space barely to state, with the certainty of doing injustice to the
learning and ingenuity with which the author has supported his
views. Kuhn has shown it to be extremely probable, first, that the
Christmas games, which both in Germany and England have a close
resemblance to those of Spring, are to be considered as a prelude to
the May sports, and that they both originally symbolized the victory
of Summer over Winter,[17] which, beginning at the winter solstice, is
completed in the second month of spring; secondly, that the conquering
Summer is represented by the May King, or by the Hobby-Horse (as also
by the Dragon-Slayer, whether St. George, Siegfried, Apollo, or the
Sanskrit Indras); and thirdly, that the Hobby-Horse in particular
represents the god Woden, who, as well as Mars [18] among the Romans,
is the god at once of Spring and of Victory.

The essential point, all this being admitted, is now to establish the
identity of Robin Hood and the Hobby-Horse. This we think we have
shown cannot be done by reasoning founded on the early history of the
games under consideration. Kuhn relies principally upon two modern
accounts of Christmas pageants. In one of these pageants there is
introduced a man on horseback, who carries in his hands a bow and
arrows. The other furnishes nothing peculiar except a name: the
ceremony is called a _hoodening,_ and the hobby-horse a
_hooden_. In the rider with bow and arrows Kuhn sees Robin Hood
and the Hobby-Horse, and in the name _hooden_ (which is explained
by the authority he quotes to mean wooden) he discovers a provincial
form of wooden, which connects the outlaw and the divinity.[19] It
will be generally agreed that these slender premises are totally
inadequate to support the weighty conclusion that is rested upon them.

Why the adventures of Robin Hood should be specially assigned, as they
are in the old ballads, to the month of May, remains unexplained. We
have no exquisite reason to offer, but we may perhaps find reason good
enough in the delicious stanzas with which some of these ballads
begin.

"In summer when the shawes be sheen,
And leaves be large and long,
It is full merry in fair forest
To hear the fowles song;
To see the deer draw to the dale,
And leave the hilles hee,
And shadow them in the leaves green
Under the green-wood tree."

The poetical character of the season affords all the explanation that
is require