e also dropped from the other early
texts. The only known copy is in the Cambridge University Library.

(iii., iv. and v.) Three mutilated printed fragments, containing about
thirty-five, seventy, and fifteen stanzas respectively, preserved
amongst the Douce fragments in the Bodleian (the last presented by J. O.
Halliwell-Phillipps). The first was lent to Ritson in or before 1790 by
Farmer, who thought it to be Rastell's printing; in Ritson's second
edition (1836) he says he gave it to Douce, and states without reason
that it is of de Worde's printing 'probably in 1489.'

(vi.) _A mery geste of Robyn Hoode_, etc., a quarto preserved in the
British Museum, not dated, but printed 'at London vpon the thre Crane
wharfe by wyllyam Copland,' who printed there about 1560. This edition
also contains 'a newe playe for to be played in Maye games, very
plesaunte and full of pastyme.'

(vii.) _A Merry Iest of Robin Hood_, etc., printed at London for Edward
White; no date, but perhaps the 'pastorall plesant commedie' entered to
White in the Stationers' Registers, May 14, 1594. There is a copy of
this in the Bodleian, and another was in the Huth Library.

+The Text+ here given is mainly the Wynkyn de Worde text, except where
the earlier Edinburgh fragment is available; the stanzas which the
latter preserves are here numbered 1.-83.3, 113.4-124.1, 127.4-133.2,
136.4-208.3, and 314.2-349.3, omitting 2.2,3 and 7.1. A few variations
are recorded in the footnotes, it being unnecessary in the present
edition to do more than refer to Child's laborious collation of all the
above texts.

The spelling of the old texts is retained with very few exceptions. The
reason for this is that although the original texts were printed in the
sixteenth century, the language is of the fifteenth, and a number of
Middle English forms remain; these are pointed out by Child, iii. 40,
and elaborately classified by W. H. Clawson, _The Gest of Robin Hood_,
4-5. A possible alternative was to treat the _Gest_ on the plan adopted
for fifteenth-century texts by E. K. Chambers and the present editor in
_Early English Lyrics_ (1907); but in that book the editors were mostly
concerned with texts printed from manuscript, whereas here there is good
reason to suspect the existence of a text or texts previous to those now
available. For the sounded e (e) I have mostly followed Child.

The _Gest_ is not a single ballad, but a conglomeration of several,
forming a short