stout blades i'faith, saith the keeper that fought with Robin, we
commend you. * * * I see that you are stout men, said Robin Hood,
we will fight no more in this place, but come and go with me to
Nottingham, (I have silver and gold enough about me) and there we
will fight it out at the King's Head tavern with good sack and
claret; and after we are weary we will lay down our arms, and
become sworn brothers to one another, for I love those men that
will stand to it, and scorn to turn their backs for the proudest
Tarmagant of them all. With all our hearts, jolly Robin, said the
keepers to him; so putting up their swords and on their doublets,
they went to Nottingham, where for three days space they followed
the pipes of sack, and butts of claret without intermission, and
drank themselves good friends."

The story of "George-a-Green," the brave Pindar of Wakefield is very
similar to that of Robin Hood. George was as fond as his more noted
friend of giving and taking hard knocks, and it is his skilful and
judicious use of the quarter-staff in fulfilling the duties of his
office, which gives rise to the incidents of the story. A curious relic
of chivalry appears in the passage where Robin Hood the outlaw, and
George a-Green the pound-keeper, meet to decide with their
quarter-staves the relative merit of their sweethearts.[30]

Of the stories relating to the yeomanry the most important was the
"Pleasant Historic of Thomas of Reading; or, The Sixe Worthie Yeomen of
the West," by Thomas Deloney, a famous ballad-maker of the 16th
century. It is the narrative of the life and fortunes of a worthy
clothier of Henry the First's time, telling how he rose to wealth and
prosperity, and was finally murdered by an innkeeper. There is
interwoven a relation of the unhappy loves of the "faire Margaret,"