#A.# 'Erlinton,' Scott's Minstrelsy, III, 235, ed. 1803.
#B.# 'True Tammas,' Mr R. White's papers.
#C.# 'Robin Hood and the Tanner's Daughter,' Gutch's Robin Hood, II, 345.
'Erlinton' (#A#) first appeared in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, the text formed "from the collation of two copies obtained from recitation." #B# is a manuscript copy, furnished by the late Mr Robert White of Newcastle, and was probably taken down from recitation by Mr James Telfer early in the century. #C#, in which Robin Hood has taken the place of a hero who had at least _connections_ out of Great Britain, was first printed in Gutch's Robin Hood, from a manuscript of Mr Payne Collier, supposed to have been written about 1650.
This ballad has only with much hesitation been separated from the foregoing. In this as in that, a man induces a maid to go off with him; he is set upon by a party of fifteen in #A#, #B#, as in 7 #A#; and he spares the life of one of his assailants [an old man, #A#, #B#, the younger brother, #C#]. Some agreements as to details with Scandinavian Ribold ballads have already been noticed, and it has been observed that while there is no vestige of the dead-naming in 'Earl Brand,' there is an obvious trace of it in 'Erlinton' #A#, #B#. 'Erlinton' #A#, #B# has also one other correspondence not found in 'Earl Brand,'--the strict watch kept over the lady (st. 2). Even the bigly bower, expressly built to confine her in, is very likely a reminiscence or a displacement of the tower in which Hilde is shut up, _after_ her elopement, in some of the Scandinavian ballads (Danish 83 #A#, #B#; Swedish #A#, dark house). But notwithstanding these resemblances to the Ribold story, there is a difference in the larger part of the details, and all the 'Erlinton' ballads have a fortunate conclusion, which also does not seem forced, as it does in Arwidsson, 107, the only instance, perhaps, in which a fortunate conclusion in a Ribold ballad is of the least account; for Grundtvig's #F#, #G# are manifestly copies that have been tampered with, and Landstad 34 is greatly confused at the close. It may be an absolute accident, but 'Erlinton' #A#, #B# has at least one point of contact with the story of Walter of Aquitania which is not found in 'Earl Brand.' This story requires to be given in brief on account of its kinship to both.