{lxxxix}
3. “To overshoot Robin Hood.”
“And lastly and chiefly, they cry out with open mouth as if they had overshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished them [i.e. poets] out of his commonwealth” (Sir P. Sidney’s Defence of Poesie).
4. “Tales of Robin Hood are good [enough] for fools.”
This proverb is inserted in Camden’s Remains, printed originally in 1605; but the word in brackets is supplied from Ray.
5. “To sell Robin Hood’s pennyworths.”
“It is spoken of things sold under half their value; or if you will, half sold, half given. Robin Hood came lightly by his ware, and lightly parted therewith; so that he could afford the length of his bow for a yard of velvet. Whithersoever he came, he carried a fair along with him; chapmen crowding to buy his stollen commodities. But seeing the receiver is as bad as the thief, and such buyers are as bad as receivers, the cheap pennyworths of plundered goods may in fine prove dear enough to their consciences” (Fuller’s Worthies, p. 315).
This saying is alluded to in the old North-country song of Randal a Barnaby:
“All men said, it became me well,
And Robin Hood’s pennyworths I did sell.”
6. “Come, turn about, Robin Hood.”