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 Monk still wants him to remain his master. The king is enraged that the men managed to fool him, but admits that Little John is the most loyal man in England, and since they were all fooled, lets it go. Robin Hood and the Monk Robin Hood and the Monk is Child ballad 119, and among the oldest existing ballads of Robin Hood, existing in manuscript from about 1450. It may have been originally recited rather than sung; it refers to itself as a "talking" in its last verse: However, this is by no means certain, since the word "talking" could