Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series

27. ‘Bid him be gude to his lordis at hame, For Edinburgh my lord sail never see.’ James tuke his leave of the Outlaw keen, To Edinburgh boun is he.

+The Text+ is modernised from the Percy Folio MS. (c. 1650). At two points, after 8.3 and 18.2, half a page of the MS., or about nine stanzas, is missing--torn out and ‘used by...

[Annotations: 421.1: ‘kest of’ = cast off: ‘colë,’ frock (cp. 372.1). 423.1: ‘bente,’ took. 423.2: ‘in fere,’ in company. 424.3: ‘plucke-buffet,’ the game of giving one another...

143. The kyng called his best archars To the buttes wyth hym to go: ‘I wyll se these felowes shote,’ he sayd, ‘That in the north have wrought this wo.’

22. ‘It is full little courtesy,’ said the potter, ‘As I have heard wise men say, If a poor yeoman come driving on the way To let him of his journey.’

[Annotations: 1.1: ‘Lythe and listin,’ hearken and listen: a very common opening. 1.2: ‘frebore,’ free-born. 2.2,3: ‘Whyles . . . outlaw’: supplied from the Wynkyn de Worde text...

[Annotations: 145.2: ‘shete,’ shoot. 145.3: ‘fet,’ fetched. 148.1: ‘wight,’ strong, active. 148.4: ‘wonynge wane’: both words mean dwelling or habitation. 153.4: To give him his...

346. ‘This seven yere, by dere worthy God, Ne yede I this fast on fote; I make myn avowe to God, thou proudë sherif, It is not for thy gode.’

In the _Gest_, compiled as it is from ballads of both cycles, no attempt was made to reconcile their various topographies; but it can be seen that the general geography of the f...

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79. ‘Now Peter Simon, thou art old; I will maintain thee and thy son; Thou shalt have five hundred pound all in gold For the good service that thou hast done.’