Robin Hood

heroic outlaw in English folklore, a highly skilled archer and swordsman

For other uses, see Robin Hood (disambiguation).

Robin Hood
Tales of Robin Hood and his Merry Men character
Woodcut of Robin Hood, from a 17th-century broadside
First appearance	13th/14th century AD
Created by	anonymous balladeers
Portrayed by	Robert Frazer Douglas Fairbanks Errol Flynn Cornel Wilde Jon Hall John Derek Richard Todd Don Taylor Richard Greene Giuliano Gemma Sean Connery Patrick Bergin Kevin Costner Russell Crowe Taron Egerton Cary Elwes Patrick Troughton David Watson Martin Potter Michael Praed Matthew Porretta Jonas Armstrong John Drew, Jr. Arthur Bourchier James Booth M. Pokora Boris Khmelnitsky
Voiced by	Brian Bedford Kazue Ikura Thor Bishopric
Information
Alias	Robyn Hode Robin of Sherwood Robin of Loxley (Locksley) Robert Fitzooth Robin de Courtenay Sir Robert Hode Robert Huntingdon
Occupation	Variable: yeoman, archer, outlaw Later stories: nobleman
Affiliation	Loyal to Richard the Lionheart
Spouse	Maid Marian (in some stories)
Significant other	Maid Marian
Religion	Christian
Nationality	English

Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is depicted as being of noble birth, and in modern time he is sometimes depicted as having fought in the Crusades before returning to England to find his lands taken by the Sheriff. In the oldest known versions he is instead a member of the yeoman class. Traditionally depicted dressed in Lincoln green, he is said to have robbed from the rich and given to the poor.

Through retellings, additions, and variations a body of familiar characters associated with Robin Hood have been created. These include his lover, Maid Marian, his band of outlaws, the Merry Men, and his chief opponent, the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff is often depicted as assisting Prince John in usurping the rightful but absent King Richard, to whom Robin Hood remains loyal. His partisanship of the common people and his hostility to the Sheriff of Nottingham are early recorded features of the legend but his interest in the rightfulness of the king is not, and neither is his setting in the reign of Richard I. He became a popular folk figure in the Late Middle Ages, and the earliest known ballads featuring him are from the 15th century (1400s).

There have been numerous variations and adaptations of the story over the last six hundred years, and the story continues to be widely represented in literature, film and television. Robin Hood is considered one of the best known tales of English folklore.

The historicity of Robin Hood is not proven and has been debated for centuries. There are numerous references to historical figures with similar names that have been proposed as possible evidence of his existence, some dating back to the late 13th century. At least eight plausible origins to the story have been mooted by historians and folklorists, including suggestions that "Robin Hood" was a stock alias used by or in reference to bandits.

Contents

• 
  1 Ballads and tales
  
  
  
  • 
    1.1 Early ballads
    
  
  
  • 
    1.2 Early plays, May Day games and fairs
    
  
  
  • 
    1.3 Robin Hood on the early modern stage
    
  
  
  • 
    1.4 Broadside ballads and garlands
    
  
  
  • 
    1.5 Rediscovery of the Medieval Robin Hood: Percy and Ritson
    
  
  
  • 
    1.6 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
    
  
  
  • 
    1.7 20th century onwards
    
  
  
  • 
    1.8 Films, animations, new concepts and other adaptations
    
    
    
    • 
      1.8.1 Walt Disney's Robin Hood
      
    
    
    • 
      1.8.2 Robin and Marian
      
    
    
    • 
      1.8.3 A Muslim among the Merry Men
      
    
    
    • 
      1.8.4 Robin Hood in France
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  2 Historicity
  
  
  
  • 
    2.1 Early references
    
  
  
  • 
    2.2 Robin Hood of York
    
  
  
  • 
    2.3 Robert and John Deyville
    
  
  
  • 
    2.4 Roger Godberd as Robin Hood
    
  
  
  • 
    2.5 Robin Hood of Wakefield
    
  
  
  • 
    2.6 Robin Hood as an alias
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  3 Mythology
  


• 
  4 Associated locations
  
  
  
  • 
    4.1 Sherwood Forest
    
  
  
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    4.2 Nottinghamshire
    
  
  
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    4.3 Yorkshire
    
  
  
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    4.4 Barnsdale
    
  
  
  • 
    4.5 The Saylis
    
  
  
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    4.6 Church of Saint Mary Magdalene at Campsall
    
  
  
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    4.7 Abbey of Saint Mary at York
    
  
  
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    4.8 Grave at Kirklees
    
  
  
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    4.9 All Saints' Church at Pontefract
    
  
  
  • 
    4.10 Place-name locations
    
    
    
    • 
      4.10.1 Some other place names and other references
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  5 List of traditional ballads
  
  
  
  • 
    5.1 Early ballads (i.e., surviving in 15th- or early-16th-century copies)
    
  
  
  • 
    5.2 Ballads appearing in 17th-century Percy Folio
    
  
  
  • 
    5.3 Other ballads
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  6 In popular culture
  


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  7 Main characters of the folklore
  


• 
  8 See also
  


• 
  9 References
  


• 
  10 Bibliography
  


• 
  11 External links
  

Ballads and tales

The first clear reference to 'rhymes of Robin Hood' is from the alliterative poem Piers Plowman, thought to have been composed in the 1370s, but the earliest surviving copies of the narrative ballads that tell his story date to the second half of the 15th century (ie 1400s), or the first decade of the 16th century (ie 1500s). In these early accounts, Robin Hood's partisanship of the lower classes, his devotion to the Virgin Mary and associated special regard for women, his outstanding skill as an archer, his anti-clericalism, and his particular animosity towards the Sheriff of Nottingham are already clear.^[1]Little John, Much the Miller's Son and Will Scarlet (as Will 'Scarlok' or 'Scathelocke') all appear, although not yet Maid Marian or Friar Tuck. The latter has been part of the legend since at least the later 15th century, when he is mentioned in a Robin Hood play script.^[2]

