History

Maid Marian was originally a character in May Games festivities (held during May and early June, most commonly around Whitsun) (Knight pp.11-12) and is sometimes associated with the Queen or Lady of May of May Day. She became associated with Robin Hood in this context, as Robin Hood became a central figure in May Day, associated as it was with the forest and archery. Both Robin and Marian were certainly associated with May Day festivities in England (as was Friar Tuck); these were originally two distinct types of performance — Alexander Barclay, writing in c.1500, refers to "some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood" — but the characters were brought together.

Marian is likely derived from the French tradition of a shepherdess named Marion and her shepherd lover Robin (not Robin Hood). The best known example of this tradition is Adam de la Halle's Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, circa 1283.

Marion, indeed, remained associated with such celebrations long after the fashion of Robin Hood faded again.

Many early Robin Hood tales deal with Robin's devotion to the Virgin Mary (such as in Robin Hood and the Monk).This aspect of the character slowly vanishes as Maid Marian makes her way into the tales. This, combined with Marian's initial status as a maid, suggests another possible origin for the character.

Marian did not immediately gain the unquestioned role as Robin's love; in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor and Marriage, his sweetheart is 'Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses'. Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian.

Character

In narrative terms, Maid Marian was first attached to Robin Hood in the late sixteenth century as Robin was gentrified and given a virginal maid to pine after. Her biography and character have been highly variable over the centuries, being sometimes portrayed as a pagan or Saxon and other times as a high born Norman. (Marian's role was not entirely virginal in the early days. In 1592, Thomas Nashe described the Marian of the later May Games as being played by a male actor named Martin, and there are hints in the play of Robin Hood and the Friar that the female character in these plays had become a lewd parody.)

In an Elizabethan play, Alexander Munday made her a pseudonym of Matilda Fitzwalter, the historical daughter of Robert Fitzwalter, who had to flee England because an attempt to assassinate King John. This was legendarily attributed to King John's attempts to seduce Matilda.

In the Victorian Era she reverted to her previous role as the dainty maid. This highborn woman appears in many movies, under various characters: in The Adventures of Robin Hood, she is a courageous and loyal woman, whose initial antagonism to Robin springs not from aristocratic disdain but out of dislike of robbery; in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, she, though a lady-in-waiting to Eleanor of Aquitaine during the Crusades, is a mischievous tomboy capable of escaping over the countryside disguised as a boy. With the rise of modern feminism in the 20th century, the character has often been depicted as an adventurer again, sometimes as a crack archer herself. In modern times, a common ending for Robin Hood stories became that he married Maid Marian and left the woods for a civilized, aristocratic life.

Marian's actual connection to the Plantagenet royals tends to vary. Generally she is depicted as a high-ranking lady of the court. In the famous Errol Flynn film, she is a ward of the court, an orphaned noblewoman under the protection of King Richard. In the Kevin Costner epic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, she is a maternal cousin to the sovereign. Possibly the oddest connection is found in the animated Disney Robin Hood; it is stated that Maid Marian is King Richard's niece, even though she is depicted as a fox and he as a lion.

Literature

There have been several books based on the fictional character:

• Maid Marian — 1821 novel by Thomas Love Peacock
• Maid Marian — 2004 novel by Elsa Watson
• Lady of the Forest; novel by Jennifer Roberson
• Lady of Sherwood; novel by Jennifer Roberson
• The Forestwife (and its sequels, although she's only the main character in the first); young adult novel by Theresa Tomlinson.
• The Sonic the Hedgehog Archie Comics feature a character named Mari-An, who is clearly based on Maid Marian, though she is an anthropomorphic echidna.

Television

• Maid Marian was the lead character in Tony Robinson's BBC children's comedy Maid Marian and her Merry Men. In the show, Marian was portrayed as the real leader of the Merry Men, whilst Robin was a vain coward who had become the leader by accident.
• Maid Marian was played first by Bernadette O'Farrell, and then by Patricia Driscoll in the 1950's series The Adventures of Robin Hood.
• in the 1980s HTV show Robin of Sherwood, Marian was played by Judi Trott, and after meeting and falling in love with Robin, lived with him and the other outlaws in Sherwood Forest.
• In Blackadder: Back & Forth, Maid Marian is portrayed by supermodel Kate Moss.

• In the BBC's 2006 version Robin Hood, Lucy Griffiths plays the role of Lady Marian, as opposed to Maid Marian. In this version of the tale, she is daughter of a previous Sheriff of Nottingham. Beautiful and quick of mind, Marian is headstrong and feisty. Disgusted by the current Sheriff's schemes, she disguises herself as the Nightwatchman to deliver food to the poor. She is also shown as a competent archer. Although she had been Robin Hood's fiancee before his departure for the Crusades, their relationship is rocky after his return, and she is soon forced into an engagement with the Sheriff's second-in-command, Guy of Gisborne. She often feeds Robin information which helps him to outsmart and defeat the Sheriff's various plots. She was stabbed and killed by Guy of Gisbourne in the season finale.

Movies

• In the 1938 movie The Adventures of Robin Hood, Maid Marian is played by Olivia de Havilland
• In Disney's animated version of Robin Hood, Maid Marian was an anthropomorphic vixen voiced by Monica Evans.
• In the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Maid Marian is played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
• In the 1991 British Television movie, Robin Hood, Maid Marian is played by Uma Thurman.
• In the movie Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Maid Marian is played by Amy Yasbeck.
• In the 1976 movie, Robin and Marian, Lady Marian is played by Audrey Hepburn.
• In the Disney movie Princess of Thieves, Robin Hood and Maid Marian are the parents of a daughter, the eponymous 'princess' played by Keira Knightley.

Music

• In Page McConnell's solo album, Page McConnell, a song is entitled "Maid Marian", claiming that Page is "...not looking for Maid Marian".

References

• Knight, Stephen (2003) Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. University of Cornell Press.

External links

• Robin Hood and Maid Marian, a 17th century ballad with additional information
• http://www.cherishedtelevision.co.uk/patriciadriscoll.html