of this sport, the Flemish print given
by Douce in his "Illustrations of Shakspeare," and Tollett's
celebrated painted window, (described in Johnson and Steevens's
Shakspeare,) we may form an idea of what was essential and what
adventitious in the English spectacle. 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. In like manner, the Hobby-Horse was quite early adopted
into the Morris, of which it formed no original part, and at last even
a Dragon was annexed to the company. Under these circumstances we
cannot be surprised to find the principal performers in the May
pageants passing the one into the other,--to find the May King, whose
occupation was gone when the gallant outlaw had supplanted him in the
favor of the Lady, assuming the part of the Hobby-Horse,[15] Robin
Hood usurping the title of King of the May,[16] and the Hobby-Horse
entering into a contest with the Dragon, as St. George.

We feel obliged to regard this interchange of functions among the
characters in the English May-pageants as fortuitous, notwithstanding
the coincidence of the May King sometimes appearing on horseback in
Germany, and notwithstanding our conviction that Kuhn is right in
maintaining that the May King, the Hobby-Horse, and the Dragon-Slayer
are symbols of one mythical idea. This idea we are compelled by want
of