'in fere,' in company.
424.3: 'plucke-buffet,' the game of giving one another alternate
buffets, as described in stt. 403-9. In the _Romance of Richard
Coeur de Lion_, Richard even kills his opponent at this 'game.'
'Shote plucke-buffet' implies that the buffeting was punishment
for missing the mark at shooting.
428.2: 'slone,' slain.
429.4: 'hypped,' hopped.
433.4: 'fe,' pay.
434.2: 'layde downe,' spent, laid out.
438.4: 'sloo,' slay.
442.3: 'wolwarde,' with wool against skin, _i.e._ with a sheepskin
turned inwards: 'hyght,' promised, vowed.
446.3: 'Me lyste,' I should like.
446.4: 'donne,' dun (cf. 417.3).
448.2: 'throwe,' space of time.
448.4: See 306.4, etc.
452.3: 'speciall,' lover.
452.4: Cp. 234.2, 349.2.
453.4: 'banis,' murderers.]

ROBIN AND GANDELEYN

+The Text+ is modernised from the only known version, in Sloane MS.
2593, in the British Museum (c. 1450); the minstrel's song-book which
contains the famous carols: 'I sing of a maiden,' and 'Adam lay
i-bounden.' This ballad was first printed by Ritson in his _Ancient
Songs_ (1790); but he misunderstood the phrase 'Robyn lyth' in the
burden for the name 'Robin Lyth,' and ingeniously found a cave on
Flamborough Head called Robin Lyth's Hole.

+The Story+ is similar to those told of Robin Hood and Little John; but
there is no ground for identifying this Robin with Robin Hood. Wright,
in printing the Sloane MS., notes that 'Gandeleyn' resembles Gamelyn,
whose 'tale' belongs to the pseudo-Chaucerian literature. But we can
only take this ballad to be, like so many others, an unrelated
'relique.'

ROBIN AND GANDELEYN

1.
I heard a carping of a clerk
All at yon woodes end,
Of good Robin and Gandeleyn,
Was there none other thing.

_Robin lieth in greenwood bounden._

2.
Strong thieves wern tho children none,
But bowmen good and hend;
They wenten to wood to getten them flesh
If God would it them send.

3.
All day wenten tho children two,
And flesh founden they none,
Till it were again even,
The children would gone home.

4.
Half a hundred of fat fallow deer
They comen ayon,
And all they wern fair and fat enow,
But marked was there none.
'By dear God,' said good Robin,
'Hereof we shall have one.'

5.
Robin bent his jolly bow,
Therein he set a flo;
The fattest deer