A High-Born Lady of Quality: Maid Marian (Robin Hood)

A High-Born Lady of Quality: Maid Marian (Robin Hood)

Name meaning: Variant of Mary Ann. Mary: “Bitter Sorrow”, Ann: “Grace”

Maid Marian, the niece of the neurotic Prince John, is an utter romantic. She has had a crush on Robin Hood since childhood, when they pledged their troth as kids, carving a heart with their initials on a tree in the courtyard. She keeps his wanted poster tacked to the inside of her wardrobe. She is loyal and unconcerned with wealth, unlike her uncle. She likes children, inviting Skippy, his sisters, and Toby Turtle inside when they sneak in to retrieve a mis-fired arrow, and together they act out Robin Hood, with Marian’s handmaiden Lady Cluck playing Prince John in all his comic, ear-tugging, thumb-sucking glory, albeit with a Scottish accent. She recognizes Robin at the archery contest, despite his stork costume, and when he is unmasked she begs Prince John to spare him. Her faith in him is so that he takes a childlike delight, unconcerned, in the ensuing antics of the guards battling Robin and Little John, Lady Cluck body-slamming the rhinos, she herself pitching pies like a Keystone Kop. As he engages in Errol Flynn-esque swordplay, kicking the guards away, they make plans to honeymoon in Spain and have six-plus children (“Six? Oh, a dozen, at least!”) The Merry Men escape into Sherwood Forest, where they put on a sock-puppet play proclaiming Prince John “The Phony King of England”. They dance around the bonfire, the ale flowing, the merriment ensuing. Robin and Marian slip away, Robin showing her the secret passage behind the waterfall and slipping a ring made out of a water lily onto her finger. They embrace in the moonlight. The final scene (the battle between Robin, Prince John and the Sherriff of Nottingham to be discussed on Robin’s page) is Robin and Marian’s wedding, Marian in white lace, Robin in a green jerkin, the church mice throwing rice, the residents of Nottingham cheering. The honeymoon carriage is draped with a “just married” banner, with a heart pierced by Skippy’s celebratory arrow. And King Richard, as he tells Friar Tuck, now has “an outlaw for an in-law.”
Maid Marian quotes
Clucky: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Marian: Or forgetful.
Prince John: I sentence you to sudden, instant, and even immediate death!
Marian: Oh, no. Please. Please, sire. I beg of you to spare his life. Please have mercy.
Prince John: My dear, emotional lady, why should I?
Marian: Because I love him,Your Highness.
Prince John: Love him? And does this prisoner return your love?
Robin Hood: Marian, my darling, I love you more than life itself.

Marian: Oh, he's probably forgotten all about me.
Skippy: Oh, not Robin Hood! I bet he'll storm the castle one day, fight the guards, rescue ya, and drag you off to Sherwood Forest.

Robin Hood: [after just swinging her to safety, he kneels and takes her hand] Marian, my love, will you marry me?
Marian: Oh, of course! [Moves behind Robin Hood so he can continue to fight the Sherriff's men] And you couldn't have chosen a more romantic setting!
Robin Hood: For our honeymoon: London! Paris!
Marian: Yes!
Robin Hood: Sunny Spain?
Marian: [laughs] Why not?

Marian: Oh, Clucky, surely he must know how much I really love him.
Clucky: But of course, my dear. Believe me, someday soon, your Uncle King Richard will have an outlaw for an in-law!