Robin was a robber, but a robber as courtly as any knight.  His enemies were the rich and great, his friends were the poor and oppressed.

    “For I never yet hurt any man
        That honest is and true;
    But those that give their minds to live
        Upon other men’s due.

    I never hurt the husbandmen
        That used to till the ground;
    Nor spill their blood that range the wood
        To follow hawk or hound.

    My chiefest spite to clergy is
        Who in those days bear a great sway;
    With friars and monks with their fine sprunks
        I make my chiefest prey.”

The last time we heard of monks and priests they were the friends of the people, doing their best to teach them and make them happy.  Now we find that they are looked upon as enemies.  And the monasteries, which at the beginning had been like lamps of light set in a dark country, had themselves become centers of darkness and idleness.

But although Robin fought against the clergy, the friars and monks who did wrong, he did not fight against religion.

    “A good manner then had Robin;
        In land where that he were,
    Every day ere he would dine,
        Three masses would he hear.

    The one in worship of the Father,
        And another of the Holy Ghost,
    The third of Our Dear Lady,
        That he loved all the most.

    Robin loved Our Dear Lady,
        For doubt of deadly sin,
    Would he never do company harm
        That any woman was in.”

    And Robin himself tells his followers:—­

    “But look ye do not husbandman harm
        That tilleth with his plough.

    No more ye shall no good yeoman
        That walketh by green wood shaw,
    Nor no knight nor no squire
        That will be good fellow.

    These bishops and these archbishops,
        Ye shall them beat and bind,
    The high sheriff of Nottingham,
        Him hold ye in your mind.”

The great idea of the Robin Hood ballads is the victory of the poor and oppressed over the rich and powerful, the triumph of the lawless over the law-givers.  Because of this, and because we like Robin much better than the Sheriff of Nottingham, his chief enemy, we are not to think that the poor were always right and the rulers always wrong.  There were many good men among the despised monks and friars, bishops and archbishops.  But there were, too, many evils in the land, and some of the laws pressed sorely on the people.  Yet they were never without a voice.

The Robin Hood ballads are full of humor; they are full, too, of English outdoor life, of hunting and fighting.

Of quite another style is the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens.  That takes us away from the green, leafy woods and dells of England to the wild, rocky coast of Scotland.  It takes us from the singing of birds to the roar of the waves.  The story goes that the King wanted a good sailor to sail across the sea.  Then an old knight says to him that the best sailor that ever sailed the sea is Sir Patrick Spens.