Produced by Louise Hope, Paul Murray and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Transcriber’s Note: This text uses utf-8 (unicode) file encoding. If the apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, make sure your text reader’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change the default font. As a last resort, use the Latin-1 version of the file instead. The printed text used small capitals for emphasis. These have been replaced with +marks+ where appropriate. Missing lines were shown by rows of widely spaced dots (single lines) or asterisks (longer sections). They are shown here in groups of three: ... ... ... or *** *** *** All brackets are in the original, except footnotes and similar material. Errors are listed at the end of the e-text.] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * _Uniform with this Volume_ POPULAR BALLADS OF THE OLDEN TIME FIRST SERIES. Ballads of Romance and Chivalry. 1903. SECOND SERIES. Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth. 1904. THIRD SERIES. Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance. 1906. LONDON: SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD POPULAR BALLADS OF THE OLDEN TIME SELECTED AND EDITED BY FRANK SIDGWICK Fourth Series. Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws ‘Come sit we downe under this Hawthorne tree, The morrowes light shall lend us daie enough, And tell a tale of Gawen or Sir Guy, Of Robin Hood, or of good Clem of the Clough.’ SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD 3 Adam Street, Adelphi London. MCMXII --C’est une vieille chanson. --Qui l’a faite? --On ne sait pas. --Quand? --On ne sait pas. --Quand tu étais petit? --Avant que je fusse au monde, avant qu’y fût mon père, et le père de mon père, et le père du père de mon père. Cela a toujours été. --ROLLAND, _L’Aube_. CONTENTS Page Preface vii Introduction to the Robin Hood Ballads xi A GEST OF ROBYN HODE 1 The First Fytte 5 The Second Fytte 20 The Third Fytte 32 The Fourth Fytte 43 The Fifth Fytte 57 The Sixth Fytte 64 The Seventh Fytte 72 The Eighth Fytte 84