and complete example of song
literature extant. It begins with Robin's desire to attend church at
Nottingham, since "It is a fortnight and more sin' I my Saviour saw".
Little John accompanies him, but on the way they quarrel about a wager,
and Robin strikes him, upon which the faithful servant departs in high
dudgeon. At Nottingham a hooded monk recognizes our hero and gives the
alarm. He is surrounded by the sheriff and his followers, and, although
he slays twelve men, is at last captured, and held in durance until
Little John, who has quite forgiven him, accomplishes his release by a
clever stratagem.

The chap-book entitled _Robin Hood's Garland_, which was published at
York, contains the generally believed account of his death and burial.
In it we read how he visited his cousin, the Prioress of Kirklees
Nunnery, for the purpose of being bled. She, who must have been
soul-sister of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, took advantage of his
defencelessness, and, after opening a vein, locked up the room and left
him for a day. Before dying, he blew his horn, and Little John, who was
outside, burst open the doors just in time to hear his last words. The
_Garland_ is full of instances of Robin's nobility, and for delightful,
invigorating reading may even be commended to the youth of to-day. It is
a concise little history, beginning with the first day of his outlawry,
and ending with the fatal scene at Kirklees. As a vivid series of
woodland sketches it is without parallel of its kind, and reading, one
may almost journey through the greater Sherwood in the company of the
goodly archers clothed in Lincoln green.

[Illustration: THE MAJOR OAK, THORESBY PARK]

The humour is bucolic and breezy. The song of "Robin Hood and the
Bishop", which the black-letter copy describes as "Shewing how Robin
Hood went to an old woman's house, and changed cloathes with her to
escape from the bishop, and how he robbed the bishop of all his gold and
made him sing a mass", contains about the best specimen of this country
wit. Again, in _Robin Hood and the Tanner of Nottingham_ is a most
ludicrous account of the manner in which, after being threatened with a
"knop upon his bare scop", Robin receives as sound a drubbing as ever he
himself inflicted. But this punishment, and his philosophical manner of
bearing it, only earned him another follower, since the victorious
tanner became at once enamoured of the free forest life, and swore there
and