Robin Hood version of Robin Hood's life. In reaching his conclusion Ritson relied or gave weight to a number of unreliable sources, such as the Robin Hood plays of Anthony Munday, and the Sloane Manuscript. Nevertheless, Dobson and Taylor credit Ritson with having 'an incalculable effect in promoting the still continuing quest for the man behind the myth', and note that his work remains an 'indispensable handbook to the outlaw legend even now'. Ritson's friend Walter Scott used Ritson's anthology collection as a source for his picture of Robin Hood in Ivanhoe, written in 1818, which did much to shape the modern
Friar Tuck tales) who was expelled by his order because of his lack of respect for authority. Because of this, and in spite of his taste for good food and wine, he became the chaplain of Robin's band. In Howard Pyle's "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood", he was specifically sought out as part of the tale of Alan-a-Dale: Robin has need of a priest who will marry Allan to his sweetheart in defiance of the Bishop of Hereford. In many tales, from "Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar" to "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood", his first encounter with Robin results