![]() In the 15th-century ballad commonly called " Robin Hood and the Monk", Little John leaves in anger after a dispute with Robin. ![]() In " Robin Hood's Death", he is the only one of the Merry Men that Robin takes with him. In " A Gest of Robyn Hode", he captures the sorrowful knight and, when Robin Hood decides to pay the knight's mortgage for him, accompanies him as a servant. In the early tales, Little John is shown to be intelligent and highly capable. Little John appears in the earliest recorded Robin Hood ballads and stories, and in one of the earliest references to Robin Hood by Andrew of Wyntoun in 1420 and by Walter Bower in 1440. ![]() The first known reference in English verse to Robin Hood is found in The Vision of Piers Plowman, written by William Langland in the second part of the 14th century. In folklore, he fought Robin Hood on a tree bridge across a river on their first meeting. His name is an ironic reference to his giant frame, as he is usually portrayed in legend as a huge warrior – a 7-foot-tall (2.1-metre) master of the quarterstaff. He is one of only a handful of consistently named characters who relate to Robin Hood and one of the two oldest Merry Men, alongside Much the Miller's Son. Little John is a companion of Robin Hood who serves as his chief lieutenant and second-in-command of the Merry Men. ![]()
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