Familiar in our mouths as household words.

Drayton writes

  In this our spacious isle I think there is not one,
  But he, of Robin Hood hath heard, and Little John;
  And to the end of time the tales shall ne’er be done,
  Of Scarlock, George a Green, and Much, the miller’s son,
  Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
  In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws and their trade.

Robin Hood, from the best accounts, was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham, in the reign of King Henry II., and about the year of Christ 1160.  His extraction was noble, and his true name was Robert Fitzoothes, which vulgar pronunciation corrupted into Robin Hood.  He was frequently styled, and commonly reputed to have been Earl of Huntington, descending from Ralph Fitzoothes, a Norman, who came over to England with William Rufus; marrying Maud, daughter of Gilbert de Gaunt, Earl of Kyme and Lindsey, to which title in the latter part of his life, he appears to have had some pretension.  In his youth, he is reported to have been of a wild and extravagant disposition, insomuch that his inheritance being consumed or forfeited by his excesses, and his person outlawed for debt, either from necessity or choice, he sought an asylum in the woods and forests.  Or, as some writers state, one of his first exploits was the going into a forest, when, bearing with him a bow of exceeding strength, he fell into company with certain rangers or woodmen, who quarrelled with him for making show to use such a bow as no man was able to shoot with.  Robin replied, that he had two better than that at Locksley, only he bore that with him now as a byrding bowe.  At length the contention grew so hot that a wager was laid about the killing of a deer at a great distance, for performance of which Robin offered to lay his head to a sum of money, the advantage of which rash speech the others presently took; the mark being found out, one of them, to make Robin’s heart faint, and hand unsteady, when he was about to shoot, urged him with the loss of head if he missed the mark, notwithstanding which, Robin killed the deer, and gave every man his money again, except him who upbraided him with loss of head if he lost the wager; he now said they would drink together, when they began to quarrel and fight with him, but Robin getting a little distance off, with shooting, despatched them, then fled away and retired to the woods; the chief of which seems to be Barnsdale, in Yorkshire, Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, and Plompton Park, in Cumberland.  Here he either found, or was afterwards joined by, a number of persons in similar circumstances,

  Such as the fury of ungovern’d youth
  Thrust from the company of lawful men;