a landlord was beating an ol' man

REF

spoken
When the wintertime came with frost snow and ice the land buried in dreamless sleeping
A farmer once lover needed wood for his fire to keep his poor family from freezing

He cut down my stem and he cut down my life but I did feel no pain or fear them
The fire itself when it's warming their hearts shows a way to the land of the Oaktree
In that cold winternight when I's dying one by one when my whole life was one by one fading
I gave to my people like all time before I had given to them what they're needing

REF

We've been looking for a symbol representing all "celtic" nations and came up with the oaktree, one of the holy trees of the celts
Hope I did not interrupt you to much and hope you like it
all the best

menzze

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 May 03 - 11:10 PM

Nerd and Q: Yes, I agree. This brings us back to the privileged storyteller again. And while the storyteller is privileged to tell the story in their own style or manner, the story itself was often considered communal property. This means there was very little if any "authorship" that went with these stories when they were encountered by scribes, even up until when they first entered the era of the printing press (and it was still pretty squishy for a while!) Weston went to great lengths to describe the earliest sources of her Grail stories--who wrote it down and where he/she (but usually he) got it and what they did with it to somehow prove its legitimacy.

There is a trio of essays by Barthes ("The death of the author"), Derrida ("Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences"), and Foucault ("What is an author?") that work around the relationship "between text and author" in what Foucault came to call the "valorization" of the author rather than the story itself. It's a relatively recent phenomena, the process of studying "authenticity and attribution" according to who the author was. Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition sums this up nicely (and more clearly than the other three, on some points). The reason I bring this up is to point out that one big reason why it is SO DIFFICULT to find early sources, versions, etc., because these stories rarely were considered to be actually BY an individual, and as such an original work. How would this play itself out in whatever record-keeping was performed?

There are a lot of ideas in today's world that we don't realize would totally stupefy citizens of the world 500 or 1000 years ago or more. Not the obvious things, like the mechanics of how we do things, but simply how we view the world, politics, and most importantly, our philosophy, our attitudes towards what is real, how things work, who owns what, and so forth. Humans have always been resourceful and inventive, but their view of the world has changed drastically through time. (To quote MMario, "well, duh.") The assumptions that scholars make publicly and that go through peer review are generally required to make the strongest arguments possible to stand that examination and only then go on to be published (yeah, I know. . .this isn't perfect either). They use what fragments are available and aim to practice solid extrapolation based upon what facts are known. The trouble with the Internet today, as Nerd has observed, is that clever people with a theory or a story they really want to promote can wrap a theory round itself in such as way as to be credible, but only if one isn't accustomed to looking for the argument to support the theory. Provide a few links to other people who believe the same thing, and you have what appears to be credible support.

We like to research these things online, but only a fraction of what is in books is out there now. I'm impressed with both Nerd and Q's knowledge of the texts on this subject, their clear familiarity with sources and the bibliographic hunt that is required to find out who really thought something the first time. It's this kind of attention to detail that helps keep the information in the DT such a valuable resource.

I'll buy you both a beer next time the Mudcat Tavern is open!

Stilly River Sage

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 30 May 03 - 05:34 PM

Even the Celtic legends have no written basis before the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They were handed down by word of mouth. Eleanor Hull, who rewrote the tales in several books ("Cuchulain, The Hound of Ulster," which is a combination of stories from several sources, is one I still have) says that "In the course of centuries of recitation certain changes crept in," but she makes the claim that "in the main they come to us much as they were originally recited."
I am afraid that this says very little for the story tellers, who in all cultures seem to have been extremely inventive, adding to and changing their tales through time. This makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible to make connections of the type suggested by daylia.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Nerd
Date: 30 May 03 - 03:38 PM

daylia,

Sorry if I sounded grumpy, but I do stand by my point. The only link in the above that would suggest that any serious scholar supports the "mythic Robin Hood" theory is the part that quotes Stephen Knight. But Knight, whose books on Robin Hood I have read more than once, does not believe that Robin Hood is an ancient pagan deity. He believes that Robin is archetypal, that is, that there was no "original" Robin Hood, but that many have "been" or "become" Robin Hood just as many have been "Santa Claus" through "Secret Santa." This is not the same argument at all. The other figure mentioned in that same link is John Matthews. As I've mentioned, he's not considered a serious historian by other historians, and is essentially a spiritual leader in the neo-pagan community; his books are religious speculation, very entertaining but not scholarly. So I would say that there are very very few (if any) qualified historians, folklorists, etc., who would claim that Robin Hood has a deep mythological significance. Most of us would, however, argue that he has a degree of seasonal meaning and shares some features with older pagan figures who also have seasonal meaning.

However, the use of the words "Robin Hood's Bowers" in the high middle ages must have originated somewhere -- perhaps in the local oral traditions of the time?

Granted. That's "of the time," not "of 1200 years before the time." If the names "Robin Hood" and "Robin Hood's Bower" were being used before the coming of Christianity to Britain (in the 300-400s), then there would probably be some evidence of this. (Of course, in pre-Christian times Britons spoke a Celtic language that included neither "Robin" nor "hood" nor "bower," so the argument should really be being made about Saxony, Jutland, etc., but that's a different point). On the other hand, since there's no evidence, why make an argument that this was a feature of pre-Christian British religion unless you have already ASSUMED it, as this website has?

