Robin Hood's Golden Prize [Child 147]

DESCRIPTION: Robin, disguised as a friar, asks alms of two priests in the wood. They claim that they were robbed and have nothing. Robin follows them and forces them to reveal the gold they are carrying. He makes them vow never to lie or cheat in the future
AUTHOR: unknown (Wing suggested Laurence Price, whose initials appear in one early copy)
EARLIEST DATE: 1663 (garland); what seems to be this ballad was registered 1656 in the Stationer's Register and Wing dates one broadside version to 1650
KEYWORDS: Robinhood money clergy lie
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Child 147, "Robin Hood's Golden Prize" (1 text)
Bronson 147, comments only
Ritson-RobinHood, pp. 174-177, "Robin Hood's Golden Prize" (1 text)
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 420-422, "Robin Hood's Golden Prize" (1 text)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 123, "Robin Hood's Golden Prize" (1 text)
Olson-BroadsideBalladIndex, RZN11, "I have heard talk of Robin Hood"
ADDITIONAL: Stephen Knight, editor (with a manuscript description by Hilton Kelliher), _Robin Hood: The Forresters Manuscript_ (British Library Additional MS 71158), D. S. Brewer, 1998, pp. 2-5, "Robin Hood and the Preists" (1 text, with few significant differences from the broadsides)
Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, editors, _Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000, pp. 556-562, "Robin Hood's Golden Prize" (1 text, newly edited from the sources)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSForresters}, London, British Library MS. Additional 71158, the "Foresters Manuscript," item 12
Roud #3990
NOTES [291 words]: For background on the Robin Hood legend, see the notes on "A Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117].
Hyder E. Rollins, An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries (1557-1709) In the Register of the Company of Stationers of London, 1924 (I use the 1967 Tradition Press reprint with a new Foreword by Leslie Shepard), p. 200, #2315, is "Robin Hods goulden pryse," registered June 2, 1656 by Francis Grove.
Wing's attribution of this piece to Laurence Price seems to be widely accepted; Chappell mentioned it in his book on the Roxburghe Ballads, and Knight, p. 77, says that it is "apparently written" by Price. Dobson/Taylor, p. 48, seem to have no doubts in the matter. This would explain the strong anti-clerical tone of the piece; Price was active in the middle part of the seventeenth century (Chappell dates his work "before the restoration"), when England was extremely anti-Catholic.
Price himself is such an obscure figure that (as of October 2010) he doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry. Nor have I found biographies of him in my literary references. The few poems I've manage to find (such as those in Chappell) did not impress me. This is not among the broadsides attributed to Price on p. 467 of A. W. Pollard, G. R. Redgrave, et al, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland & Ireland And of English Books Printed Abroad 1475-1640, The Bibliographical Society [of London], 1963. To be sure, Price could have written it after that.
Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) wrote a piece, "Robin Hood and the Two Grey Friars," which looks as if it might have been inspired by this; Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory prints it on pp. 20-21 as "Bold Robin." It does not strike me as an improvement on the original. - RBW
Bibliography

Dobson/Taylor: R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976
Knight: Stephen Knight, editor (with a manuscript description by Hilton Kelliher), Robin Hood: The Forresters Manuscript (British Library Additional MS 71158), D. S. Brewer, 1998

Last updated in version 6.6
File: C147

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography