Ritson's Robin Hood, ii. 1.
Ritson printed this piece from a black-letter copy in a large and valuable collection of old ballads which successively belonged to Major Pearson, the Duke of Roxburghe, and Mr. Bright, but which is now in the British Museum.
The full title of the original is: A new ballad of bold Robin Hood; shewing his birth, breeding, valour, and marriage at Tilbury Bull-running. Calculated for the meridian of Staffordshire, but may serve for Derbyshire or Kent.
The copy in A Collection of Old Ballads, i. 67, is the same.
Kind gentlemen, will you be patient awhile?
Ay, and then you shall hear anon
A very good ballad of bold Robin Hood,
And of his brave man Little John.
In Locksly town, in merry Nottinghamshire,5
In merry sweet Locksly town,
There bold Robin Hood he was born and was bred,
Bold Robin of famous renown.
The father of Robin a forrester was,
And he shot in a lusty strong bow,10
Two north country miles and an inch at a shot,
As the Pinder of Wakefield does know.
For he brought Adam Bell, and Clim of the Clough,
And William of [Clowdesle],
To shoot with our forrester for forty mark,15
And the forrester beat them all three.
His mother was neece to the Coventry knight,
Which Warwickshire men call sir Guy;
For he slew the blue bore that hangs up at the gate,
Or mine host of the Bull tells a lie.20
Her brother was Gamwel, of Great Gamwel-Hall,
A noble house-keeper was he,
Ay, as ever broke bread in sweet Nottinghamshire,
And a 'squire of famous degree.