Remember, we are now in the year 2003. That is 500 years after 1503, which is the era when we have evidence of such practices--and even that evidence is sketchy! The era to which the pracitces are being ascribed, then, (pre-Christian Britain) is over twice as distant from 1503 than we are ourselves! Would you argue that because we have certain customs in 2003, they must also have been customary in 1503, without any evidence? How about 1203? That's essentially the argument being made by the website. They're distorting history in a fairly serious manner in order to support the contention that Robin Hood is a survival of an ancient pagan god.

Geoff Boxell's proposal is not originally his idea. Indeed, the quotation you have put in above is actually from Susan Reynolds, not Boxell. Reynolds cites Maurice Keen as her source for the idea. The book that she cites by Keen is from 1981, but as I recall he was already making this argument in the late 1960s. As a result of his and other work, the idea that previous legends about characters like Hereward the Wake and Eustace the Monk became part of the Robin Hood legend is accepted by pretty much all Robin Hood scholars today. However, it would be going too far to claim that the main or most important function of the Robin Hood stories was to protest the dispossession of the Anglo-Saxon nobility. That's a blind alley, because none of the early Robin Hood stories mentions anything about old English nobility, or indeed displays any consciousness of a Saxon/Norman divide a la Errol Flynn. That idea seems to have been added to the Robin Hood Tradition later, and certainly Keen does not make this mistake.

By The Way, the Magna Carta was not 1066; that was the Norman Conquest. The Magna Carta was ratified in 1215, rather soon before the first mentions of Robin Hood begin to appear.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 30 May 03 - 02:06 PM

" It's very telling that the website in question begins with the statement that the search for the mythic Robin Hood has been abandoned by serious scholars."

Nerd, "serious scholars" obviously have not abandoned the "search for the mythic Robin", as several of the sites linked to above attest.

However, the use of the words "Robin Hood's Bowers" in the high middle ages must have originated somewhere -- perhaps in the local oral traditions of the time?

The colorful and intriguing stories at the "Legends of Robin Hood" site are compelling because they represent one of the present-day contributions to the wealth of enduring folklore surrounding the mysterious -- and powerful! -- character of Robin Hood.      

Geoff Boxell's proposal that the Robin Hood legends are a product/expression of the demise of the old English nobility in the 10-11th centuries is perhaps more scholarly pleasing, and draws almost as colorfully on local folklore (Edric the Wild etc). What did you think of his work?

daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Nerd
Date: 30 May 03 - 01:16 PM

I just checked out daylia's link, and they give absolutely no evidence, or even a citation of any scholar's work, to back their claim about "Robin Hood's Bowers." It is, as I said, a false claim, for every historian who has written a book about Robin Hood (and even the re-enactors) find the name first cropping up in the thirteenth century.

It's very telling that the website in question begins with the statement that the search for the mythic Robin Hood has been abandoned by serious scholars. They then go on to say that they themselves consider the mythic Robin Hood more interesting than the historical approach. Then they move to "If we are to assume that the legend of Robin Hood derives in any part from memories of ancient pagan deities, we should examine the mythology of the pagan cultures that once inhabited the British Isles..." and this is the justification for the rest of the site.

This is a classic case of circular logic, either inadverdently inept or intentionally deceitful. It assumes from the outset what it ostensibly attempts to demonstrate, that Robin Hood derives from pagan deities. But it makes that assumption before analysing the evidence, not after.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Nerd
Date: 30 May 03 - 12:45 PM

Daylia,

The problem in your information from the website on "legends of Robin Hood" is that, not surprisingly, it's a load of codswallop! It takes evidence from the Renaissance and claims that evidence is pre-Christian. But there is no evidence whatsoever that anything in pre-Christian times was called "Robin Hood's Bower."

What happened in the opinion of most scholars was that in the 15th and 16th centuries, the existing ballads and plays of Robin Hood were absorbed into the Mayday tradition of folk plays and dances. This is where the character was combined with Friar Tuck and Maid Marian, who were originally separate characters with no connection to Robin Hood. In the May Games, as they were called, Robin Hood became a central figure, and thus became associated with Mayday and with whatever remnants of Beltaine were still being practiced. This is when "Robin Hood's Bowers" would have come into being. But there is no evidence of either the name Robin Hood or any connection between that name and Mayday before the high middle ages.

Just what evidence the site claims to have that any of this was pre-Christian I don't know. I assume they have no evidence but use the usual squishy historical logic as follows:

Premise 1: "Robin Hood was associated with mayday in the sixteenth century"

Premise 2: "Some aspects of the sixteenth century Mayday celebrations were based on ancient Celtic fire festivals"

Conclusion: Robin Hood was a character worshipped in ancient Celtic fire festivals!

This kind of poor deduction is used all too commonly by bad historians, especially where ancient Celtic lore is concerned!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 30 May 03 - 11:15 AM

Kuan-Yin?!? Cool! I tremble with anticipation ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 May 03 - 11:11 AM

Coming Next: Kuan-Yin

(tongue in cheek at our global roamings on this thread. . .)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 30 May 03 - 10:06 AM

Thanks for the clarifying the use of the word bower as a convenience of translation/rhyme in Heine's poem, Wilfried. I thought it indicated that "Bower-dwellers" were legendary beings, (at least when used in this context, not the Dutch farms in the US) or that it related to Q's definition of bower meaning a lady's apartment or boudoir. The latter does fit the story of the Lorelei!

