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A Gest of Robyn Hode is one of the earliest surviving texts featuring a tale about the Robin Hood character.

In contemporary English, what is a "gren-wode shawe"?

Please consider the following excerpt:

loke ye do no husband harme
That tilleth with his plow.
No/know more ye shall no/know gode yeman
That walketh by gren-wode shawe;
Ne no knight ne no squire
That wol be a gode felawe.

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    Where are you getting know from in the third line? The Wikisource has no in both instances, which is also the only thing that makes sense (“See that you do harm to any farmer that tills with his plow / no more shall you [do harm to] no [= any] good yeoman that walks by greenwood shaw”).
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Nov 11 at 14:58
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    ELO: youtube.com/watch?v=vB1R3peoTkw
    – Will Jagy
    Commented Nov 11 at 18:06

1 Answer 1

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A Chaucer Glossary by Norman Davis, Douglas Gray, Patricia Ingram and Anne Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford University Press, 1979), has the following relevant entries:

  • grene: 1. green (…)
  • shawe: wood, thicket (…)

Wiktionary's entry for greenwood says the word derives

From Middle English grene wode (“a forest that is leafed out, a greenwood" also "unseasoned firewood”), equivalent to green +‎ wood.

Greenwood is defined as "A forest in full leaf, as in summer."

Based on the above, I would say that "gren-wode shawe" means a wood or thicket in full leaf.

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    Like greenwood, shaw is also still a word, referring to a small wood, grove, thicket or similar. It’s dated (or dialectal), but it’s still present enough to be listed in non-historical dictionaries.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Nov 11 at 15:00
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    @JanusBahsJacquet Shaw is still in use by elderly folks in Scotland. Had to ask what it meant the first time I heard it some 35 years ago near Edinburgh. The answer was grove or thicket. I have heard it used as recent as 2 years ago in Taim.
    – Tonny
    Commented Nov 11 at 20:07
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    And also in Sussex (other end of Britain!). My cycle to work passes through "Railway shaw". "Tugmore shaw and "Square Barn shaw", among others, are nearby too.
    – James K
    Commented Nov 11 at 21:06

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