Printed in Dryden's Miscellany, VI, 346, ed. 1716; A Collection of Old Ballads, 1723, I, 64; Ritson's Robin Hood, 179,5, II, 1 (a); Evans, Old Ballads, 1777, 1784, I, 86.
The jocular author of this ballad, who would certainly have been diverted by any one's supposing him to write under the restraints of tradition, brings Adam Bell, Clim, and Cloudesly into company with Robin Hood's father. So again the silly Second Part of Adam Bell in one of the copies, that of 1616. Robin Hood's father's bow, st. 3, carried two north-country miles and an inch. The son, then, was only half his father, though, in Ritson's words, "Robin Hood and Little John have frequently shot an arrow a measured mile."
Robin Hood's mother was niece to Guy of Warwick, and sister to Gamwel of Gamwel Hall. In Robin Hood newly Revived, Young Gamwel is Robin Hood's sister's son. According to this ballad, Robin Hood goes with his mother to keep Christmas with old Gamwell, his uncle, whose seat is forty miles from Locksly town. Little John is a member of the household, a fine lad at gambols and juggling, and twenty such tricks. Robin Hood, however, puts Little John down in this way, and everybody else. His uncle is so much pleased that he tells Robin he shall be his heir, and no more go home. Robin asks the boon that Little John may be his page. All the while, for how long we know not, Robin Hood has had his band of yeomen in Sherwood. Thither he goes (the time is not specified, but birds are singing in st. 50), and while he is collecting his men, Clorinda, queen of the shepherds and archeress, passes, and arrests his attention. The favorable impression which she makes at first sight is confirmed by her presently shooting a deer through side and side. Robin takes her to his bower for a refection, which is served by four-and-twenty yeomen. She inquires his name; he gives it, and asks her to be his bride. After a blush and a pause, Clorinda says, With all my heart, and it is no wonder that Robin proposes to send for a priest immediately. Clorinda is, however, engaged to go to Titbury feast, whither she invites Robin to keep her company. On the way he has an affray with eight yeomen, who bid him hand over the buck which Clorinda had killed, and which he is somehow taking along with him. With Little John's help, five of the eight are killed; the rest are spared. A bull-baiting is going on at Titbury, which one wonders that a person of Clorinda's imputed "wisdom and modesty" should care for; but somehow Clorinda throws off her dignity in the 45th stanza. After dinner the parson is sent for, the marriage ceremony is performed, and Robin and Clorinda return to Sherwood.
The author of this ballad ("the most beautiful and one of the oldest extant" of the series, says the editor of the collection of 1723) knew nothing of the Earl of Huntington and Matilda Fitzwater, but represents Robin Hood as the son of a forester. In everything except keeping Robin a yeoman, he writes "as the world were now but to begin, antiquity forgot, custom not known;" but poets in his day, to quote the critic of 1723, "were looked upon like other Englishmen, born to live and write with freedom."
Concerning the bull-running at Tutbury, or Stutesbury, Staffordshire (a hideously brutal custom, of long standing), a compendium of antiquarian information is given by Gutch, II, 118. Arthur a Bradley, a rollicking ballad of a Merry Wedding, mentioned in stanza 46, is printed by Ritson, Robin Hood, 1795, II, 210.
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