Now, just to be original when rhyming the word, I'll try my verse this way ...

Oh give me an hour in a Robin Hood Bower
Nestled snug in a sacred old Oak
But keep me oh please from a sudden demise
At the bower of the Lorelei folk

:>) that's better!

I found an interesting hypothesis re Robin Hood while researching the Welsh folk hero Edric the Wild and Fenland's Hereward the Wake. Unlike Robin Hood, there is no doubt that either of these two are historical figures. They pre-date Robin Hood by a couple hundred years, living around the time of the Magna Carta in 1066. The author of the articles, New Zealands's University of Waikato English professor Geoff Boxell says this about Robin Hood --

"Few outlaws in other countries have apparently left so powerful a legend as Robin Hood. The nearest parallels are said to be figures on the epic scale who could be transformed into politically conscious national heroes of a type very unlike him. Even if the stories about Robin Hood himself originated in real events of the thirteen-thirties, as has recently been suggested, they could have gained some of their unusual force from association with older stories of heroes who had once resisted foreign invaders. The anomalous social position of the later, legendary Robin might also owe something, as Dr. M. H. Keen suggested, to these older stories. The most famous outlaws of the greenwood before were probably the Old English nobility on their way down and out." (emphasis mine).

The plot thickens! Any opinions out there?

Meanwhile, I came across a particularily intriguing legend about Jesus and Oak trees (!!) yesterday at this site, The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ Using information from the Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and the 'evidence' in the works of Russian scholar Nicholas Notavitch, who visited Tibet in the 1890's, the author claims that Jesus was widely travelled, possibly visiting both India and the British Isles.

"He may have even travelled as far as the British Isles, for in England there is an ancient oak tree called the "Hallowed Tree" which (says local legend) was planted by Christ himself."

I spent some time trying to find more information about this "Hallowed Tree", to no avail. Does anyone know if it really exists, or where it is located? I'm wondering if it's near Chalice Well ...

daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 30 May 03 - 06:22 AM

Fine ditty, daylia. Unfortunately in Heine's original verses you'll find no bower. Untermeyer has introduced this word because of the rhyme to power.
In the 3. stanza of the original German version the most beautiful virgin is sitting up there wonderfully i.e. on top of the mountain (mentioned in the 2.stanza).

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 29 May 03 - 02:13 PM

Thanks, Keith! I wanted to post these references to the word bower, because they seem to lend support to the theory that Robin Hood and his Merry Men are archetypal folk heros of the "Green Man" genre, rather than historical figures. But I didn't want to flog a dead horse!

The first one is found at the last link I posted above, the "Legends of Robin Hood". It describes Robin's role in the ancient Rites of Beltane, the "Greenwood Marriage" --

"In pre-christian Britain on Beltane Eve, large bonfires were lit on the hilltops, and the community gathered and danced around them. Young couples would sneak away from the festivities, into the shadows and nearby woods to tryst. They would stay out all night, ostensibly gathering hawthorn flowers (the "may" flower) to welcome in the dawn on May Day morn.

In anticipation of these trysts, the young men would prepare a lovers' nest somewhere private, in the nearby woods or countryside. They would make a bower, a crude shelter of branches, decorated with flowers. The folk name for these love nests is "Robin Hood's Bowers". The young couples would make love in these rustic arbours and their unions were sanctioned by the community and referred to as "Greenwood Marriages". Children born of these couplings were considered particularly blessed and known as "Children of the May" or "merrybegots". Some couples chose to make their liaisons more formal and entered into trial marriages at Beltane, becoming handfast for a year and a day. At some of these weddings, a Friar Tuck figure officiated."

And here's a reference to bower being the abode of another mythical being, The Lorelei, or Water Faeries of the Rhine. These are a few verses from a poem about them by Heine --

" …Combing her hair with a golden
    Comb in her rocky bower
She sings the tune of an olden
   Song that has magical power

The boatman has heard; it has bound him
In throes of a strange, wild love;
Blind to the reefs that surround him,
He sees but the vision above.

And lo, hungry waters are springing—
Boat and boatman are gone…
Then silence. And this, with her singing,
The Loreley has done. (Untermeyer 108)"


And all this has inspired me to coin some verse of my own ...

Oh give me the power of a Robin Hood Bower
Nestled snug in a sacred old Oak
But keep me oh please from a sudden demise
At the whim of the Lorelei folk

:>)   daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: selby
Date: 29 May 03 - 01:26 PM

This is such a Bl**** good thread in the old style of mudcat, that I thought it deserved refreshing keep it up.
Keith

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Nerd
Date: 28 May 03 - 12:28 PM

Susan, great idea to check the DT this way. Lends much more weight to the question.

SRS, I agree with you, with the caveat that the Green Knight legends cannot be proven to be any older than the Robin Hood Legends. If Arthur and Robin were real people, then Arthur himself was much earlier than Robin Hood, and Arthurian legends themselves go back to the ninth century or so in recorded form, but the Robin Hood and Green Knight legends both reached verifiable recorded form in the 14th century, and good evidence suggests they were around for a century or so before that. But the Green Knight does seem to have far more ancient resonances than Robin Hood, and the textual sources of the Green Knight seem far older than those for Robin Hood. The problem with arguing from the age of the textual sources, though, is that the advocates of the "Green man as Robin Hood" theory (I am not one of these) claim many things as textual sources of Robin Hood that you and I would exclude.

