Robin Hood and Little John Lyrics
Little John goes to town while Robin Hood waits in the greenwood, and the rhyme ends with the outlaw fretting that his friend is late.
Robin Hood and Little John
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Is in the mickle wood!
Little John, Little John,
He to the town is gone.
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Telling his beads,
All in the greenwood
Among the green weeds.
Little John, Little John,
If he comes no more,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
We shall fret full sore!
More verses from the original
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Is in the mickle wood!
Little John, Little John,
He to the town is gone.
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Telling his beads,
All in the greenwood
Among the green weeds.
Little John, Little John,
If he comes no more,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
We shall fret full sore!
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/robin-hood-and-little-john/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 3 to 7 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Is in the mickle wood | Make big trees with your arms above your head. |
| Telling his beads | Pretend to count beads on a string, one at a time. |
| We shall fret full sore | Wring your hands and look worried. |
What Does Robin Hood and Little John Mean?
Two famous friends from the Robin Hood stories are split up in the first verse: Little John has walked to the town and Robin Hood stays behind in the forest. Mickle is an old word for big, so the mickle wood is a great wide forest. Telling his beads means counting prayer beads, which is how people used to say a prayer. In the last verse the waiting gets hard, and "fret full sore" means to worry a great deal if John does not come back.
It is a small story with a clear feeling in it, which makes it a good rhyme for talking about what it is like to wait for a friend.
History and Origin
The rhyme is printed in The Real Mother Goose (1916) and in James Orchard Halliwell's The Nursery Rhymes of England, where it sits among the short rhymes children said in the nineteenth century. The Robin Hood stories themselves are far older, and ballads about him were being sung in England by about the 1400s.
Nobody has traced who first set the rhyme down. It looks like a fragment of a longer ballad turned into a child's verse, which would explain why it sounds more like a scene than a full story.
Learning Activities
- Forest scene: make a paper forest, then walk two toy figures in and out of it as you say the verses.
- Word detectives: ask what mickle, beads and fret mean today, and say each in your own words.
- Waiting game: hide a toy friend in the room and wait together before calling it back.