+Argument.+--The story now returns to the Sheriff of Nottingham, and
relates how he offered a prize for the best archer in the north. Robin
Hood, hearing of this match, determines to go to it, and to test the
sheriff's faith to his oath (see the Third Fytte, stt. 202-4). Robin
wins the prize, and is starting home to the greenwood, when the sheriff
recognises and attacks him, but is beaten off by a shower of arrows.
Robin and his men retire, shooting as they go, until they come to a
castle. Here dwells the knight to whom Robin had lent the money--'Sir
Richard at the Lee.' He takes in Robin and his men, and defies the
sheriff; Robin, he says, shall spend forty days with him.
This fytte is no doubt based on some single lost ballad of a
shooting-match at which Robin was victorious, and at which the Sheriff
of Nottingham attempted in vain to arrest him. But the compiler of the
_Gest_ has carefully linked it to the preceding fyttes by such
references as Robin's determination to try the sheriff's faith
(st. 287), which is made clear in stt. 296-8; and the identification of
the knight whose castle protects Robin and his men with the knight to
whom the money had been lent (stt. 310-312).