49.  “Come hither, thou good Sir Guy,
Aske of mee what thou wilt have:” 
“I’ll none of thy gold,” sayes Robin Hood,
“Nor I’ll none of it have.”

50.  “But now I have slaine the master,” he sayd,
“Let me goe strike the knave;
This is all the reward I aske,
Nor noe other will I have.”

51.  “Thou art a madman,” said the sheriffe,
“Thou sholdest have had a knight’s fee;
Seeing thy asking hath beene soe badd,
Well granted it shall be.”

52.  But Litle John heard his master speake,
Well he knew that was his steven[40];
“Now shall I be loset,” quoth Litle John,
“With Christ’s might in heaven.”

53.  But Robin hee hyed him towards Litle John,
Hee thought hee wold loose him belive;
The sheriffe and all his companye
Fast after him did drive.

54.  “Stand abacke! stand abacke!” sayd Robin;
“Why draw you mee soe neere? 
It was never the use in our countrye
One’s shrift another should heere.”

55.  But Robin pulled forth an Irysh kniffe,
And losed John hand and foote,
And gave him Sir Guye’s bow in his hand,
And bade it be his boote.

56.  But John tooke Guye’s bow in his hand
(His arrowes were rawstye[41] by the roote);
The sherriffe saw Litle John draw a bow
And fettle him to shoote.

57.  Towards his house in Nottingham
He fled full fast away,
And so did all his companye,
Not one behind did stay.

58.  But he cold neither soe fast goe,
Nor away soe fast runn,
But Litle John, with an arrow broade,
Did cleave his heart in twinn.

[Footnote 8:  This ballad is a good specimen of the Robin Hood Cycle, and is remarkable for its many proverbial and alliterative phrases.  A few lines have been lost between stanzas 2 and 3.  Gisborne is a “market-town in the West Riding of the County of York, on the borders of Lancashire.”  For the probable tune of the ballad, see Chappell’s ’Popular Music of the Olden Time,’ ii. 397.]

[Footnote 9:  Woods, groves.—­This touch of description at the outset is common in our old ballads, as well as in the mediaeval German popular lyric, and may perhaps spring from the old “summer-lays” and chorus of pagan times.]

     [Footnote 10:  Beautiful; German, schoen.]

     [Footnote 11:  Coppices or openings in a wood.]

     [Footnote 12:  In some glossaries the woodpecker, but here of
     course a song-bird,—­perhaps, as Chappell suggests, the
     woodlark.]

     [Footnote 13:  A, on; lyne, lime or linden.]

     [Footnote 14:  Sturdy, brave.]

[Footnote 15:  Robin now tells of a dream in which “they” (=the two “wight yeomen,” who are Guy and, as Professor Child suggests, the Sheriff of Nottingham) maltreat him; and he thus foresees trouble “from two quarters.”]

     [Footnote 16:  Revenged.]