Recordings & Info 135. Robin Hood & the Shepherd
[There are no known recordings of this ballad.]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Coffin, 1950: A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
4) Wiki
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 3985: Robin Hood and the Shepherd (11 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Robin Hood and the Sheapard
Traditional Ballad Index: Robin Hood and the Shepherd
NAME: Robin Hood and the Shepherd [Child 135]
DESCRIPTION: Robin comes upon a shepherd and demands to know the contents of his bag and bottle. The shepherd defies him. They fight. The shepherd wins. Robin blows his horn. Little John answers the call but the shepherd thrashes him as well.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1663
KEYWORDS: Robinhood fight shepherd
FOUND_IN:
REFERENCES: (5 citations)
Child 135, "Robin Hood and the Shepherd" (1 text)
Bronson 135, comments only
BarryEckstormSmyth p. 451, "Robin Hood and the Shepherd" (brief notes only)
BBI, RZN1, "All gentlemen and yeomen good"
ADDITIONAL: Stephen Knight, editor (with a manuscript description by Hilton Kelliher), _Robin Hood: The Forresters Manuscript_ (British Library Additional MS 71158), D. S. Brewer, 1998, pp. 34-37, "Robin Hood and the Sheapard" (1 text, shorter than Child's text based on the garlands)
Roud #3985
NOTES: For background on the Robin Hood legend, see the notes on "A Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117].
Fully half the Robin Hood ballads in the Child collection (numbers (121 -- the earliest and most basic example of the type), 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, (133), (134), (135), (136), (137), (150)) share all or part of the theme of a stranger meeting and defeating Robin, and being invited to join his band. Most of these are late, but it makes one wonder if Robin ever won a battle.
Knight, p. 34, does make the interesting note that this is one of the few ballads of Robin meeting his match in which nothing happens afterward -- it is just a story about a fight. Child considered to be a particularly feeble example of the genre as a result. - RBW
Coffin, 1950: A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
135. ROBIN HOOD AND THE SHEPHERD
Barry, Brit Bids Me, 461 states that a Maine woman had heard this song in Ireland in her childhood.
Robin Hood and the Shepherd: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robin Hood and the Shepherd is Child ballad 135.
Synopsis
Robin Hood meets with a shepherd and demands to know what he has in his bottle; when the shepherd refuses, he says it will go worse with him if he does not give him some. Robin lays twenty pounds on a fight, and the shepherd agrees to bet his bottle and bag against it. They fight. Robin is worsted, and asks if he may blow his horn. The shepherd agrees, and Little John arrives. The shepherd thrashes him as well, and Robin agrees that the bet was won.
External links
Robin Hood and the Shepherd