Will Scarlet

Will Scarlet (also Scarlett, Scarlock, Scadlock, Scatheloke, Scathelocke and Shacklock) is a prominent member of Robin Hood's Merry Men. He is present in the earliest ballads along with Little John and Much the Miller's Son.The confusion of surnames has led some authors to distinguish them as belonging to different characters. The Elizabethan playwright Anthony Munday featured Scarlet and Scathlocke as half-brothers in his play The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington. Howard Pyle included both a Will Scathelock and a Will Scarlet in his Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Will Stutely may also exist as a separate character because of a mistaken surname. 2Ballads The first appearance of Will Scarlet was in one of the oldest surviving Robin Hood ballads, A Gest of Robyn Hode. He helps capture Richard at the Lee and when Robin lends that knight money to pay off his debts, Scarlet stands laughing at little John for the cost of clothing the knight (Richard at the Lee} being nothing.( Child Ballad 117A p,74) But after the knight has received four hundred pounds, 3 yards of every coloured cloth, a horse and saddle Will Scarlet insists the knight should have a pair of boots.( Child Ballad 117A p,77)Another very early ballad featuring Will Scarlet is one variant of Robin Hood's Death, in which Will's only role is to urge a bodyguard, which Robin scorns.A later ballad, Robin Hood and the Newly Revived, ascribes an origin story to him. Robin finds a finely dressed young man shooting deer in Sherwood, and offers to let him join the band; they quarrel and fight. Robin asks who he is; he says he is Young Gamwell, who killed his father's steward and fled his father's estate to seek out his uncle, Robin Hood. Robin makes him welcome and renames him Scarle