Robin Hood

Robin Hood. Along with King Arthur, Robin Hood is one of the most enduring of legendary heroes. In part this is because the details are so vague that the stories can be added to and adapted to the interests of different generations. The early versions emphasized Robin's skill with a bow, the later ones that he robbed the rich to help the poor. Maid Marian, who provides the love interest, was a 16th-cent. addition to the story. The earliest reference is in Langland's Piers Plowman (c.1377), in which one character remarks that he knows the rhymes of Robin Hood. The earliest detailed written source has been dated to about 1400 and a Scottish source was in existence by 1420. The stories are set in the 1190s, with King Richard away on crusade and his shifty brother John misgoverning the country. Though many genuine references to persons with the correct or similar name have been found, some even outlaws, it is most unlikely that the stories were based on one person. The area of the greenwood is usually taken as Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, or Barnsdale near Wentbridge in Yorkshire, but Barnsdale in Rutland is also a possibility. The many Robin Hood wells and caves are subsequent namings: Robin Hood's Bay, south of Whitby, is first mentioned in 1544. Though authority in the shape of the sheriff is mocked, the satire has been steadily sanitized. In the original versions Robin, though an outlaw, was loyal to Richard and ultimately pardoned. The 16th and 17th cents. promoted him to be the rightful earl of Huntingdon, and the egregious Stukeley in the 18th cent. produced a pedigree, giving him royal blood and tracing his ancestry back to Waltheof, earl of Northumberland in the 11th cent. The original poems were intended for minstrel performance but plays, novels, films, and cartoons eventually followed.

J. A. Cannon