Robin Hood and the Butcher

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Robin Hood and the Butcher is Child ballad 122. It may have been derived from the similar Robin Hood and the Potter.

1 Synopsis
2 Adaptations
3 External links
4 Notes

[edit] Synopsis

Robin Hood meets with a butcher. In some variants, he fights with him. He always buys his goods and goes into Nottingham, where he sells the meat at ridiculously low prices. The other butchers suspect that he is a prodigal, wasting his inheritance. They invite him to the sheriff's, where their guild is feasting. The sheriff asks if he has more animals to sell. Robin takes him to Sherwood and shows him the deer, and then summons his band by his horn.

Robin robs him of his gold and sends him home, saying that his wife's hospitality was all that saved his head.

[edit] Adaptations

This tale has reappeared in many books of Robin Hood, including Howard Pyle's Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, although the threat to kill the sheriff at the end was often omitted.

Elements of this ballad also appeared in the 1955 The Adventures of Robin Hood (TV Series) episode "A Guest for the Gallows" where Robin adopts the butcher's identity to rescue Will Stutely.^[1]