ic peoples"; and a German
scholar,[13] in an exceedingly interesting article which throws much
light on the history of English sports, has endeavored to show
specifically that he is in name and substance one with the god
Woden. The arguments by which these views are supported, though in
their present shape very far from convincing, are entitled to a
respectful consideration.

The most important of these arguments are those which are based on the
peculiar connection between Robin Hood and the month of
May. Mr. Wright has justly remarked, that either an express mention of
this month, or a vivid description of the season, in the older
ballads, shows that the feats of the hero were generally performed
during this part of the year. Thus, the adventure of "Robin Hood and
the Monk" befell on "a morning of May." "Robin Hood and the Potter"
and "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" begin, like "Robin Hood and the
Monk," with a description of the season when leaves are long, blossoms
are shooting, and the small birds are singing; and this season, though
called summer, is at the same time spoken of as May in "Robin Hood and
the Monk," which, from the description there given, it needs must be.
The liberation of Cloudesly by Adam Bel and Clym of the Clough is also
achieved "on a merry morning of May."

Robin Hood is, moreover, intimately associated with the month of May
through the games which were celebrated at that time of the year. The
history of these games is unfortunately very defective, and hardly
extends farther back than the beginning of the sixteenth century. By
that time their primitive character seems to have been corrupted, or
at least their significance was so far forgotten, that distinct
pastimes and ceremonials were capriciously intermixed. At the
beginning of the sixteenth century the May sports in vogue were,
besides a contest of archery, four _pageants_,--the Kingham, or
election of a Lord and Lady of the May, otherwise called Summer King
and Queen, the Morris-Dance, the Hobby-Horse, and the "Robin Hood."
Though these pageants were diverse in their origin, they had, at the
epoch of which we write, begun to be confounded; and the Morris
exhibited a tendency to absorb and blend them all, as, from its
character, being a procession interspersed with dancing, it easily
might do. We shall hardly find the Morris pure and simple in the
English May-game; but from a comparison of the two earliest
representations which we have