By hook or by crook

The phrase was first recorded in the Middle English Controversial Tracts of John Wyclif in 1380.

Another is that it comes from the customs regulating which firewood local people could take from common land; they were allowed to take any branches that they could reach with a billhook or a shepherd's crook (used to hook sheep).

[4] The phrase was featured in the opening credits to the 1960s British television series The Prisoner.

[5] It appears prominently (as "by hook and by crook") in the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway[6] and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving.

[7] It was also used as the title of the 2001 film By Hook or by Crook directed by Silas Howard and Harry Dodge.