Origin[]
The bride's earliest surviving appearance is in a ballad that gives her either an unnamed fiance or in one copy Will Scarlet in an alternate tale of his first meeting with Robin Hood as her fiance. For a time this same story made an appearance with her fiance unnamed before the ballad underwent some changes and gave her the wandering minstrel Alan a Dale as her faithful beau.
Merry Men[]
The bride's desired finance Alan, to whom she promised her hand seven years ago, is discovered moping, in some cases preparing for suicide, in the greenwood by Robin Hood and his men a day after they had seen the same young man cheerfully singing his way through the woods. When they ask for his story he tells them that the love of his life is being forced to wed an old knight by her father and Robin eagerly jumps at the chance to stop a forced marriage and tells the man to put on some Lincoln green and join the Merry Men. When they arrive Robin is able to halt the proceedings and the bride informs him and all those gathered that she would rather live in the forest without the accoutrements of her station as a noble lady with the man of her choosing than be given to the knight her father chose. Robin then arranges for their marriage, usually immediately right where the wedding he just stopped was to take place though sometimes after they have all escaped he has Friar Tuck perform the ceremony in the greenwood.
After the Merry Men save her from being forced to marry the old knight and help her get married to Alan she moves with her husband to the Greenwood to live with Robin's band.
Names and Family[]
She gained the name Ellen under Howard Pyle's pen in his The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. In Pierce Egan the Younger's story Robin Hood and Little John she is given the name Lady Christabel, made daughter of the Sheriff of Nottingham and given the addition of a faithful and loyal maidservant named Maude Lindsay. Alan is made into the brother of Maid Marian in this telling as well as being a fully commissioned knight instead of a minstrel.
The British TV series Robin of Sherwood names her Mildred de Bracy and makes the Sheriff of Nottingham the unwanted suitor she's trapped in an arranged marriage with rather than the traditional "old knight". In Angus Donald's Outlaw Chronicles she is Marie-Anne, Countess of Locksley.
Appearances in Media[]
Ballads:[]
- Life of Robin Hood
- Robin Hood and the Bride
- Robin Hood and Allen a Dale
Film:[]
- The Prince of Thieves (1948) (as Lady Christabel) played by Adele Jergens
Literature:[]
- Robin Hood and Little John (as Lady Christabel) by Pierce Egan the Younger
- The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (as May Ellen) by Howard Pyle
- The Romantic History of Robin Hood by Barry Pain (1889)
- Outlaw Chronicles (as Marie-Anne) by Angus Donald (2009)
Television:[]
- Robin of Sherwood
- "Alan A Dale" played by Stephanie Tague
Gallery[]