Of course, we mustn't forget that the real, historical Jesus actually was crucified on a wooden cross. This must have suggested to Pagan Romans the stories of earlier figures like Attis, making it easier for them to accept Christianity. But it does not prove a direct textual connection between the Gospel stories and pagan myths.

The idea of Robin as an archetypal hero is of course a useful one. Way back, Lord Raglan proposed a checklist of features that an archetypal hero in mythology and legend should have. Robin scores fairly high, but not as high as figures such as Oedipus. Interestingly, Jesus scores fairly high as well!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 28 May 03 - 09:38 AM

To define Robin Hood as an archetype, one of many folk-heros (ie. William Tell, Edric the Wild, Hereward the Wake) whose legends personify certain aspects of the ancient pagan vegetation god of Europe, makes a lot more sense than to see him as some sort of "deity" himself. The very fact that there have been so many viable candidates for a historical Robin lends support to the "archetypal" hypothesis.

The information at this colorful site about the connection between Robin and Herne the Hunter, the Green Man etc. might prove helpful. It's a very enjoyable read, at any rate!

daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 May 03 - 01:03 AM

And the way Bobert throws around "fir" (for) will skew the count considerably!

I think the Green Knight and Arthur legends are altogether different than the Robin Hood stories. They're much older and have a broader base. To hark back to where I started with this, like Diana, the basis may well be an accumulation of stories (as was suggested) by a conquering Roman culture. The Empire writing back to the center (Rome). In the new world the modern equivalent would be the search for Gran Quivara, Coronado's hunt in the 1520s for a fabled city of gold.

Attis and Adonis are early (many years B.C.) creation stories, the two being vegetation gods (and in conjunction with seasons) and Attis was directly borrowed by christianity (right down to the death--Attis on a pine tree, Christ on a wooden cross). If you can't beat 'em, appropriate 'em. Robin Hood just isn't up to this level of appropriation.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 May 03 - 12:03 AM

Interesting idea, Susan. I tried pine (but how to sort out the verb, to pine?).
How many maples have to do with syrup?
Oak will certainly hold first place, but oakum and Oak Press must be subtracted. Can the old oaken bucket really count as a tree?
How about tit-willow?
Ash from a cigar and from a fire.

and of course- Yew made me love yew-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Susan of DT
Date: 27 May 03 - 07:24 PM

Since the Digital Tradition is a reasonable sized collection of folksongs, it is reasonable to ask the relative frequency of the various trees in the songs in the DT. Results:
    Oak             130
    Ash             48
    Thorn            62
    Elm             12
    Willow          74
    Yew             13
    Maple            19
    Briar            20

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 May 03 - 05:41 PM

The old myths are a lot of fun to read, but like much of the bible, one may choose to regard them as just that. Perhaps I was in the sciences too long, but I have a hard time accepting them as more than just good stories.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Nerd
Date: 27 May 03 - 05:17 PM

Not to be a party-pooper, but I have to agree with Guest Q. The connection of the Robin Hood of the ballads to the Green man is pretty tenuous. However, it is likely thathis adoption into the May Games is at least influenced by people's associations of him with green, summer, etc. His appearance, for example, in Hal An Tow and other may songs clearly links him with summer, vegetation, etc. So the association was there, and the question is just how conscious it was in the minds of 15th and 16th century people.

The same goes for the Green Knight, but of course at an earlier time. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight obviously borrows from seasonal mythology, you can't get around it. But those borrowings could signify a connection in people's minds between the Green Knight and pagan gods, or they could simply have come down as narrative conventions from earlier stories that had seasonal meanings. Curiously, if we go with the seasonal interpretation, the Green Knight (although green) is in fact a winter figure, like Arawn Pen Annwfn in Welsh mythology. The Green Man, on the other hand, is a summer figure.

My own suspicion is that the Green Knight was more a matter of narrative convention than ancient mythic meanings, and I suspect the oral tradition of folktales provided the link between older myths and medieval romances. Stories like "The King of Ireland's Son and the King of Green Island" contain many motifs in common with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and may have provided all the necessary narrative material for the romance without much serious consciousness of the seasonal mythology. On the other hand, SGGK is explicitly a seasonal poem, set on New Year's Day of one year and the period leading up to New Year's Day on the next, so it's pretty obvious that SOME consciousness of the seasonal meanings was operating. It's all a judgement call!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 May 03 - 05:08 PM

Malcolm,

I have used Weston's book in context with any number of literary texts, and it is still quite applicable there. Since we're not talking about the science of all of this, it is also still applicable and in the context of how oaks or Robin Hood or vegetation gods have been viewed over the years. There is a lot of sound comparative research in it (the critic at Amazon who slammed it because she wrote it when she was 70 must be some young fellow who thinks academics turn their brains off at age 65!).

There are other readings of the history of these legends out there, other guesses as to where they come from and what they mean. Other cultures have similar stories and those haven't been touched upon by Weston or Frazer. But I reject the attitude I find so often in academia and elsewhere today that if it isn't a current theory it has no merit. If the text wasn't published in the last 5 years it is out of date and has no worth. That's our Internet speed-of-light approach to everything, as if this current generation sprang fully-formed from the ether 10 years ago. Much of what we know today is because people gave a lot of thought to foundational or related issues a long time ago. The reason we can Google just about everything anyone ever thought about it is because we're posting what someone else from an earlier generation thought and wrote. Weston's research doesn't appear only in T.S. Eliot, she was widely used by many great authors of their day, and continues to influence novelists. Hemingway and Steinbeck and Owens immediately come to mind, and if I thought about it for a while or did a little digging I could come up many others.

