This piece, but for names (and Jock the Leg 1 is only a thin shrouding for Little John), might have gone with the Robin Hood ballads. It was composed, probably, in the last half of the eighteenth century, and for hawker's purposes, but it is a better ballad, imitation as it is, than some of the seventeenth-century broadsides of the same class (which is indeed saying very little). The fight for the pack we have in 'The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood' (No, 132); the "asking" of a blast on the horn and the scornful reply, in 'Robin Hood and the Shepherd' (No, 135).
This page most recently updated on 10-Dec-2010, 19:14:12. Return to main index
