+The Text+ is modernised, as far as is possible, from a MS. of about
1500 in the University Library at Cambridge (Ee. 4, 35). The ballad was
first printed therefrom by Ritson in his _Robin Hood_ (1795), vol. i.
p. 81, on the whole very accurately, and with a few necessary
emendations. He notes that the scribe was evidently 'a vulgar and
illiterate person' who 'irremediably corrupted' the ballad. In several
places, however, a little ingenuity will restore a lost rhyme.
+The Story+, of an outlaw disguising himself in order to gain
information from his enemies, is common to the legends of Hereward the
Saxon, Wallace, Eustace the monk, and Fulk Fitz Warine, the first three
of whom assumed the guise of a potter at one time or another.
The ballad of _Robin Hood and the Butcher_ is a tale similar to this;
and part of the Play of Robin Hood is based on this ballad (see
Introduction, p. xxiii.).