The beginning, and perhaps the development, of the story might have been more lucid but for verses lost at the very start. Robin Hood dreams of two yeomen that beat and bind him, and goes to seek them, “in greenwood where they be.” Sir Guy being one, the other person pointed at must of course be the sheriff of Nottingham (who seems to be beyond his beat in Yorkshire,[81] but outlaws can raise no questions of jurisdiction), in league with Sir Guy (a Yorkshireman, who has done many a curst turn) for the capture or slaying of Robin. The dream simply foreshadows danger from two quarters. But Robin Hood is nowhere informed, as we are, that the sheriff is out against him with seven score men, has attacked his camp, and taken John prisoner. He knows nothing of this so far on as stanza 45^3, where, after killing Guy, he says he will go to Barnsdale to see how his men are faring. Why then does he make his arrangements in stanzas 42–45^2, before he returns to Barnsdale, to pass himself off for Sir Guy? Plainly this device is adopted with the knowledge that John is a prisoner, and as a means of delivering him; which all that follows shows. Our embarrassment is the greater because we cannot point out any place in the story at which the necessary information could have been conveyed; there is no cranny where it could have been thrust in. It will not be enough, therefore, to suppose that verses have dropped out; there must also have been a considerable derangement of the story. The abrupt transition from the introductory verses, 1, 2^{1,2}, is found in Adam Bell, and the like occurs in other ballads. A fragment of a dramatic piece founded on the ballad of Guy of Gisborne has been preserved in manuscript of the date of 1475, or earlier.[82] In this, a knight, not named, engages to take Robin Hood for the sheriff, and is promised gold and fee if he does. The knight accosts Robin, and proposes that they shoot together. They shoot, cast the stone, cast the axle-tree, perhaps wrestle (for the knight has a fall), then fight to the utterance. Robin has the mastery, cuts off the knight’s head, and dons his clothes, putting the head into his hood. He hears from a man who comes along that Robin Hood and his men have been taken by the sheriff, and says, Let us go kill the sheriff. Then follows, out of the order of time, as is necessary in so brief a piece, the capture of Friar Tuck and the others by the sheriff. The variations from the Percy MS. story may be arbitrary, or may be those of another version of the ballad. The friar is called Tuck, as in the other play: see Robin Hood and the Potter. ‘Syr sheryffë, for thy sakë, Robyn Hode wull Y takë.’ ‘I wyll the gyffë golde and fee, This behestë þ_o_u holdë me.’ ‘Robyn Hode, ffayre and fre, Vndre this lyndë shotë we.’ ‘With the shote Y wyll, Alle thy lustës to full fyll.’