Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

In Wakefield there lives a jolly Pinder, in Wakefield all on a Green,
There is neither Knight nor Squire, said the Pinder; nor Baron that is so bold,
Dare make a trespass to the town of Wakefield, but his Pledge goes to the Pinfold, etc.
All this beheard three witty young Men, ’twas Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John, etc.

With that they espy’d the jolly Pinder, as he sat under a thorn, etc.
Now turn again, turn again, said the Pinder, for a wrong way you have gone, etc.
For you have forsaken the King’s High-way and made a path over the Corn, etc.
O that were great shame, said jolly Robin, we being three, and thou but one, etc.

The Pinder leapt back then thirty good foot, ’twas thirty good foot and one, etc.
He leaned his back fast unto a thorn, and his foot against a stone, etc.
And there they fought a long Summers day, a summers day so long, etc.
‘Till that their swords on their broad bucklers, were broke fast unto their hands, etc.

Hold thy hand, hold thy hand, said Robin Hood, and my merry men every one, etc.
For this is one of the best Pinders that ever I tryed with sword, etc.
And wilt thou forsake thy Pinders Craft, and live in the Green-wood with me, etc.
At Michelmas next my Cov’nant comes out, when every man gathers his fee, etc.
I’ll take my blew blade all in my hand, and plod to the green wood with thee, etc.
Hast thou either meat or drink? said Robin Hood, for my merry men and me, etc.
I have both bread and beef, said the Pinder,
and good Ale of the best, etc.
And that is Meat good enough, said Robin Hood,
for such unbidden Guest, etc.
O wilt thou forsake the Pinder his Craft,
and go to the Green-Wood with me? etc.
Thou shalt have a Livery twice in the year,
the one green, the other brown, etc.
If Michaelmas day was come and gone,
and my Master had paid me my fee,
and my Master had paid me my fee,
Then would I set as little by him,
as my Master doth by me,
as my Master doth by me.

Comment

Comment

Here from the same source is the music. Prince John’s rebellion was in the 12th century, the first known version of the ballad dates from the 1550s (Knight 1997), and we’ll never know when people first imagined this happening.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

In Wakefield there lives a jolly Pinder,
in Wakefield all on a Green,
in Wakefield all on a Green;
There is neither Knight nor Squire, said the Pinder;
nor Baron that is so bold,
nor Baron that is so bold;
Dare make a tresspass to the town of Wakefield,
but his Pledge goes to the Pinfold, etc.
All this beheard three witty young Men,
‘Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John, etc.

With that they espy’d the jolly Pinder,
as he sat under a thorn, etc.
Now turn again, turn again, said the Pinder,
for a wrong way you have gone, etc.
For you have forsaken the King’s High-way
and made a path over the Corn, etc.
O that were great shame, said jolly Robin,
we being three, and thou but one, etc.
The Pinder leapt back then thirty good foot,
’twas thirty good foot and one, etc.
He leaned his back fast unto a thorn,
and his foot against a stone, etc.
And there they fought a long Summers day,
a summers day so long, etc.
‘Till that their swords on their broad bucklers,
were broke fast unto their hands, etc.

Hold thy hand, hold thy hand, said Robin Hood,
and my merry men every one, etc.
For this is one of the best Pinders
that ever I tryed with sword, etc.
And wilt thou forsake thy Pinders Craft,
and live in the Green-wood with me, etc.
At Michelmas next my Cov’nant comes out,
when every man gathers his fee, etc.
I’ll take my blew blade all in my hand,
and plod to the green wood with thee, etc.
Hast thou either meat or drink? said Robin Hood,
for my merry men and me, etc.
I have both bread and beef, said the Pinder,
and good Ale of the best, etc.
And that is Meat good enough, said Robin Hood,
for such unbidden Guest, etc.
O wilt thou forsake the Pinder his Craft,
and go to the Green-Wood with me? etc.
Thou shalt have a Livery twice in the year,
the one green, the other brown, etc.
If Michaelmas day was come and gone,
and my Master had paid me my fee,
and my Master had paid me my fee,
Then would I set as little by him,
as my Master doth by me,
as my Master doth by me.

449 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Animal pound (3) ·
• Ballad (18) ·
• Broadside ballad (2) ·
• Child Ballads (1) ·
• Little John (1) ·
• Michaelmas (6), feast principally of St. Michael on 29 September, one of the four quarter days of the financial, judicial, and academic year, in medieval England the beginning and end of the husbandman's year, hence hiring fairs at this time ·
• Pepys Library (1) ·
• Robin Hood (4) ·
• Song (20) ·
• The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield (1) ·
• 📌Wakefield (36), cathedral city on the River Calder in the West Riding/West Yorkshire ·
• Will Scarlet (1) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 25 July 1603: Sir Richard Wortley, persecutor of his neighbours, dies, and is zoomorphised as the protagonist of the ballad of the Dragon of Wantley
• 18 November 1237: Robin Hood is bled to death by the nuns of Kirklees Priory, according to Victorian mythologists
• 22 August 1572: The head of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland and leader of the Catholic Rising of the North, is impaled on Micklegate Bar, York, where it stays for two years
• 13 May 1851: The Flying Dutchman runs the Great Match against Voltigeur at the York races
• 3 July 1816: Emilia Monteiro (15) of Lisbon dies in the French refugee convent at Heath Old Hall, Wakefield, and is commemorated by a local Liberal doggerelist
• 18 April 1812: Dressed as a country lass, George Butler recites the West Riding dialect tragicomedy of Richard and Betty at the Theatre Royal, Ripon
• 31 December 1848: A fragment of the Richmond Hagmena song, performed this New Year’s Eve by the town pinder
• 5 September 1860: Friends of Elizabeth Mitchell (14), murdered by a fellow-servant at Upton (Pontefract), bear her to her grave at South Kirkby
• 29 January 1785: The beginning of a fox-hunting song by W.S. Kenrick and J. Burtell about the odyssey of the Cleveland hounds on this day
• 10 December 1769: Part of the northern ballad about Bill Brown, a Brightside (Sheffield) steelworker and hare-poacher killed by gamekeepers today near Rotherham