The directions in 3, 4 receive light from a passage in 'Robin Hood's Death and Burial:'
'But give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I'll let flee,
And where this arrow is taken up
There shall my grave diggd be.
'Lay me a green sod under my head,' etc.
Other ballads with a like theme are '[The Bonny Hind],' further on in this volume, and the two which follow it.
Translated in Grundtvig's E. og s. Folkeviser, No 49, p. 308; Wolff's Halle der Völker, I, 64.
A.
a. Motherwell's MS., p. 286. From the recitation of Mrs King, Kilbarchan Parish, February 9, 1825. b. 'The broom blooms bonnie and says it is fair,' Motberwell's Minstrelsy, p. 189.
1
It is talked the warld all over,
The brume blooms bonnie and says it is fair
That the king's dochter gaes wi child to her brither.
And we'll never gang doun to the brume onie mair