The rescue in the ballad is introduced into Anthony Munday’s play of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, Act II, Scene 2. Scarlet and Scathlock, sons of Widow Scarlet, are to be hanged. Friar Tuck attends them as confessor. Robin Hood, disguised as an old man, pretends that they have killed his son, and asks the sheriff that they may be delivered to him for revenge. The sheriff allows them to be unbound. Robin, for a feigned reason, blows his horn; Little John and Much come in and begin a fight; Friar Tuck, pretending to help the sheriff, knocks down his men; the sheriff and his men run away. (Dodsley’s Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, VIII, 134–41.) Ritson, Robin Hood, 1832, II, 155, suggests that the circumstance of Robin’s changing clothes with the palmer may possibly be taken from “the noble history of Ponthus of Galyce,” printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1511, and cites this passage, which resembles the narrative in #B# 8, 10, 11: “And as he [Ponthus] rode, he met with a poore palmer, beggynge his brede, the whiche had his gowne all to-clouted and an olde pylled hatte: so he alyght, and sayd to the palmer, frende, we shall make a chaunge of all our garmentes, for ye shall have my gowne and I shall have yours and your hatte. A, syr, sayd the palmer, ye bourde you with me. In good fayth, sayd Ponthus, I do not; so he dyspoyled hym and cladde hym with all his rayment, and he put vpon hym the poore mannes gowne, his gyrdell, his hosyn, his shone, his hatte and his bourden.” This noble history is taken from one in French which is merely the romance of Horn turned into prose, and it is also possible that the passage in the English ballad may be derived from some version of Hind Horn: see No 17. Wallace changes clothes with a beggar in ‘Gude Wallace,’ No 157, #F#, #G#, where there is a general likeness to this ballad of Robin Hood. It may be noted that Wulric the Heron, one of the comrades of Hereward, rescues four brothers who were about to be hanged, killing some of their common enemies: Michel, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, II, 51. #B# is translated by Anastasius Grün, p. 135, Doenniges, p. 135, Knortz L. u. R. Altenglands, No 19; combined with #C#, by Talvj, Charakteristik, p. 489. A * * * * * 1 ‘. . . . . . . In faith thou shal[t] haue mine, And twenty pound in thy purse, To spend att ale and wine.’ 2 ‘Though yo_u_r clothes are of light Lincolne green, And mine gray russett and torne, Yet it doth not you beseeme To doe an old man scorne.’ 3 ‘I scorne thee not, old man,’ says Robin, ‘By the faith of my body; Doe of thy clothes, thou shalt haue mine, For it may noe better bee.’ 4 But Robin did on this old mans hose, The were torne in the wrist; ‘When I looke on my leggs,’ said Robin, ‘Then for to laugh I list.’