Songs and legends of Robin Hood and his merry outlaws have charmed readers young and old for more than five hundred years. They are among the earliest heirlooms of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, dating back to the time when Chaucer wrote his " Canterbury Tales," and the minstrel and scribe stood in the place of the more prim and precise modern printing block. The present stories, then, are but the retelling of old tales whose charm and interest, nevertheless, make them ever new. The old tales were in rhyme and ancient spelling; they were hid in out-of-the-way places; and they were more or less disconnected and obscure to our modern thinking. For this reason the adventures are now put into a continuous prose narrative, in the hope that they will make some readers acquainted with one of the most attractive heroes in all story-land.