rinda, “queen of the shepherds.” The two venture into
the forest, whereupon she shoots a buck with her bow
and arrow. Robin is smitten and wants to marry Clo-
rinda at once; however, she is due at Titbury for a feast.
Robin, Clorinda, Little John, and assorted yeomen go
together to Titbury, but they are ambushed on the way.
Robin kills fi ve men at once, and then all go to the
Titbury Christmas fair, where people are singing bal-
lads and dancing. Robin and Clorinda are married by
the parson, and the poem ends with a prayer for the
king, that he “may get children, and they may get more,
/ To govern and do us some good” (ll. 219–220).
This poem highlights the turning point between the
yeoman Robin Hood, who tricks the established aris-
tocracy and ruling classes, and the Robin Hood who is
of noble pedigree. At the close of The Birth of Robin
Hood, it is clear that the gentrifi cation of the outlaw
here has made him a respected individual. Some schol-
ars have seen this as a bit problematic: How can an
outlaw hero, one who purports to know and fi ght for
the less fortunate, originate from the very estate that
seeks to dominate and oppress the less fortunate? Oth-
ers have researched the clash between city life and
rural life, especially the growing trend toward urban-
ization. Another area of interest to scholars is the char-
acter of Gamwell. The Birth of Robin Hood opens with a
genealogy, so to speak, of English outlaws, all of whom
were featured in their own narratives or included at
length in a Robin Hood ballad. Of those named, only
Gamwell, Robin’s uncle, does not have an existing nar-
rative; perhaps at one point there was a Gamwell out-
law narrative(s).
See also GEST OF ROBYN HODE, A.
FURTHER READING
Robin Hood’s Birth, Breeding, Valour, and Marriage. Robin
Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, TEAMS Middle English Text
Series, edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren,
527–540. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publica-
tions, 2000.
Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. Ithaca,
N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Alexander L. Kaufman
“BISCLAVRET” MARIE DE FRANCE (late 12th
century) The fourth of the 12 Breton lais of MARIE DE
FRANCE, “Bisclavret” (titled in Norman French “Garwuf,”
or “The Werewolf,” the narrator tells us) is preserved
complete in one ANGLO-NORMAN manuscript. Typical of
Marie’s lais (see LAY), love is a central thematic element
of the poem, yet in “Bisclavret” a base sexual relation-
ship stands in stark contrast to the exemplary, dutiful
love between a king and one of his loyal lords.
In Brittany, in northwestern France, a noble lord
who is “a fi ne, handsome knight” (l. 17) is loved by
neighbors and is very close to his king. He is married
to an estimable woman who is content in all but the
fact that her husband regularly disappears for three
days midweek. When nagged and pressed by his wife,
he admits that he becomes a werewolf, living in the
woods off his hunted prey and going about unclothed.
After extracting from her husband where he hides his
clothes when transformed, the wife hastily offers her-
self to another knight who has loved her for years (and
for whom she feels no love) in the hope of engaging his
services. Having been told the exact route to the hiding
place, the knight steals the lord’s clothes, rendering
him trapped in his werewolf form.
Out hunting one day, the king’s hounds chase the
werewolf, Bisclavret, only to see the werewolf beg on
the king’s stirrups for mercy. Recognizing that the
beast possesses “understanding and sense” (l. 157), the
king calls off his hounds and hunters and pardons the
werewolf, who becomes a favorite at court. His noble
behavior remains consistent until at a feast of all the
king’s lords and barons, he savagely attacks the evil
knight who stole his clothes and who is now married
to his wife. Here again, reason is key, as members of
the court stay the king from punishing the beast and
explain that since he has never harmed anyone before,
he must surely have some grudge against the knight
whom he therefore justifi ably attacked. Mollifi ed, the
king spares the beast a second time.
Hearing that the king will pass near her home on a
progress one day, the wife dresses herself in her fi nest
clothes to meet him, only to be attacked by Bisclavret,
who tears her nose from her face. Rather than punish
the beast, the court decides that, again, Bisclavret must
have had some just cause for the attack, and, under
torture, the wife reveals his true identity and the decep-
tion she and her knight lover have committed.82 “BISCLAVRET”