There's a difference between "dated" and "unreliable," but its a distinction that needs to be made here. We've posted links from a variety of sources in the various strands of this convoluted thread. The internet links are the most questionable in the context of any discussion like this (and especially where I reside, in academia, where students will slap anything onto the page as authoritative without checking their facts). The problem with links? There is no ranking, anyone can put anything on the Internet. Call me a Luddite, but I still like to find it in a book or a journal, to know that someone else approved the material or that it passed peer review and to see that it had enough merit to make it to the press.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 27 May 03 - 03:28 PM

Jessie Weston's book is a great read, but, as I discovered thirty years ago when I drew on her ideas quite heavily in an undergraduate essay on something or other, was even then considered extremely unreliable; and would not, I suspect, be considered useful to serious study today except as an interesting side-light on thinking on the subject in the early years of the 20th century. It is, of course, essential to any study of The Waste Land, but that's another matter.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 May 03 - 02:47 PM

Q, get yourself of copy of Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance. She did a lot of research, including material that dates back to sanskrit texts from India.

Here's a review that seems to appear in identical form on all of the web book sites:

Acknowledged by T. S. Eliot as crucial to understanding "The Waste Land," Jessie Weston's book has continued to attract readers interested in ancient religion, myth, and especially Arthurian legend. Weston examines the saga of the Grail, which, in many versions, begins when the wounded king of a famished land sees a procession of objects including a bleeding lance and a bejewelled cup. She maintains that all versions defy uniform applications of Celtic and Christian interpretations, and explores the legend's Gnostic roots. Drawing from J. G. Frazer, who studied ancient nature cults that associated the physical condition of the king with the productivity of the land, Weston considers how the legend of the Grail related to fertility rites--with the lance and the cup serving as sexual symbols. She traces its origins to a Gnostic text that served as a link between ancient vegetation cults and the Celts and Christians who embellished the story. Conceiving of the Grail saga as a literary outgrowth of ancient ritual, she seeks a Gnostic Christian interpretation that unites the quest for fertility with the striving for mystical oneness with God.

Here it is at Amazon. It includes a disparaging review, though I think that party is way too hard on the book. You might want to look up some Joseph Campbell to see what he says on this subject--he's bound to have, at some time or other.

Here's a Robin Hood text.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 May 03 - 01:20 PM

Original guest probably is just standing back to watch the nonsense flow.

There are major problem with the entries in the 1913 Webster's- perhaps not so much the entries as their interpretation because of the lack of dates and relationships. Much has been added to our knowledge since its time. This now-failed competitor to the OED never used supporting quotations or had the breadth of scholarship of the OED contributors. The 1976 3rd Edition, even though it had been taken over by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, probably did not return printing costs.

1. Euchre has little to do with the rest, since the game (first known in the United States) is now thought to be a Spanish or Spanish-American game (yuca) introduced to the United States during the 19th century. (first known reference 1861). Terminology probably much changed from the original by American players, and bower probably a substitute for gabinete (various meanings including chamber, bower in sense of an enclosure, etc.).

2. Manyt of bower's many meanings are found in late old English to Medieval texts in England, illustrating the origin of the word in Anglo-Saxon and other Teutonic relationships in the developing English language. It did not come from later German or Dutch contact.

3. The connection of the pop ballads (Child devoted over 30 to this thief, but some written long after the first)) about a highwayman or renegade nobleman in Medieval Europe (but especially in the "greenwoods" (forests) of England) to the "Green Man" tales is dubious.
The Green Knight appeared in dances and plays in late medieval times, but especially in the 15th century and combined with popular characters of the day, including Robin, the fictional St. George, and the May Queen. The "expulsion" of winter, by then, bore little or no resemblance to the pagan rituals.

Whether the revived Mediaeval Green man was related to anything in the Roman tales of pagan rituals is speculation.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: MMario
Date: 27 May 03 - 12:13 PM

I find this little article on the Green Man :

notes on the Green Man

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 May 03 - 11:59 AM

Those Green/Wildman connections might be a tad too squishy to support an argument along with Robin Hood. There are ancient legends (also on the continent, not just in Great Britain) of the Green Knight, along with Gawain and Arthur and the Holy Grail; those have been associated with Adonis and Attis (the vegetation gods with the annual death/rebirth rituals). I suspect Robin Hood is going to come across as Gawain-lite in this context.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 27 May 03 - 07:31 AM

Well, the "Green Man" or "Wild Man" of preChristian Europe can quite easily be seen to have associations with the Robin Hood legends. And Robin is connected by local tradition with the Major Oak of Sherwood Forest.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST
Date: 27 May 03 - 06:56 AM

No I am still here and have watched this mighty thread grow from a small acorn. Which leads me to my next question where does the Greenman fit in with all this

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 26 May 03 - 09:53 AM

Q, that's a great list! So "bower" also means a lady's boudoir, apartment or attendant? Oooo, that Robin was a wily fellow! ;>)

Just wondering what's happened to the GUEST who started this thread -- was that you, Q? If not, funny that s/he's disappeared ...

daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 26 May 03 - 09:40 AM

Wilfried, thanks for the link - that's one of the best on-line dictionaries I've seen yet, and certainly the most complete explanation of the word "bower".

