at Hero of the ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin
Hood_. Amongst other discoveries, he found, in an Exchequer document of
expenses in the royal household of Edward II., the name of 'Robyn Hode'
occurring several times as a 'vadlet' or 'porteur de la chambre,' at the
salary of threepence per diem, between March and November of 1324.

Various other researchers have succeeded in tracing half a dozen people,
all named Robin or Robert Hood, within a period of some forty years of
the fourteenth century; but few have pressed identification with Robin
Hood the outlaw so far as Hunter, 'who,' says Professor Child, 'could
have identified Pigrogromitus and Quinapalus, if he had given his mind
to it.' Working on the above datum, Hunter shows how probable it is that
Robin Hood the outlaw entered the service of Edward II. at Nottingham,
where the king was from November 9-23 in 1323. But the Robin whose
fortunes Hunter raked up was a very bad servant, and within a year from
the alleged date was ignominiously dismissed from the king's service,
with a present of 5s., 'because he was no longer able to work'! Was this
the invincible champion of English yeomen? Was this the hand that
launched a thousand shafts?

The only point to which attention need be called is the obvious fact
that 'Robert Hood' was not an uncommon combination of names, at least in
fourteenth-century England.

IV. ROBIN HOOD THE MYTH

In 1845 Adalbert Kuhn (in Haupt's _Zeitschrift_, v. 472-94) attempted to
show that Robin Hood was a mythological figure representing one of the
manifestations of Woden, as a vegetation deity; and half a century later
Sir J. H. Ramsay suggested that he was a wood-spirit corresponding to
the Hodeken of German tradition. Theories such as this[7] seem to be
fascinating to all sorts of scholars, perhaps because they involve
continually a minute appreciation of fine shades of probability. In the
present instance they reach a point at which it is suggested that the
rose-garland worn by the Potter--not in the ballad of _Robin Hood and
the Potter_, but in the later play--is a survival of the Strife between
Summer and Winter. Certainly there is no need to seek a mythological
origin for the Robin Hood of the ballads; but we must proceed to
consider the Robin of folk-drama.

To do this, it is necessary to go back some centuries before the time at
which we first hear of Robin Hood the outlaw, and to follow the
development of the English folk's