The forest he had heard was a place of dread, for the other villeins had told terrible tales. Of monsters who flew by night and hid in dark thickets by day to snap up unwary travellers; of hills from whose tops at night the glow of fire shone forth, and within which little dark elves or spirits dwelled. Indeed, the fear of little malicious fiends was never very distant from Jack’s mind in those times. These evil things might take any shape, and they dwelled in the spring or the stream, in the wood beside the road, and in the turfs of the grass in the field which he was ploughing or mowing. The whole village, and thousands of villages up and down broad Britain, believed in such wicked sprites, and therefore was no worse than his fellows, or, indeed, than men who were famed for their learning in those days and sat at the council board of kings.
Henry Gilbert, “Robin Hood”, 1912
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 