Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series

About this book

This volume is the fourth installment of Frank Sidgwick’s “Popular Ballads of the Olden Times,” a scholarly selection that gathers together the best traditional English and Scottish ballads. It opens with a practical note on the file’s Unicode encoding before moving into the title page, a brief prefatory poem, and a contents list that reveals a substantial collection of Robin‑hood‑related verses, gests, fyt­es, and assorted outlaw narratives, alongside other historic ballads such as “Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough” and “The Outlaw Murray.” The introductory material explains Sidgwick’s editorial criteria, contrasting his selective approach with that of the earlier Child anthology, and provides a concise historical overview of Robin Hood’s literary origins, citing medieval references and early modern scholarship. The reader is thus presented with a curated anthology that balances textual fidelity (including original brackets and footnotes) with scholarly commentary on the ballads’ provenance.

The language reflects early‑20th‑century academic prose, interweaving formal commentary with occasional archaic spellings that echo the Middle‑English sources themselves. Sidgwick’s voice is that of a careful antiquarian, attentive to textual variants and the cultural context of each ballad, while remaining accessible to modern readers. Those who enjoy folk‑song studies, medieval literature, or the evolution of legendary figures will find the collection rewarding; it also appeals to historians of the English outlaw tradition and to anyone interested in the way popular narratives were shaped, edited, and transmitted before the age of mass printing.