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Robin Hood's Death is the 120th ballad of the Child ballads collection published by Houghton Mifflin. The fragmentary Percy Folio version of it appears to be one of the oldest existing tales of Robin Hood; there is a synopsis of the story in the fifteenth century A Gest of Robyn Hode.[1] A later broadside version of the ballad also exists, which includes the famous detail of Robin Hood's last bowshot.
[edit] Synopsis

In the fragmentary Percy Folio version Robin Hood goes to get himself bled (a common medieval medical practice) by his cousin, a prioress. He refuses a bodyguard that Will Scarlet...

In popular culture, Robin Hood and his band of merry men are usually portrayed as living in Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire, where much of the action in the early ballads takes place.[7] So does the very first recorded Robin Hood rhyme, four lines from the early 15th century, beginning: "Robyn hode in scherewode stod."[8] However, the overall picture from the surviving early ballads and other early references[8] suggest that Robin Hood may have been based in the Barnsdale area of what is now South Yorkshire (which borders Nottinghamshire).

Other traditions point to a variety of locations...