It's tempting to draw connections between "bower" meaning --

(1) pergola or arbor (a shelter built in the trees)
(2) boor, or peasant/farmer
(3) a "knave", or common "jack" who becomes elevated in power/stature      
    over even kings and queens
(4) one who uses a longbow or strongbow (as in bows and arrows)
(5) a joker or trickster (as in Euchre's 'best bower')

--- and Robin Hood, who fits the bill quite well in all 5 cases! But as SRS points out, there are plenty of similiar stories, "like the 1854 The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit by John Rollin Ridge, which is a Western take on an old theme of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, all mixed up with Chinese laborors and Mexicans and Indians." So it's probably going out on quite a limb to assume such correspondences ...

Back to the "Mighty Oaks" for a moment, I did a web search yesterday to find out if there were any famous oaks in Canada, and came up with these:

The Treaty Oak at Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario, where the first treaty money was paid to the native peoples by the first Indian agent in Canada. Only remnants of this great red oak remain at 407 King Street in that town.

The Parliament Oak, also in Niagara-on-the-Lake, where on May 1 1793, " there was passed on this spot the Seventh Act of Parliament, freeing the slaves in Upper Canada. Thus Canada became the first British possession to provide by legislation for the abolition of slavery, 79 years before slavery was abolished in the United States."

It's fascinating that even centuries after Europeans were "cured" of their Druidic oak-worshipping ways by people like St. Boniface, the "mythic" oak tree was chosen to "witness" -- even "protect", as in the case of the American Charter Oak -- the most important of historical treaties/events on a new continent!

Yet it's very unfortunate that here in Ontario, the mightiest and oldest of the oaks and maples and pines were felled long ago, victims of the material ambitions of the newcomers to this continent. I found a bit of the story of the demise of Ontarios great primeval forests at this site :

"The Loyalists who moved here had to chop through one of the thickest walls of forest in North America to reach the soil. The settlers developed a hatred for trees and they "killed" these natural enemies by setting fire to them or by cutting a deep gash through the bark right around the tree to stop the tree from being nourished; the tree gradually died. For fifty years the pioneers of Essex County competed in a race to destroy the dense forest that kept them from the fertile soil. Fire became a symbol of material progress. Citizens of Chicago, 300 miles away, admired the glow in the sky on several occasions when millions of cords of Essex County hardwood (oak and walnut) went up in smoke as the settlers struggled to clear at least five acres as stipulated for their first year improvement, and then to enlarge their farms as each year went by."

The little village of Midhurst Ontario, where I live, is named after Midhurst England, where some of the oldest oaks and chestnuts in England still grow. There are pics of them at this link I posted above. Scroll down to the third picture, the awesome chestnut of Cowdray Park in Midhurst England.

Unfortunately, all of the forest around Midhurst Ontario was clear-cut about 100 years ago. The topsoil blew away, and the land was devastated, becoming a sandy desert. The first reforestation nurseries/experimental forest areas in Canada were opened in Midhurst about 60 years ago. Today the area is treed once more --- with tall, thin, almost branchless spindly red pines that are planted in rows way too close together. They are quite ugly-looking .... I call them "pencil-trees".

But I guess they're better than nothing ...

Sometimes I dream about what the primeval forests around here must have looked like over a century ago, before the white men came with their axes. Call me a tree-hugger, but it's hard not to mourn for them. Midhurst England looks nothing like her name-sake on this continent ...and I live about 2 blocks from a street called "Cowdray Park Lane"...

daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 May 03 - 09:08 AM

As noted previously, Bower with regard to shelter or plants has several meanings, most of which were in the English language by the 1400s or before (OED); Old English from Teutonic roots:
1. a dwelling or abode (in print by AD 1000).
2. an idealized place ("dear lovely bowers of innocence...").
3. a covered stall or booth at a fair.
4. a chamber in a large house or building.
5. a boudoir or lady's apartment.
6. a lady's attendant.

7. a place overarched with branches.
8. a shady recess, a covert.
9. a large nest.
10. a shaded run, for animals.
11. "The bower that wanders in meanders, ever bending, Glades on Glades." Addison 1706.
12. "Care must be had that you do not confound the word bower with arbour, because the first is always built long and arch'd, whereas the second is always round or square at Bottom, and has a sort of dome or ceiling at the top." Bradley Family Dictionary, 1727.
13. Branches of a tree.
14. To enclose (in a structure).

Bower. In the meaning of farmer, a husbandman, a tenant who rents a herd of cows, etc., was in use in English from the 15th century or earlier, but is now obsolete (From Ger. bauer of Dutch bouwer, as noted before).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 26 May 03 - 03:47 AM

On the other hand, when we are discussing trees there is only one item possible:
bower n : a framework that supports climbing plants; "the arbor provided a shady resting place in the park" [syn: {arbor}, {arbour}, {pergola}] v : enclose in a bower [syn: {embower}]
source

as used by Coleridge in
this poem

A framework isn't necessary if we consider the broad branches of the oak.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 26 May 03 - 02:13 AM

Bower for a peasant seems reasonable. Don't forget the Germans whose language is often called Dutch over there.
Here we find Bauer = peasant, the sound au pronounced like in how.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 May 03 - 08:25 PM

Er, well, I think that's the point!

