ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE

The Text.—The only text of this ballad is in the Percy Folio, from which it is here rendered in modern spelling. Although the original is written continuously, it is almost impossible not to suspect an omission after 2.². Child points out, however, that the abrupt transition is found in other ballads (see Adam Bell, 2.²), and Hales and Furnivall put 2.^3,4 in inverted commas as part of Robin’s relation of his dream. Percy’s emendation was:

‘The woodweete sang, and wold not cese,

Sitting upon the spraye,

Soe lowde, he wakend Robin Hood

In the greenwood where he lay.

Now by my faye, said jollye Robin,

A sweaven[1] I had this night;

I dreamt me of tow mighty yemen

That fast with me can fight.’

The Story.—Whether verses have been lost or not, the story has become confused, as there is nothing to show how Robin knows that the Sheriff of Nottingham holds Little John captive; yet he makes careful preparations to pass himself off as Sir Guy, in order to set John free.

There has come down to us a fragment of a play of Robin Hood and the Sheriff.[2] In this dramatic fragment, an unnamed knight is promised a reward by the sheriff if he takes Robin Hood. The knight and Robin shoot and wrestle and fight; Robin wins, cuts off the knight’s head, puts on his clothes, and takes the head away with him. A second scene shows how the sheriff takes prisoner the other outlaws, amongst whom is Friar Tuck; but the allocation of the parts in the dialogue is mostly conjectural.

[1.] sweaven, dream.

[2.] See Introduction, p. xxii.