Some lost legs, and some lost arms, And some did lose their blood ; But Robin hee took up his noble bow, And is gone to the merry green wood. They carried these forresters into fair Nottinghàm, As many there did know ; They dig’d them graves in their church-yard, And they buried them all a-row. ⁂ The paragraph of which the following is an extract appeared in the evening paper intitled “The Star,” April 23, 1796: “A few days ago as some labourers were digging in a garden at Fox-lane, near Nottingham, they discovered six human skeletons entire, deposited in regular order side by side, supposed {165} to be part of the fifteen foresters that were killed by Robin Hood. Near the above place anciently stood a church, built in the early ages of Christianity, dedicated to St. Michael, which was totally demolished at the Reformation. . . . No doubt but the bones in question were properly buried in St. Michael’s churchyard. The proprietors of the garden humanely ordered the pit where the bones were found to be filled up, being unwilling to disturb the relics of humanity and the ashes of the dead.” [Illustration] {166} [Illustration] III. THE JOLLY PINDER OF WAKEFIELD, WITH ROBIN HOOD, SCARLET, AND JOHN. From an old black letter copy in Anthony a Wood’s collection, compared with two others in the British Museum, one in black letter. It should be sung “To an excellent tune,” which has not been recovered. Several lines of this ballad are quoted in the two old plays of the “Downfall” and “Death of Robert, Earle of Huntington,” 1601, 4to, b. l., but acted many years before. It is also alluded to in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. scene 1, and again in his Second Part of King Henry IV., act v. scene 3. In 1557 certain “ballets” are entered on the books of the Stationers’ Company “to John Wallye and Mrs. Toye,” one of which is entitled “Of wakefylde and a grene:” meaning apparently the ballad here reprinted. {167} In Wakefield there lives a jolly pindèr, In Wakefield all on a green, In Wakefield all on a green : There is neither knight nor squire, said the pindèr, Nor baron that is so bold, Nor baron that is so bold, Dare make a trespàss to the town of Wakefield, But his pledge goes to the pinfold, &c. All this beheard three witty young men, ’Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John ; With that they espy’d the jolly pindèr, As he sat under a thorn. Now turn again, turn again, said the pindèr, For a wrong way you have gone ; For you have forsaken the kings highway, And made a path over the corn. O that were a shame, said jolly Robin, We being three, and thou but one. The pinder leapt back then thirty good foot, ’Twas thirty good foot and one. He leaned his back fast unto a thorn, And his foot against a stone, {168}