32. Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne (Child 118)
The Robin Hood ballads, which bulk so large in the Child collection, have but few and weak echoes in American tradition — perhaps because life in America has never borne much resemblance to the social and economic conditions which produced the figures of Robin and his crew. The story of Robin and Guy, known even in England only from Percy's famous folio manuscript, has never been reported from American tradition until now. And our text, though it certainly derives from the same story, is vague and incomplete. Metrically it is so badly disordered as to seem, often, like a prose resume of (part of) the story; yet the rhymes show that the text derives from stanzaic form. One wonders how the text as reported here could ever have been sung to an air, but it is described as sung. Very likely the state of the text is due to imperfect recollection on the part of the reporter.
'Robin Hood and Guy of Gusborne.' Reported in December 1914 by G. C. Little of Marion, McDowell county, at that time a freshman in Trinity College, "as sung by Mr. C. A. Wilson, about sixty-five years of age, who lives near Marion."
1 Old Robin Hood was a bold, bold man.
In the green forest he had a great clan,
And the way he killed men, it was a sin to the land.
2 With his great bow he slew many a deer,
And when the people caught sight of him
They shook with fear.
3 One day, as they say, a stranger pass that way
And to bold Robin chanced to say,
'I'm in search of an outlaw bold
Who has committed many murders, so I'm told.'
4 'And if by chance to find, this outlaw shall be mine.'
5 After they had gone quite a way on that fine day
The stranger to Robin did boldly say,
'Pray ye, good fellow, tell me thy name,
For such a guide as you deserves fame.'
6 And it was then that he learned
That his guide was the outlaw bold
Who had committed the murders
Of which he had been told.
7 And it was there that this stranger of old
Was slain by the outlaw bold
Who lived in the merry green wood of old.