Hereabout, too, belongs in all probability the early English shaping of the jingling history of the brave deeds of Sir Guy of Warwick; and some of the tales of Robin Hood and his “pretty men all,” which had been sung in wild and crude carols for a century or more, now seem to have taken on a more regular ballad garniture, and certainly became fixtures in type. This is specially averred of “Robin Hood and the Monk,” beginning:-- “In summer when the shawes be sheyne And levès be large and long, Hit is full merry, in feyre forést, To here the foulé’s song; To see the dere draw to the dale, And leve the hillés hee, And shadow them in the levés green, Under the grenwode tree.” But was Robin Hood a myth? Was he a real yeoman--was he the Earl of Huntington? We cannot tell; we know no one who can. We know only that this hero of the folk-songs made the common people’s ideal of a good fellow--brave, lusty--a capital bowman, a wondrous wrestler, a lover of good cheer, a hater of pompous churchmen, a spoiler of the rich, a helper of the poor, with such advices as these for Little John:-- “Loke ye do no housbande harme That tylleth with his plough; No more ye shall no good yeman That walketh by grenewode shawe, Ne no knyght, ne no squyèr, That wolde be a good felawe.” That very charming ballad of the Nut-Brown Maid must also have been well known to contemporaries of Caxton: She is daughter of a Baron, and her love has been won by a wayfarer, who says he is “an outlaw,” and a banished man, a squire of low degree. He tries her faith and constancy, as poor Griselda’s was tried in Chaucer’s story--in Boccaccio’s tale, and as men have tried and teased women from the beginning of time. He sets before her all the dangers and the taunts that will come to her; she must forswear her friends; she must go to the forest with him; she must not be jealous of any other maiden lying _perdue_ there; she must dare all, and brave all,-- “Or else--I to the greenwood go Alone, a banished man.” At last, having tormented her sufficiently, he confesses--that he is not an outlaw--not a banished man, but one who will give her wealth, and rank, and name and fame. And I will close out our present talk with a verselet or two from this rich old ballad. The wooer says-- “I counsel you, remember howe It is no maydens law Nothing to doubt, but to ren out To wed with an outlaw: For ye must there, in your hand bere A bowe ready to draw, And as a thefe, thus must you live Ever in drede and awe Whereby to you grete harme might growe; Yet had I lever than That I had to the grenewode go Alone, a banished man.”