text: Maid Marian is the female companion to the legendary figure Robin Hood.\n\nThe earliest Medieval Robin Hood stories gave him no female companion. The Robin Hood character at this time was rather brutish woodsman and a female companion would have been out of place.\n\nMaid Marian was originally a character in May Games festivities (held during May and early June, most commonly around Whitsun) and is sometimes associated with the Queen or Lady of May of May Day. It has been suggested that she became associated with Robin Hood in this context, as Robin Hood became a central figure in May Day, associated as it was with the forest and archery.\n\nMarian is likely derived from the French tradition of a shepherdess named Marion and her shepherd lover Robin (not Robin Hood). The best known example of this tradition is Adam de la Halle's Le Jeu du Robin et Marion, circa 1283.\n\nIn narrative terms, Maid Marian was first attached to Robin Hood in the late sixteenth century as Robin was gentrified and given a virginal maid to pine after. Her biography and character have been highly variable over the centuries, being sometimes portrayed as a pagan or Saxon and other times as a high born Norman. (Marian's role was not entirely virginal in the early days. In 1592, Thomas Nashe described the Marian of the later May Games as being played by a male actor named Martin, and there are hints in the play of Robin Hood and the Friar that the female character in these plays had become a lewd parody.)\n\nMaid Marian's character evolved, becoming conflated with the Goddess Diana as she became portrayed as a skilled huntress that fought alongside Robin. In the Victorian Era she reverted to her previous role as the dainty maid. With the rise of modern feminism in the 20th century, the character has often been depicted as an adventurer again, sometimes as a crack archer herself. In modern times, a common ending for Robin Hood stories became that he married Maid Marian and left the woods for a civilized aristocratic life. See also Maid Marian and Her Merry Men for a modern role reversal.