The ballad - Index of

The Ballad
of National Biography, are equally mythical
heroes. A great deal of antiquarian labour has
exhumed half a dozen people, all named Robert
or Robin Hood, living within a period of forty
years of the fourteenth century ; but, so far
from any one of these having been the original
outlaw, it is probable that some of them assumed
the name of the popular hero when they
" went
to the greenwood." Mr. E. K. Chambers has
pointed out to me that in the reign of Henry V.
a Sussex poacher assumed the name of Friar
Tuck. The earliest mention of Robin Hood
that has been discovered is as the subject of
ballads.
And admirable, indeed, the Robin Hood ballads
are, even such as we have left. Robin Hood
and the Monk, Robin Hood and the Potter, Robin
Hood and Guy of Gisborne, 1 suffice to show the
excellence of the ballad-stuff that was current in
the fifteenth century not to mention the Gest
:
of Robyn Hode, of which more anon. As I have
hinted, the popularity of Robin continued into
the days of the broadsides, and terrible was the
fall of him, in the hands of the hack-writers
whose wares were sold at a penny in the streets
of Restoration London. Yet the number and
variety of these broadsides go to prove the hold
he had on the heart of the people whose ancestors
had begotten him.
1
Fourth Series, 96, 113,
58