[108]. Fourteen foot, as proved by his bones, preserved, according to Hector Boece, in the kirk of Pette, in Murrayland. See Ritson’s Robin Hood, 1832, I, cxxxii f; and Gutch, II, 112, note *.
[109]. The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood, No 132, is a traditional variation of Robin Hood Revived.
[110]. Though Mr W. C. Hazlitt, in his Handbook to the Popular, Poetical, and Dramatic Literature of Great Britain, p. 514, No 25, has: “Robin Hood and the Stranger. In two parts. [Col.] London: printed by and for W. O., and to be sold at the booksellers. Roxb. and Wood Colls.” This colophon belongs only to Robin Hood, Will Scadlock, and Little John, otherwise Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon, which see. The title Robin Hood and the Stranger is adopted from Ritson.
[111]. ‘Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon,’ in Thackeray’s list, Ballad Society, I, xxiv, and in the late Garlands, 1749, etc.
[112]. Remarked by Fricke, p. 88 f.
[113]. Mr E. Maunde Thompson, Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum, in an obliging letter to Harvard College Library, and in The Academy, 1885, March 7, p. 170. No 8 C of this collection is in this manuscript.
[114]. A verse in the passage from Drayton’s Polyolbion, Song xxvi, cited by Ritson, I, viii of Robin Hood, 1795, may refer to this version of the ballad: “The widow in distress he graciously relievd.”
[115]. In st. 2 Robin is in his proper Lincoln green. He wears scarlet red again in No. 141, st. 6 and in No 145, st. 18, his men being in green.
[116]. Fricke has observed this, pp 59, 69, and at p. 58 the resemblance to Wallace.
[117]. Even the author of A seems not to be aware that Much, the Miller’s Son, is the standing name of one of Robin Hood’s men, and therefore would not answer for a disguise. In B, C, nothing is expressly said about the change of names, and in fact this arrangement seems not to be understood, since in B 211 Clifton is spoken of as one Clifton. Comparing B 33, 34, 37, we see that Clifton should be Little John, but Midge, the Miller’s Son, himself, not Scathlock, still less John.