No enemy,
But winter and rough weather."

But the life of the forest-dwellers was not spent solely in enjoyment of
the pleasures of the merry greenwood. They were hunted by men, and
became hunters of men. True English hearts theirs, all Englishmen their
friends, all Normans their foes, they were in no sense brigands, but
defenders of their soil against the foreign foe who had overrun it, the
successors of Hereward the Wake, the last of the English to bear arms
against the invader, and to keep a shelter in which the English heart
might still beat in freedom.

No wonder the oppressed peasants and serfs of the fields sang in gleeful
strains the deeds of the forest-dwellers; no wonder that Robin Hood
became the hero of the people, and that the homely song of the land was
full of stories of his deeds. We can scarcely call these historical
tales: they are legendary; yet it may well be that a stratum of fact
underlies the aftergrowth of romance; certainly they were history to
the people, and as such, with a mental reservation, they shall be
history to us. We propose, therefore, here to convert into prose "a
lytell geste of Robyn Hode."

It was a day in merry spring-tide. Under the sun-sprinkled shadows of
the "woody and famous forest of Barnsdale" (adjoining Sherwood) stood
gathered a group of men attired in Lincoln green, bearing long bows in
their hands and quivers of sharp-pointed arrows upon their shoulders,
hardy men all, strong of limb and bold of face.

[Illustration: ROBIN HOOD'S WOODS.]