Through theyr falsë playe.
456.
Cryst have mercy on his soul,
That dyëd on the rode!
For he was a good outlawe,
And dyde pore men moch gode.
ROBIN AND GANDELEYN
The Text is modernised from the only known version, in Sloane MS. 2593, in the British Museum (c. 1450); the minstrel’s song-book which contains the famous carols: ‘I sing of a maiden,’ and ‘Adam lay i-bounden.’ This ballad was first printed by Ritson in his Ancient Songs (1790); but he misunderstood the phrase ‘Robyn lyth’ in the burden for the name ‘Robin Lyth,’ and ingeniously found a cave on Flamborough Head called Robin Lyth’s Hole.
The Story is similar to those told of Robin Hood and Little John; but there is no ground for identifying this Robin with Robin Hood. Wright, in printing the Sloane MS., notes that ‘Gandeleyn’ resembles Gamelyn, whose ‘tale’ belongs to the pseudo-Chaucerian literature. But we can only take this ballad to be, like so many others, an unrelated ‘relique.’