“Yes, but my clothes are new and fine. I do not care to get them wet. I think your broad shoulders would make a good seat. Can you find a heart to take me across?” replied Robin. The friar wiped the bread and onions from his beard and getting up, said to Robin Hood:
“Well, and why not, friend? Come, and I will do thy bidding.” So saying he led the way to a pebbly place laughing as if it were a joke. Robin Hood seated himself upon the ample shoulders of the friar and gripped him about his round head.
“Let me take thy sword under my arm, so that thou canst hold on better,” said the friar. So Robin Hood unbuckled his sword and gave it to the friar. Then the friar walked across the stream and Robin Hood was landed on the other side. When he got down on the ground he asked for his sword and prepared to depart.
“Nay, my son,” said the friar, “a sword is not good for thee, for it is a deadly weapon, and thou must leave it with me.”
“Give me my sword, holy father, or I shall take it back. Thou hast one of thine own; give me mine and let it be a fair battle between us, even if thou art a friar, or else set me back on yonder bank where I came,” said Robin Hood in anger.
The friar finally agreed to take him back across the stream, but in so doing Robin Hood managed to slip his sword out of the possession of the friar. In the midst of the stream the friar decided to rid himself of the load so he tumbled Robin Hood off into the water. When Robin reached the bank he was very angry with the friar. Drawing his sword he rushed on him and they had a hard battle. The friar would laugh at Robin’s plight but warded off all his blows. Never a stroke touched him. At last the friar said:
“I think thou art Robin Hood. I know I am Friar Tuck. Come, let’s be friends.” And so they shook hands and put up their swords.
And that is the way Robin Hood met Friar Tuck, and that was the way that Friar Tuck joined the merry band in Sherwood Forest.