+Argument.+--Robin Hood refuses to dine until he finds some guest to
provide money for his entertainment. He sends Little John and all his
men to bring in any earl, baron, abbot, or knight, to dine with him.
They find a knight, and feast him beneath the greenwood tree: but when
Robin demands payment, the knight turns out to be in sorry plight, for
he has sold all his goods to save his son. On the security of Our Lady,
Robin lends him four hundred pounds, and gives him a livery, a horse,
a palfrey, boots, spurs, etc., and Little John as squire.
Robin's unwillingness to dine until he has a guest appears to be a
parody of King Arthur's custom of refusing dinner until he has had an
adventure. (See Child, i. 257, note [++].) The offer of the Virgin as
security for a loan is apparently derived from a well-known miracle of
Mary, in which a Christian, wishing to borrow money of a Jew, takes him
to a church and makes him lay his hand on a statue of the Virgin and
Child, praying that, if he fails to return the money on the day fixed to
the lender, but gives it to the statue, Christ will return it to the
Jew. This miracle eventually takes place, but is attributed rather to
the Virgin than to her Son. (See Child, iii. 52.)