ABSTRACT
The characteristic plot of the Robin Hood ballads, and indeed of all the later outlaw stories, is very simple. It is a tale in which wicked men meet a merited downfall, and the innocent and the unfortunate are relieved and rewarded. As the wicked are always the rich and powerful and the innocent the victims of poverty and misfortune, they may be said to be in essence stories of social justice. Though an occasional episode may have nothing to do with this theme, this is only the result of uneclectic borrowing by authors who only half understood the demands of their material. In fact the general drift of nearly all the stories is the same; clearly it was not only their traditional source which was shared by the ballad makers, the circumstances which inspired them were common to them also.
