The Lady is evidently the
central personage in both. She is, we presume, the same as the Queen
of May, who is the oldest of all the characters in the May games, and
the apparent successor to the Goddess of Spring in the Roman
Floralia. In the English Morris she is called simply The Lady, or more
frequently Maid Marian, a name which, to our apprehension, means Lady
of the May, and nothing more.[14] A fool and a taborer seem also to
have been indispensable; but the other dancers had neither names nor
peculiar offices, and were unlimited in number. The Morris, then,
though it lost in allegorical significance, would gain considerably in
spirit and variety by combining with the other shows. Was it not
natural, therefore, and in fact inevitable, that the old favorites of
the populace, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and Little John, should in the
course of time displace three of the anonymous performers in the show?
This they had pretty effectually done at the beginning of the
sixteenth century; and the Lady, who had accepted the more precise
designation of Maid Marian, was after that generally regarded as the
consort of Robin Hood, though she sometimes appeared in the Morris
without him.
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