Other copies, of the second class, are in the Roxburghe collection, III, 259, and the Douce collection, III, 114. B a was printed, with changes, by Ritson, Robin Hood, 1795, II, 23; a copy resembling the Douce by Evans, Old Ballads, 1777, 1784, I, 106.
The story is a variation of Robin Hood and the Potter. According to A, the sheriff of Nottingham has resolved to have Robin's head. A butcher is driving through the forest, and his dog flies at Robin, for which Robin kills the dog. The butcher undertakes to let a little of the yeoman's blood for this, and there is a bout between staff and sword, in which we know that the butcher must bear himself well, though just here the first of three considerable gaps occurs. Robin buys the butcher's stock, changes clothes with him, and goes to Nottingham to market his flesh. There he takes up his lodging at the sheriff's, having perhaps conciliated the sheriff's wife with the present of a fine joint. He sells at so low a rate that his stock is all gone before any one else has sold a bit. The butchers ask him to drink, and Robin makes an appointment with them at the sheriff's. A second gap deprives us of the knowledge of what passes here, but we infer that, as in B, Robin is so reckless of his money that the sheriff thinks he can make a good bargain in horned beasts with him. Robin is ready; we see that he has come with a well-formed plan. The next day the sheriff goes to view the livestock, and is taken into the depth of the forest; it turns out that the wild deer are the butcher's horned beasts. Robin's men come in at the sound of his horn; the sheriff is lightened of all his money, and is told that his head is spared only for his wife's sake. All this the sheriff tells his wife, on his return, and she replies that he has been served rightly for not tarrying at home, as she had begged him to do. The sheriff says he has learned wisdom, and will meddle no more with Robin Hood.
B a omits the brush between Robin and the butcher, mostly wanting, indeed, in A also, but only because of the damage which the manuscript has suffered.
The passage in which the sheriff is inveigled into Robin's haunts has, as already mentioned, close affinity with the Gest, 181 ff.
The first three stanzas of A would not be missed, and apparently belong to some other ballad.[foot-note]
B a is signed T.R., as is also Robin Hood and the Beggar in two editions, and these we may suppose to be the initials of the person who wrote the story over with middle rhyme in the third line of the stanza, a peculiarity which distinguishes a group of ballads which were sung to the tune of Robin Hood and the Stranger: see Robin Hood and Little John, No 125, and also No 128.
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