Arthur was of the nobles. The names of his confessor, Friar Tuck; his
mistress, Maid Marian; his companions, Little John, Scathelock, and
Much, the miller's son, were as familiar as household words. Langland in
the 14th century mentions "rimes of Robin Hood," and efforts have been
made to identify him with some actual personage, as with one of the
dispossessed barons who had been adherents of Simon de Montfort in his
war against Henry III. But there seems to be nothing historical about
Robin Hood. He was a creation of the popular fancy. The game laws under
the Norman kings were very oppressive, and there were, doubtless, dim
memories still cherished among the Saxon masses of Hereward and Edric
the Wild, who had defied the power of the Conqueror, as well as of later
freebooters, who had taken to the woods and lived by plunder. Robin
Hood was a thoroughly national character. He had the English love of
fair play, the English readiness to shake hands and make up, and keep no
malice when worsted in a square fight. He beat and plundered the fat
bishops and abbots, who had more than their share of wealth, but he was
generous and hospitable to the distressed, and lived a free and careless
life in the good green wood. He was a mighty archer with those national
weapons, the long-bow and the cloth-yard shaft. He tricked and baffled
legal authority in the person of the proud sheriff of Nottingham,
thereby appealing to that secret sympathy with lawless adventure which
marked the free-born, vigorous yeomanry of England. And, finally, the
scenery of the forest gives a poetic background and a never-failing
charm to the exploits of "the old Robin Hood of England" and his merry
men.

The ballads came, in time, to have certain tricks of style, such as are
apt to characterize a body of anonymous folk-poetry. Such is their use
of conventional epithets; "the red, red gold," "the good green wood,"
"the gray goose wing." Such are certain recurring terms of phrase like,