The Traditional Ballads
of Robin Hood

The following eight texts are the principal traditional sources concerning Robin Hood. Other and later documents smell (even more than these) of the lamp.

These poems are conventionally called “Child ballads” because codified textually by Francis James Child in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Parts I-X, Boston, Massachusetts (Houghton, Mifflin and Company), 1882-1898. For further information about the texts, see the notes and apparatus therein. The “Child numbers” and titles of the present eight texts are:

Child 117 “A Gest of Robyn Hode” Child 118 “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne” Child 119 “Robin Hood and the Monk” Child 120 “Robin Hood’s Death” Child 121 “Robin Hood and the Potter” Child 122A The ‘A’ version of “Robin Hood and the Butcher” Child 122B The ‘B’ version of “Robin Hood and the Butcher” Child 138 “Robin Hood and Allen a Dale”