since Chaucer, superior even to
Chaucer in the quality of intensity. The true home of the ballad
literature was "the north country," and especially the Scotch border,
where the constant forays of moss-troopers and the raids and private
warfare of the lords of the marches supplied many traditions of
heroism, like those celebrated in the old poem of the _Battle of
Otterbourne_, and in the _Hunting of the Cheviot_, or _Chevy Chase_,
already mentioned. Some of these are Scotch and others English; the
dialect of Lowland Scotland did not, in effect, differ much from that
of Northumberland and Yorkshire, both descended alike from the old
Northumbrian of Anglo-Saxon times. Other ballads were shortened,
popular versions of the chivalry romances which were passing out of
fashion among educated readers in the 16th century, and now fell into
the hands of the ballad makers. Others preserved the memory of local
countryside tales, family feuds, and tragic incidents, partly
historical and partly legendary, associated often with particular
spots. Such are, for example, _The Dowie Dens of Yarrow_, _Fair Helen
of Kirkconnell_, _The Forsaken Bride_, and _The Twa Corbies_. Others,
again, have a coloring of popular superstition, like the beautiful
ballad concerning {57} _Thomas of Ersyldoune_, who goes in at Eldon
Hill with an Elf queen and spends seven years in fairy land.

But the most popular of all the ballads were those which cluster about
the name of that good outlaw, Robin Hood, who, with his merry men,
hunted the forest of merry Sherwood, where he killed the king's deer
and waylaid rich travelers, but was kind to poor knights and honest
workmen. Robin Hood is the true ballad hero, the darling of the common
people, as Arthur was of the nobles. The names of his Confessor, Friar
Tuck; his mistress, Maid Marian; his companions, Little John,
Scathelock, and Much, the Miller's son, were as familiar as household
words. Langland, in the 14th century, mentions "rimes of Robin Hood,"
and efforts have been made to identify him with some actual personage,
as with one of the dispossessed barons who had been adherents of Simon
de Montfort in his war against Henry III. But there seems to be
nothing historical about Robin Hood. He was a creation of the popular
fancy. The game laws under the Norman kings were very oppressive, and
there were, doubtless, dim memories still cherished among the Saxon
masses of Hereward and Edric the Wild, who