In 1884 the Chinese exclusion act (it has been a while since I had to pull this info out of my hat, but it is this name or something similar) restricted the direct entry into the U.S. by Chinese laborors or immigrants. The companies that built the railroads and ran the mines had been encouraging them to come for many years. In theory the law was intended to a degree to protect the Chinese who were being treated dreadfully by that time by some of the employers and by the communities they lived in or near. Many came in through Canada, sometimes crossing the continent north of the border and coming in via the eastern cities to avoid detection.

It seems to me that there was a real hardship also because men were still getting in but women weren't allowed in, making it difficult to bring families or wives (or potential wives) here. I'll have to go look it up before I try expanding on this idea. Which gets ever further from Robin Hood and oaks (unless you want to get into stories like the 1854 The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit by John Rollin Ridge, which is a Western take on an old theme of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, all mixed up with Chinese laborors and Mexicans and Indians. It was actually an allegory to do with what was going on in Cherokee land, where Ridge's father was murdered and other family members killed or put off of the land. That was the richer taking from the well-to-do, in Ridge's case.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 25 May 03 - 05:09 PM

The "anti-Chinese feeling" in the US probably had a lot to do with this ...

"And he rose with a sigh,   
And said, "Can this be?   40
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,—"   
And he went for that heathen Chinee."

It was the same situation in Western Canada at the time, with the labour unions in BC fighting against the "cheap labor" imported from the Orient.

But 24 Jacks up your sleeve at a Euchre game? Even playing one before the bowers make their appearance? I can believe that "heathen Chinee" had no understanding of the game!


:>)   Thanks SRS!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 25 May 03 - 04:27 PM

Lyr. Add: The Heathen Chinee, Plain Language from Truthful James, by Bret Harte.
Posted by Stilly River Sage, above.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 25 May 03 - 04:24 PM

The poem first appeared in the Overland Express, followed by the 1870 edition which was issued on nine cards, illustrated by Joseph Hull, in an envelope, with the title "The Heathen Chinee, Plain Language from Truthful James," Western News Co., Chicago. Limited editions with comments and background followed in the 1930s, some of which sell for as much as an original copy.

Apparently it helped inflame anti-Chinese feeling in the United States.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 May 03 - 12:55 AM

Interesting: I found several copies of the Bret Harte book as items in a closed auction. You can click on the images to get enlargements of the title pages.

I think I'll stop now. It feels (after three consecutive postings) like I'm talking to myself. ;-)

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 May 03 - 12:35 AM

Q: I found it: on Richard Dyer-Bennet 12, the song is called "Plain Language from Truthful James." I found it in a search, here is the Bartleby link. It looks like the Bret Harte poem (not story) was simply put to music. I don't know if Dyer-Bennet did the tune; I don't have liner notes handy for this one (I may have it elsewhere around the house, but it's too late to start looking for that tonight). This isn't in the DT.

Of course, at this point, this is total thread creep, as it has nothing to do with oaks or Robin Hood.

SRS

Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838–1915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912.
Francis Bret Harte. 1839–1902

200. Plain Language from Truthful James

Table Mountain, 1870

WHICH I wish to remark,   
And my language is plain,   
That for ways that are dark   
And for tricks that are vain,   
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,          5
   Which the same I would rise to explain.   
   
Ah Sin was his name;   
And I shall not deny,   
In regard to the same,   
What that name might imply;   10
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,   
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.   
   
It was August the third,   
And quite soft was the skies;   
Which it might be inferred   15
That Ah Sin was likewise;   
Yet he played it that day upon William   
And me in a way I despise.   
   
Which we had a small game,   
And Ah Sin took a hand:   20
It was Euchre. The same   
He did not understand;   
But he smiled as he sat by the table,   
With the smile that was childlike and bland.   
   
Yet the cards they were stocked   25
In a way that I grieve,   
And my feelings were shocked   
At the state of Nye's sleeve,   
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,   
And the same with intent to deceive.   30
   
But the hands that were played   
By that heathen Chinee,   
And the points that he made,   
Were quite frightful to see,—   
Till at last he put down a right bower,   35
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.   
   
Then I looked up at Nye,   
And he gazed upon me;   
And he rose with a sigh,   
And said, "Can this be?   40
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,—"   
And he went for that heathen Chinee.   
   
In the scene that ensued   
I did not take a hand,   
But the floor it was strewed   45
Like the leaves on the strand   
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,   
In the game "he did not understand."   
   
In his sleeves, which were long,   
He had twenty-four jacks,—   50
Which was coming it strong,   
Yet I state but the facts;   
And we found on his nails, which were taper,   
What is frequent in tapers,—that 's wax.   
   
Which is why I remark,   55
And my language is plain,   
That for ways that are dark   
And for tricks that are vain,   
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—   
Which the same I am free to maintain.   60

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 May 03 - 12:16 AM

It might not be McCurdy--as I consider it, I think it's Richard Dyer-Bennet. I don't see the song on the Richard Dyer-Bennet 1 CD, so it must be on one of my tapes of other recordings.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 24 May 03 - 11:32 PM

GUEST Q, Here's the ballad -- "Robin Hood and Little John" No. 125. According to the link, "ground oak" means an oak sapling. In the ballad, Robin has just met Little John, and the two are testing their 'manliness' (I remember this hilarious scene in the Mel Brooks' movie!):

" 'Thou talkst like a coward,' the stranger reply'd;
'Well armd with a long bow, you stand,
To shoot at my breast, while I, I protest,
Have nought but a staff in my hand.'

