Child Ballads - Narrative

Robin Hood and the Scotchman

1. 1. Wood, 401, leaf 27 b.
   2. Roxburghe, III, 18, in the Ballad Society's reprint, II, 426.
   3. Garland of 1663, No 3.
   4. Garland of 1670, No 2.
   5. Pepys, II, 101, No 88.
   Version A
2. Gutch's Robin Hood, II, 392, from an Irish garland, printed at Monaghan, 1 796. Version B

A is simply the conclusion given to Robin Hood Newly Revived in the broadsides, and has neither connection with that ballad nor coherence in itself, being on the face of it the beginning and the end of an independent ballad, with the break after the third stanza. 3 may possibly refer to the Scots giving up Charles I to the parliamentary commissioners, in 1647. In B, four stanzas appear to have been added to the first three of A in order to make out a story, the too familiar one of Robin being beaten in a fight with a fellow whom he chances to meet, and consequently enlisting the man as a recruit.

This page most recently updated on 28-Mar-2011, 16:26:22.
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