Robin Hood
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Robin Hood. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a noted English outlaw. He is said to have lived about 1160-1247. According to popular belief, he surrounded himself with a band of daring spirits and lived by killing the king's deer and relieving the purses of fat churchmen and travelers. The greenwood of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire and the vales of Barnes-dale were his home. According to one account, he was a staunch Saxon driven to the forest to escape the tyranny of the Normans. At any rate, he was a bold spirit. Little John, a man of gigantic stature and a master stroke with the quarterstaff and broadsword, was his lieutenant. Friar Tuck played the priest in time of need. Will Stutely, Will Scarlet, and Midge, the miller's son, were of the band. They built huts of bark and branches. They slept on beds of leaves covered with the skins of deer. They built roaring campfires and feasted on venison and wine. Allan-a-Dale, the minstrel, gave them music for their dancing, and Robin himself taught them to fit the arrow and wield the cudgel. They lived a boisterous, outdoor life. The fat abbots, the sheriff, that is to say the judge, of Nottinghamshire, and the Bishop of Hereford were their aversion. Every innkeeper within a day's journey of the forest was in league with them. They plundered the wealthy and aided the poor. Woe betide the proud noble who ventured to oppress a poor man. His game was killed, his cattle were stolen, and it behooved him to keep his armor closed in passing a copse lest a gray goose shaft sped from the bow of Robin or one of his men reach him. Robin and his followers made it their boast that they never hurt fair maid or man in woman's company. At the end of his adventures Robin fell ill of a fever. He applied for aid to the treacherous prioress of the nunnery of Kirklees. According to the medical practice of the day, she let his blood, but unsuspected by Robin, allowed his very life to bleed away. In his weakness, he blew three weak blasts on his horn. His faithful followers came, but too late. Robin raised himself by a last effort, looked out through the window, drew his bow for the last time, and directed that he be buried where his arrow fell. The first mention of Robin Hood in literature occurs in Piers Plowman, the date of which is about 1377. A loutish country lad, Sloth by name, professes little knowledge of the Lord's Prayer, but knows the rhymes of Robin Hood. The literary material pertaining to Robin Hood--ballads and country-side traditions--have been woven into a connected tale by more than one writer. One of the most successful attempts is The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. Under the name of Locksley, Scott introduces Robin and his band of archers in Ivanhoe. Robinson Crusoe. See Defoe ; Daniel
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the hero of a group of old English ballads, represented as an outlaw and a robber, but of a gallant and generous nature, whose familiar haunts are the forests of Sherwood and Barnsdale, where he fleets the time carelessly in the merry greenwood. He is ever genial and good-natured, religious, respectful to the Virgin and to all women for her sake, with a kind of gracious and noble dignity in his bearing. He lives by the king's deer, though personally most loyal, and wages ceaseless warfare on all proud bishops, abbots, and knights, taking of their superfluity, and giving liberally to the poor and to all honest men in distress, of whatever degree. He is unrivalled with the bow and quarter staff; but in as many as eight of the extant ballads comes off the worse in the combat with some stout fellow, whom he thereupon induces to join his company. His chief comrades are Little John, Scathlok (Scarlet), and Much; to these the "Gest" adds Gilbert of the White Hand and Reynold. A stalwart curtal friar, called Friar Tuck in the title though not in the ballad, fights with Robin Hood, and apparently accepts the invitation to join his company, as he appears later in two broadsides which also mention Maid Marion. Such is the romantic figure of the greatest of English popular heroes-a kind of yeoman counterpart to the knightly Arthur. The earliest notice of Robin Hood yet found is that pointed out by Percy in "Piers Plowman," which, according to Skeat, cannot be older than about 1377. In the next century we find him mentioned in Wyntoun's "Chronicle of Scotland" (1420). Bower, in his "Scotichronicon" (1441-1447), describes the lower orders of his time as entertaining themselves with ballads both merry and serious about Robin Hood, Little John, and their mates, and preferring them to all others; and Major or Mair (1470-1550) says in his "Historia Maioris Britanniæ" that Robin Hood ballads were sung all over Britain. The last passage gives apparently the earliest mention of those more romantic and redeeming features of Robin Hood which earned him a place in Fuller's "Worthies of England." Fragments of two Robin Hood plays exist, one dating from 1475, the other printed by Copland with the "Gest" about 1550. The latter is described in the title as "very proper to be played in Maygames." Robin Hood was a popular figure in these during the 16th century, as we find from Stow, Hall, and other writers, and there is evidence that in this con-