Robin Hood History of Robin Hood ballads

List of traditional ballads

Ballads dating back to the 15th century are the oldest existing form of the Robin Hood legends, although none of them were recorded at the time of the first allusions to him, and many are from much later. They share many common features, often opening with praise of the greenwood and relying heavily on disguise as a plot device, but include a wide variation in tone and plot. The ballads are sorted into three groups, very roughly according to date of first known free-standing copy. Ballads whose first recorded version appears (usually incomplete) in the Percy Folio may appear in later versions and may be much older than the mid-17th century when the Folio was compiled. Any ballad may be older than the oldest copy that happens to survive, or descended from a lost older ballad. For example, the plot of Robin Hood's Death, found in the Percy Folio, is summarised in the 15th-century A Gest of Robyn Hode, and it also appears in an 18th-century version.

Early ballads (i.e., surviving in 15th- or early-16th-century copies)

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  A Gest of Robyn Hode
  
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  Robin Hood and the Monk
  
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  Robin Hood and the Potter
  

Ballads appearing in 17th-century Percy Folio

NB. The first two ballads listed here (the "Death" and "Gisborne"), although preserved in 17th-century copies, are generally agreed to preserve the substance of late medieval ballads. The third (the "Curtal Friar") and the fourth (the "Butcher"), also probably have late medieval origins.

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  Robin Hood's Death
  
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  Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
  
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  Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar
  
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  Robin Hood and the Butcher
  
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  Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly
  
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  Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires
  
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  The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
  
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  Robin Hood and Queen Katherine
  

Other ballads

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  A True Tale of Robin Hood
  
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  Robin Hood and the Bishop
  
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  Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
  
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  Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow
  
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  Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon
  
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  Robin Hood and the Ranger
  
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  Robin Hood and the Scotchman
  
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  Robin Hood and the Tanner
  
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  Robin Hood and the Tinker
  
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  Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight
  
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  Robin Hood Newly Revived
  
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  Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage
  
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  Robin Hood's Chase
  
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  Robin Hood's Delight
  
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  Robin Hood's Golden Prize
  
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  Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
  
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  The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood
  
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  The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood
  
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  The Noble Fisherman
  

Some ballads, such as Erlinton, feature Robin Hood in some variants, where the folk hero appears to be added to a ballad pre-existing him and in which he does not fit very well.^[154] He was added to one variant of Rose Red and the White Lily, apparently on no more connection than that one hero of the other variants is named "Brown Robin".^[155] Francis James Child indeed retitled Child ballad 102; though it was titled The Birth of Robin Hood, its clear lack of connection with the Robin Hood cycle (and connection with other, unrelated ballads) led him to title it Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter in his collection.⁹