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INTRODUCTION. |
XXV |
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is a corruption, or dialectic form, of Robin of the Wood, and when we remember that wood is pronounced hood in some parts of England,1 (as whoop is pronounced hoop everywhere,) and that the outlaw bears in so many languages a name descriptive of his habitation, this notion will not seem an idle fancy.
Various circumstances, however, have disposed writers of learning to look further for a solution of the question before us. Mr. Wright propounds an hypothesis that Robin Hood was " one among the personages of the early mythology of the Teutonic peoples ;" and a German scholar,2 in an
in his absence, is no more than mtu chinl, in Old High Dutch, and signifies the son of the wood, an appellation which he could never have received at his birth, since it denotes an exile or outlaw. Indeed, the name Witikind, though such a person seems to have existed, appears to be the representative of all the defenders of his country against the invaders." (Cf. the Three Tells.)
i Thus, in Kent, the Hobby Horse is called hooden, i, e. wooden. It is curious that Orlando, in As You Like It, (who represents the outlaw Gamelyn in the Tale of Gamelyn, a tale which clearly belongs to the cycle of Robin Hood,) should be the son of Sir Rowland de Bois. Eobin de Bois (says a writer in Notes and Queries, vi. 597) occurs in one of Sue's novels " as a well-known mythical character, whose name is employed by French mothers to frighten their thildren."
2 Kuhn, in Haupt's Zeitschrifl fur deutsches Alterthum, v. 472. The idea of a northern myth will of course excite the alarm of all sensible patriotic Englishmen, (e. g. Mr. Hunter, at page 3 of his tract,) and the bare suggestion of "Woden will be received, in the same quarters, with an explosion |
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