Robin Hood

Robin Hood legendary hero of 12th-century England who robbed the rich to help the poor. Chivalrous, manly, fair, and always ready for a joke, Robin Hood reflected many of the ideals of the English yeoman. He lived in Sherwood Forest with Little John (his chief archer), Friar Tuck, Maid Marion (his beloved), and his band. Robin Hood was the hero of at least 30 Middle English ballads and of many later stories and plays. He is mentioned in such diverse works as Piers Plowman, Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott, and The Once and Future King (1958) by T. H. White.

Robin Hood Along with King Arthur, Robin Hood is one of the most enduring of legendary heroes. 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 stories are set in the 1190s, with King Richard away on crusade and his shifty brother John misgoverning the country. 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. The original poems were intended for minstrel performance but plays, novels, films, and cartoons eventually followed.