English School (17th. Century) Robin Hood

Artist: English School.
Title: Robin Hood, Scarlet and John
Medium: Woodcut Print on Laid Paper.
Image Size: Height 7.7 cm x Width 10 cm.
Provenance: Private Collection UK.
Condition: Good condition, small blemish middle of the left side edge. (Note: this item is not framed but is mated with acid-free mount board)

About: This woodcut print is from a 17th-century manuscript” The Ballad of Robin Hood and the Pinder of Wakefield”. It tells the story of an encounter between Robin Hood and his merry men Little John and Will Scarlet and Wakefield's doughty pinder. The earliest surviving mention of the song comes from 1557. A pinder was the man who looked after the town pinfold, a secure enclosure, pound or pen for stray livestock. If your animals were put in the pinfold, you had to pay the pinder to get them back. Many of the early tales of Robin Hood associate him with Yorkshire as well as with Nottingham and Sherwood Forest.