'The name of a coward,' quoth Robin, 'I scorn,
Wherefore my long bow I'll lay by;
And now, for thy sake, a staff I will take,
The truth of thy manhood to try.'

Then Robin Hood stept to a thicket of trees,
And chose him a staff of ground-oak;
Now this being done, away he did run
To the stranger, and merrily spoke:

Lo! see my staff, it is lusty and tough,
Now here on the bridge we will play;
Whoever falls in, the other shall win
The battel, and so we'll away...

... The stranger gave Robin a crack on the crown,
Which caused the blood to appear;
Then Robin, enrag'd, more fiercely engag'd,
And followd his blows more severe.

So thick and fast did he lay it on him,
With a passionate fury and ire,
At every stroke, he made him to smoke,
As if he had been all on fire..."


Ah, the legendary "fire-power" of oak-wood! Thor must've been proud!

Speaking of Thor, I found more information about St. Boniface and the Oak of Donar at this link. Certainly no fool, the missionary saw to it that the wood from this great oak was used to build an oratory dedicated to St. Peter. No doubt the construction material itself was the main attraction for the site's new congregation!

" ... Boniface sought to fell a tree of great size, at Geismar, and called, in the ancient language of the region, the oak of Thor.

The man of God was surrounded by the servants of God. When he would cut down the tree, behold a great throng of pagans who were there cursed him bitterly among themselves because he was the enemy of their gods. And when he had cut into the trunk a little way, a breeze sent by God stirred overhead, and suddenly the branchtop of the tree was broken off, and the oak in all its huge bulk fell to the ground. And it was broken into four huge sections without any effort of the brethren who stood by. When the pagans who had cursed did see this, they left off cursing and, believing, blessed God. Then the most holy priest took counsel with the brethren: and he built from the wood of the tree an oratory, and dedicated it to the holy apostle Peter."

Interestingly enough, this site about St. Boniface claims that he was educated partly at the abbey school of Exeter, the community where the first Robin Hood plays were staged! What a coincidence!

daylia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 24 May 03 - 11:18 PM

I hope you post the song, Stilly R S. McCurdy or whoever wrote it probably based it on the Bret Harte story, "Heathen Chinee." That story has the first mention in print of the term 'bower' applied to Euchre.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 May 03 - 10:31 PM

There is a song on one of my Ed McCurdy albums about a "Heathen Chinee" who cheats at Euchre, something to do with a "right bower." This is from memory, I don't have the song handy. I'll have to dig it out. He has packs and packs of cards up the ornamental sleeves of his jacket. (A totally Un-PC song!)

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 May 03 - 09:46 PM

Wow. Those oaks look Tolkien bred. I've never seen any that massive or gnarled.

Southeast Alaska has no oak at all; I miss them. It's either too wet or too cold or a combination.

Growing up in western Oregon, I and my brothers often slept outdoors under the spreading branches of the grove of oaks that ringed our very large back yard. We didn't have sleeping bags, just bedrolls made up of mother-made comforters; they were heavy and coarse, and our wild barn cats would sleep nestled next to our warm heads and scamper off when we woke. In the mornings we woke very early and padded barefoot through the dew-wet grass to bring in the cows; a magic time.

As to Robin Hood- in the stories I read when I was but a child, Marian was not his inamorata but that of Alan o'Dale. What's the scoop on that?

Robin Hood was my first absolute hero. I was a girl but I saw no contradiction between that and living in vast forests, bow or staff in hand, flitting from tree to tree, miraculously evading capture. Nowadays, of course, I wonder - where did they keep their horses? What did they feed them? If they bought/stole/were given hay in the winter time where did they store the provender? Where did they keep their cooking pots? Their clothes? Why did no one ever stumble upon their campsites?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 24 May 03 - 08:20 PM

In one of the Robin Hood ballads in Child, Robin has a staff of ground oak. What plant is this?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Oak Trees in Folklore
From: *daylia*
Date: 24 May 03 - 06:05 PM

Well, for Robin Hood and his merry men, the 'bower' sounds like the right place to be, according to Child's Ballad No. 150 -- Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

"14 When bold Robin Hood his Marian did see,
         Good lord, what clipping was there!
       With kind imbraces, and jobbing of faces,
         Providing of gallant cheer.


15 For Little John took his bow in his hand,
       And wandring in the wood,
   To kill the deer, and make good chear,
       For Marian and Robin Hood.


16 A stately banquet the[y] had full soon,
      All in a shaded bower,
   Where venison sweet they had to eat,
      And were merry that present hour.


17 Great flaggons of wine were set on the board,
       And merrily they drunk round
   Their boules of sack, to strengthen the back,
       Whilst their knees did touch the ground."


Lusty drunken tree-huggin "bowerish" lot that they were! Seems like they've won just about all the "tricks" too (he he he), including the trick of remaining fertile ground for the birth of fresh new myths, legends and songs for almost a millenium.

Now, I wonder if that particular "bower" mentioned in the ballad was fashioned by twining together the boughs and vines of the Major Oak ...

;>)   daylia