Robin Hood / A collection of all the ancient poems, songs, and ballads, now extant, relative to that celebrated English outlaw. To which are prefixed historical anecdotes of his life.

by Unknown

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: and that Maydenhead-thicket was esteemed among the greater woods Leland himself is a witness. Rightly therefore did Robin Hood (as

ið-bena) reckon himself to abide there in security” (Chronicon de Dunstaple, p. 387). What he means by all this is, doubtless, sufficiently obscure: the mere name, however, of Robin Hood’s bower seems a very feeble authority for concluding that gallant outlaw to have robbed or skulked in the Chiltern hundreds.

It may seem, perhaps, from a passage in Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals (Song 4), that Robin Hood’s bower was prepared for the reception of himself and his Marian, as king and queen of May. The lines are these:

“As I have seene the lady of the May

Set in an arbour, on a holy-day,

Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains,