Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar earlier version, Robin Hood good-humoredly refuses further combat; in both earlier and later versions Robin invites him to join the band. Howard Pyle used this tale in his "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" as part of the tale of Alan-a-Dale: Robin needed a priest who would perform the wedding ceremony in defiance of authority, and Will Scarlet proposed Friar Tuck. The Percy Folio version of the ballad begins with the stanza: Robert Graves in his "English and Scottish Ballads" used this stanza to support his argument for pagan survivals in the Robin Hood legend, and for the popular survival
Robin Hood and the Butcher Version B, which is the version summarized above, does not include a fight between Robin Hood and the butcher, which takes place in a missing part of Version A and in "Robin Hood and the Potter." In the version summarized above, however, Robin does mention a "shot" (3.19) during the feast of the guild, which probably refers to an archery contest between Robin and the Sheriff's men in which Robin was victorious and which is recorded in "Robin Hood and the Potter." Version A was discovered in the Percy Folio, the most important source for the Child ballads collection, but