Jock the Leg and the Merry Merchant

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Jock the Leg and the Merry Merchant is Child ballad 282.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Jock the Leg and a merchant meet; Jock tries to get him to pay at a tavern. Then Jock wakes him and tells him they should be on their way. The merchant says he can not take the roads Jock wants, because Jock the Leg would rob him. Jock says he'll protect him. In the forest, Jock tries to rob him, and they fight. Jock persuades him to let him blow his horn. This summons his men. The merchants says that if six of them, plus Jock, fight him and get him to take his foot from his pack, he will give it to them. They are unable. Jock offers to have him join. The merchant refuses.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Commentary

This story matches many Robin Hood ballads, in which Robin meets and fights a stranger, but for Jock, unlike Robin, summoning his men with his horn does not end the fray, and the stranger rejects his offer.