It has been suggested (by Professor Brandl) that the episode of the king’s disguise in green is an intentional variation of the episode in the Third Fytte, where the Sheriff of Nottingham is forced to wrap himself in a green mantle. In any case it is probable that most of this Eighth Fytte is the work of the compiler of the Gest; possibly even the delightful verses (stt. 445-6) in which the joy of greenwood life overcomes Robin.
One could wish the Gest ended with st. 450; but it is clear that the compiler knew of a ballad which narrated the death of Robin Hood, no doubt an earlier version of the Robin Hood’s Death of the Percy Folio, a ballad unfortunately incomplete (see p. 140).
Every famous outlaw of English tradition visits the king’s court sooner or later, and makes peace with the king; but Robin’s independence was too dear to him—and to the ballad-singers whose ideal he was—to allow him to go to the king voluntarily. Therefore the king must come to Robin; and here the compiler, perhaps, saw his opportunity to introduce the king-in-disguise theme, and so evolved the two last fyttes of the Gest.
THE EIGHTH FYTTE
418.
‘Haste thou ony grene cloth,’ sayd our kynge,
‘That thou wylte sell nowe to me?’
‘Ye, for God,’ sayd Robyn,
‘Thyrty yerdes and three.’
419.