The tane was wedded to Robin Hood,65
And the tither to Little John;
And it was a' owing to their step-mother
That garr'd them leave their hame.
ROBIN HOOD AND THE BEGGAR.
"Robin Hood and his fellow, Little John," says Motherwell, "were popular with the minstrels of Scotland as they were with those of England. Our early poets and historians never tired of alluding to songs current in their own times, relative to these waithmen and their merry men. Even to this day there are fragments of songs regarding them, traditionally extant in Scotland, which have not yet found their way into any printed collection of ballads commemorative of these celebrated outlaws. Were they carefully gathered they would form an interesting addition to Ritson's Robin Hood. In that collection, the ballad of Robin Hood and the Beggar is evidently the production of a Scottish minstrel, pretty early stall copies of which were printed both at Aberdeen and Glasgow."—Minstrelsy, p. xliii.
Ritson printed this ballad (Robin Hood, ii. 97,) from a modern copy printed at Newcastle. He remarks that a similar story may be found in Le Moyen de parvenir, (i. 304, ed. 1739, Comment un moine se débarasse des voleurs.)
We have adopted a superior version given by Gutch, which was from an Aberdeen copy in the Ashmolean Museum, without date.—(Gutch's Robin Hood, ii. 233.)
Robin Hood and the Beggar, with the nine pieces which are now immediately subjoined, the first part of the tenth, (which has the same title as the present,) and the first part of [Robin Hood and the Stranger, in the Appendix], contains a story essentially the same with the first part of the ancient ballad of [Robin Hood and the Potter], p. [17].
Lyth and listen, gentlemen,
That's come of high born blood,
I'll tell you of a brave booting
That befel Robin Hood.
Robin Hood upon a day,5
He went forth alone;
And as he came from Barnesdale
Into fair evening,