But it was in the gude greenwood,
Amang the lily flower."

Yet these rude English ballads have just claims on our regard. They
stand our feet squarely upon the basal rock of Saxon ethics, they
breathe a spirit of the sturdiest independence, and they draw, in a
few strong strokes, so fresh a picture of the joyous, fearless life
led under the green shadows of the deer-haunted forest by that
memorable band, bold Robin and Little John, Friar Tuck and George a
Green, Will Scarlett, Midge the Miller's Son, Maid Marian and the
rest, that we gladly succumb to a charm recognized by Shakespeare
himself: "They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many
merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of
England; they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and
fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world."--_As You
Like It._


ROBIN HOOD AND ALLIN A DALE. After Ritson. This ballad is first found
in broadside copies of the latter half of the seventeenth
century. _Lin._, pause.


ROBIN HOOD'S DEATH AND BURIAL. After Ritson, who made his version from
a collation of two copies given in a York garland.


ANNIE OF LOCHROYAN. After Aytoun, who improves on Jamieson's
version. This beautiful ballad is given in varying forms by Herd,
Scott, Buchan, and others. Lochroyan, or Loch Ryan, is a bay on the