But many
people helped to make the ballads. I do not mean that twenty or
thirty people sat down together and said, "Let us make a ballad."
That would not have been possible. But, perhaps, one man heard a
story and put it into verse. Another then heard it and added
something to it. Still another and another heard, repeated,
added to, or altered it in one way or another. Sometimes the
story was made better by the process, sometimes it was spoiled.
But who those men were who made and altered the ballads, we do
not know. They were simply "the people."
One whole group of ballads tells of the wonderful deeds of Robin
Hood. Who Robin Hood was we do not certainly know, nor does it
matter much. Legend has made him a man of gentle birth who had
lost his lands and money, and who had fled to the woods as an
outlaw. Stories gradually gathered round his name as they had
gathered round the name of Arthur, and he came to be looked upon
as the champion of the people against the Norman tyrants.
Robin was a robber, but a robber as courtly as any knight.
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