Note 12 — A New Ballad of Robin Hood: Shewing his Birth, Breeding, Valour and Marriage, at Titbury Bull-running: Calculated for the Meridian of Staffordshire but may serve for Derbyshire or Kent.
Reading edition
Adam Bell was a northern outlaw, so celebrated for archery and other matters as to become proverbial, and
"To shoot as well As Adam Bell"
became a common expression. He was also the subject of various ballads, and is thus alluded to by D'Avenant in 1673:—
"With loynes in canvass bow-case tyde, Where arrowes stick with mickle pride; Like ghosts of Adam Belland Clymme, Sol sets for fear theyl shoot at hym."