Maid Marian

   From about 1500, Marian appears among *Robin Hood's companions; she is said to be his sweetheart who joins him in outlawry. She is chiefly important in *May Day celebrations, court entertainments, and stage and literary tradition; the ballads rarely mention her. She may have been imported from French literature, where 'Robin et Marion' had been stock names for country lovers since the 13th century. But there was also an English 'Marian', a comic figure played by a man in drag, who accompanied Elizabethan morris dancers; he is usually linked to the Fool who, according to a tract of 1589, 'dances round him in a cotton coat, to court him with a leathern pudding' (i.e. a mock sausage, no doubt bawdily used). It is unclear which type of Marian came first, and whether either influenced the other.

   See also *Friar Tuck, *Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.