[Footnote 1:  A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July, 1847, p. 134) has cited an allusion to Robin Hood, of a date intermediate between the passages from Wyntown and the one about to be cited from Bower.  In the year 1439, a petition was presented to Parliament against one Piers Venables of Aston, in Derbyshire, “who having no liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be Robyn Hude and his meyne.”—­Rot.  Parl. v. 16.]

[Footnote 2:  “Legendis non raro incredilibibus aliisque plusquam anilibus neniis.”—­Hearne, Scotichronicon, p. xxix.]

[Footnote 3:  In his Histoire de la Conquete de l’Angleterre par les Normands, livr. xi.  Thierry was anticipated in his theory by Barry, in a dissertation cited by Mr. Wright in his Essays:  These de Litterature sur les Vicissitudes et les Transformations du Cycle populaire de Robin Hood.  Paris, 1832.]

[Footnote 4:  London, and Westminster Review, vol. xxxiii. p. 424.]

[Footnote 5:  No 4. The Ballad Hero, Robin Hood.  June, 1852.]

[Footnote 6:  Hunter, pp. 28, 35-38]

[Footnote 7:  Mr. Hunter thinks it necessary to prove that it was formerly a usage in England to celebrate real events in popular song.  We submit that it has been still more customary to celebrate them in history, when they were of public importance.  The case of private and domestic stories is different.]

[Footnote 8:  Most remarkable of all would this be, should we adopt the views of Mr. Hunter, because we know, from the incidental testimony of Piers Ploughman, that only forty years after the date fixed upon for the outlaw’s submission “rhymes of Robin Hood” were in the mouth of every tavern lounger; and yet no chronicler can spare him a word.]

[Footnote 9:  Matthew Paris, London, 1640, p. 1002]

[Footnote 10:  Mr. Hunter had previously instituted a similar argument in the case of Adam Bell, and doubtless the reasoning might be extended to Will Scathlock and Little John.  With a little more rummaging of old account-books we shall be enabled to “comprehend all vagrom men.”  It is a pity that the Sheriff of Nottingham could not have availed himself of the services of our “detective.”]

[Footnote 11:  See Wright’s Essays, ii. 207.  “The name of Witikind, the famous opponent of Charlemagne, who always fled before his sight, concealed himself in the forests, and returned again in his absence, is no more than uitu chint, in Old High Dutch, and signifies the son of the wood, an appellation which he could never have received at his birth, since it denotes an exile or outlaw.  Indeed, the name Witikind, though such a person seems to have existed, appears to be the representative of all the defenders of his country against the invaders.”]