Operas Every Child Should Know - Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

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the glades) are found;

      We hunt the deer, afar and near,

      Our hunting horns do we sound.

      And thus begins the merriest tale of the merriest lives imaginable. It is on a May morning: every young sprint and his sweetheart in Nottingham are out in their best, for the fair – May-day fair in Nottingham; and near at hand, Alan-a-Dale, Little John, Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, and the finest company of outlaws ever told about, are just entering the town to add to the gaiety.

      Now in the village of Nottingham lived Dame Durden and her daughter, Annabel. Annabel was a flirtatious young woman who welcomed the outlaws in her very best manner. She assured them that outlaws of such high position would surely add much to the happiness of the occasion; and they certainly did, before the day was over. The outlaws came in, as fine a looking lot and as handsome as one would wish to see, and joined the village dance. It was an old English dance, called a "Morris Dance," with a lilt and a tilt which set all feet a-going.

music

      [Listen]

      Fa la, fa la,

      Trip a morris dance hilarious,

      Lightly brightly,

      Trip in measure multifarious,

      Fa la la, fa la la,

      Trip a morris dance hilarious,

      Lightly and brightly we celebrate the fair!

      If anything was needed to add to the gaiety of the day, the outlaws furnished it, because, among other things, they brought to the fair a lot of goods belonging to other people, and they meant to put them up at auction.

      Friar Tuck was an old renegade monk who travelled about with the merry men of Sherwood, to seem to lend a little piety to their doings. He had a little bottle-shaped belly and the dirtiest face possible, a tonsured head, and he wore a long brown habit tied round the middle with a piece of rope which did duty for several things besides tying this gown. He was a droll, jolly little bad man and he began the auction with mock piety:

      As an honest auctioneer,

      I'm prepared to sell you here

      Some goods in an assortment that is various;

      Here's a late lamented deer

      (That was once a King's, I fear)

      Killing him was certainly precarious.

      Here I have for sale

      Casks of brown October ale,

      Brewed to make humanity hilarious;

      Here's a suit of homespun brave

      Fit for honest man or knave;

      Here's a stock in fact that's multifarious.

      And so it was!

      His stock consisted of the most curious assortment of plunder one ever saw even at a Nottingham fair in the outlaw days of Robin Hood.

      While all that tow-wow was going on, people were coming in droves to the fair; and among them came Robert of Huntingdon. The name is very thrilling, since the first part gives one an inkling that he beholds for the first time the future Robin Hood. However, on that May morning he was not yet an outlaw. He was a simple Knight of the Shire.

      The Sheriff, who was a great personage in Nottingham, had a ward whom he had foisted upon the good folks of Nottinghamshire as an Earl, but as a fact he was simply a country lout, and all the teachings of the Sheriff would not make him appear anything different. Robert of Huntingdon was the Earl, in fact, and the Sheriff was going to try to keep him out of his title and estates. The merry men of Sherwood forest were great favourites with Robert and they were his friends. During the fair a fine cavalier, very dainty for a man, fascinating, was caught by Friar Tuck kissing a girl, and was brought in with a great to-do. She declared that she had a right to kiss a pretty girl, since her business was that of cavalier. Robin Hood discovered her sex, underneath her disguise, and began to make love to her.

      Among other reasons for Robin Hood being at the fair was that of making the Sheriff confer upon him his title to the Earldom. When he boldly made his demand, the foxy Sheriff declared that he had a half-brother brought up by him, and that the half-brother, and not Robert, was the Earl.

      "You are a vain, presumptuous youth," the Sheriff declared. "You are no Earl, instead it is this lovely youth whom I have brought up so carefully." And he put forth Guy, the bumpkin. This created an awful stir, and all the outlaws who were fond of Robin Hood took up the case for him.

      "A nice sort of Earl, that," Little John cried.

      "You think we will acknowledge him as heir to the estates of Huntingdon? Never!" Scarlet declared.

      "Traitor!" Robin Hood cried to the Sheriff. "In the absence of the King I know that your word is law; but wait till the King returns from his Crusade! I'll show you then whose word is to prevail."

      "My friend!" Little John then cried, stepping into the middle of the row, "take thou this good stout bow of yew. You are going to join us and make one of Sherwood's merry men till his Majesty returns and reinstates you as the rightful Earl of Huntingdon. Come! Say you will be one of us." All the outlaws crowded affectionately about Robert and urged him.

      "You shall become King of Outlaws, if you will," Scarlet cried. "Come! accept our friendship. Become our outlaw king!"

      After thinking a moment, Robert turned and looked at the gay cavalier whom he knew to be his cousin Marian, in masquerade, and whom he loved. Then he decided he would go and live a gay and roving life in the forest till he could return and marry his cousin as the Earl of Huntingdon should.

      "Farewell," he sang to her. "Farewell, till we meet again," and he was carried off amid the uproarious welcome of the outlaws of Sherwood forest, to become their leader till the King returned from the Crusades to make him Earl.

ACT II

      Away in Sherwood forest the outlaws were encamped – which meant merely the building of a fire and the assembling of the merry men. Robin Hood had become their leader.

      Oh, cheerily soundeth the hunter's horn,

      Its clarion blast so fine;

      Through depths of old Sherwood so clearly borne,

      We hear it at eve and at break of morn,

      Of Robin Hood's band the sign.

      A hunting we will go,

      Tra-ra-ra-tra-ra!

      We'll chase for the roe,

      Tra-ra-ra-tra-ra!

      Oh where is band so jolly

      As Robin's band in their Lincoln green?

      Their life is naught but folly,

      A rollicking life I ween!

      Now the merry men gathered about their fire, and while the old monk was broiling the meat, they all lounged about in comfortable ways and Little John sang to them:

      And it's will ye quaff with me, my lads,

      And it's will ye quaff with me?

      It is a draught of nut-brown ale

      I offer unto ye.

      All humming in the tankard, lads,

      It cheers the heart forlorn;

      Oh! here's a friend to everyone,

      'Tis stout John Barley-corn.

      So laugh, lads, and quaff, lads!

      'Twill make you stout and hale,

      Through all my days I'll sing the praise

      Of brown October ale!

      While the outlaws were lounging thus, in came the Sheriff, Sir Guy, the spurious Earl, and a lot of journeymen tinkers. Immediately they began a gay chorus, telling how they were men of such metal that no can or kettle can withstand their attack, and as they hammered upon their tin pans, one

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