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Adam Bell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adam Bell was a legendary English outlaw.
He and his companions William of Cloudsley and Clym of the Clough lived in Inglewood Forest near Carlisle, and were figures similar to Robin Hood. In the prologue of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883) by Howard Pyle, Little John upon first meeting Robin compared his skill at archery to that of Adam Bell.
They are described in the Child Ballad Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee. At one point William of Cloudsley shoots an arrow through an apple on his son's head, a feat also ascribed to William Tell and other heroes. The oldest printed copy of this ballad is dated 1550. There are notable parallels between this ballad and that of Robin Hood and the Monk, but whether either legend was the source for the other can not be established.[1]
Adam Bell is presumably the "Adam" mentioned by Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing, I,i,257-9:
- ...hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me, and he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on
- the shoulder, and call'd Adam.[2]
Adam Bell was played by Bryan Marshall in the Robin of Sherwood episode Adam Bell.
- ^ Holt, J. C. Robin Hood p 73 (1982) Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27541-6
- ^ G. Blakemore Evans, ed., The Riverside Shakespeare, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1974; p. 335 n. 259.
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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