Robin Hood and Little John

They fight as viciously as if they were thrashing corn, neither willing to give in and Robin becoming especially incensed when the stranger cracks him on the crown hard enough to draw blood.

The men want to punish the stranger, but Robin holds them back, saying he can join his band and learn how to shoot a bow and arrow.

"[4] Child had also called the Roxburghe and Pepys collections (in which some of these ballads are included) "'veritable dung-hills ..., in which only after a great deal of sickening grubbing, one finds a very moderate jewel.

[6] Child and others were reluctant to include such broadsides in their collections because they thought they "regularized the text, rather than reflecting and/or participating in tradition, which fostered multiformity.

"[6] On the other hand, the broadsides are significant in themselves as showing, as English jurist and legal scholar John Selden (1584–1654) puts it, "'how the wind sits.

'"[7] Even though the broadsides are cultural ephemera, unlike weightier tomes, they are important because they are markers of contemporary "current events and popular trends.

[10] The latter interpretation supports Selden's view that popular ballads provide a valuable window onto the thoughts and feelings of the common people on topical matters: for the peasantry, Robin Hood may have been a redemptive figure.