“Being an account of their first meeting, their fierce encounter, and conquest. To which is added, their friendly agreement; and how he came to be called Little John. Tune of Arthur a Bland.”
This ballad is named in a schedule of such things under an agreement between W. Thackeray and others in 1689 (Col. Pepys. vol. 5), but is here given as corrected from a copy in the “Collection of Old Ballads,” 1723.
The notion that Little John obtained this appellation, ironically, from his superior stature, though doubtless ill-founded, is of considerable antiquity. See “Notes and Illustrations to the Life,” p. cxvi.
When Robin Hood was about twenty years old,
With a hey down, down, and a down ;
He happen’d to meet Little John,
A jolly brisk blade, right fit for the trade,
For he was a lusty young man. {291}
Tho’ he was call’d Little, his limbs they were large,
And his stature was seven foot high ;