10 JULY 1926, Page 14

THE NEW GREENWOOD [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin, — Judging

from the many references to it in the ballads celebrating Robin Hood's exploits, I think there.. can be no possible doubt that greenwood means simply the Woodland and not the holly, as your correspondent" Botanist " suggests.- Passages like :

"Robyn dwelled in grene wode Twenty yore and two ; For all drede of Edward our kynge, - Agayne wolde he not gto.'

and those describing how he was born in the greenwood, and how he begged the King's permission to return. to it,. abso- lutely refuse to make sense if greenwood is taken to mean