In modern popular culture, Robin Hood is typically seen as a contemporary and supporter of the late-12th-century king Richard the Lionheart, Robin being driven to outlawry during the misrule of Richard's brother John while Richard was away at the Third Crusade. This view first gained currency in the 16th century.^[3] It is not supported by the earliest ballads. The early compilation, A Gest of Robyn Hode, names the king as 'Edward'; and while it does show Robin Hood accepting the King's pardon, he later repudiates it and returns to the greenwood.

The oldest surviving ballad, Robin Hood and the Monk, gives even less support to the picture of Robin Hood as a partisan of the true king. The setting of the early ballads is usually attributed by scholars to either the 13th century or the 14th, although it is recognised they are not necessarily historically consistent.^[4]

The early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hood's social status: he is a yeoman. While the precise meaning of this term changed over time, including free retainers of an aristocrat and small landholders, it always referred to commoners. The essence of it in the present context was 'neither a knight nor a peasant or "husbonde" but something in between'.^[5]Artisans (such as millers) were among those regarded as 'yeomen' in the 14th century.^[6] From the 16th century on, there were attempts to elevate Robin Hood to the nobility and in two extremely influential plays, Anthony Munday presented him at the very end of the 16th century as the Earl of Huntingdon, as he is still commonly presented in modern times.^[7]

As well as ballads, the legend was also transmitted by 'Robin Hood games' or plays that were an important part of the late medieval and early modern May Day festivities. The first record of a Robin Hood game was in 1426 in Exeter, but the reference does not indicate how old or widespread this custom was at the time. The Robin Hood games are known to have flourished in the later 15th and 16th centuries.^[8] It is commonly stated as fact that Maid Marian and a jolly friar (at least partly identifiable with Friar Tuck) entered the legend through the May Games.^[9]

Early ballads

The earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad is the 15th-century "Robin Hood and the Monk".^[10] This is preserved in Cambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48. Written after 1450,^[11] it contains many of the elements still associated with the legend, from the Nottingham setting to the bitter enmity between Robin and the local sheriff.

Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood; the sword he is depicted with was common in the oldest ballads

The first printed version is A Gest of Robyn Hode (c. 1500), a collection of separate stories that attempts to unite the episodes into a single continuous narrative.^[12] After this comes "Robin Hood and the Potter",^[13] contained in a manuscript of c. 1503. "The Potter" is markedly different in tone from "The Monk": whereas the earlier tale is 'a thriller'^[14] the latter is more comic, its plot involving trickery and cunning rather than straightforward force.

Other early texts are dramatic pieces, the earliest being the fragmentary Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham^[15] (c. 1475). These are particularly noteworthy as they show Robin's integration into May Day rituals towards the end of the Middle Ages; Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham, among other points of interest, contains the earliest reference to Friar Tuck.

The plots of neither "the Monk" nor "the Potter" are included in the Gest; and neither is the plot of "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne", which is probably at least as old as those two ballads although preserved in a more recent copy. Each of these three ballads survived in a single copy, so it is unclear how much of the medieval legend has survived, and what has survived may not be typical of the medieval legend. It has been argued that the fact that the surviving ballads were preserved in written form in itself makes it unlikely they were typical; in particular, stories with an interest for the gentry were by this view more likely to be preserved.^[16] The story of Robin's aid to the 'poor knight' that takes up much of the Gest may be an example.

The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than in his later incarnations. In "Robin Hood and the Monk", for example, he is shown as quick tempered and violent, assaulting Little John for defeating him in an archery contest; in the same ballad Much the Miller's Son casually kills a 'little page' in the course of rescuing Robin Hood from prison.^[17] No extant ballad early actually shows Robin Hood 'giving to the poor', although in a "A Gest of Robyn Hode" Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunate knight, which he does not in the end require to be repaid;^[18] and later in the same ballad Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the next traveller to come down the road if he happens to be poor.

Of my good he shall haue some, :Yf he be a por man.

^[19]

As it happens the next traveller is not poor, but it seems in context that Robin Hood is stating a general policy. The first explicit statement to the effect that Robin Hood habitually robbed from the rich to give the poor can be found in John Stow's Annales of England (1592), about a century after the publication of the Gest.^[20][21] But from the beginning Robin Hood is on the side of the poor; the Gest quotes Robin Hood as instructing his men that when they rob:

loke ye do no husbonde harme :That tilleth with his ploughe. :No more ye shall no gode yeman :That walketh by gren-wode shawe; :Ne no knyght ne no squyer :That wol be a gode felawe.

^[22]

And in its final lines the Gest sums up:

he was a good outlawe, :And dyde pore men moch god.

Within Robin Hood's band, medieval forms of courtesy rather than modern ideals of equality are generally in evidence. In the early ballad, Robin's men usually kneel before him in strict obedience: in A Gest of Robyn Hode the king even observes that 'His men are more at his byddynge/Then my men be at myn.' Their social status, as yeomen, is shown by their weapons; they use swords rather than quarterstaffs. The only character to use a quarterstaff in the early ballads is the potter, and Robin Hood does not take to a staff until the 17th-century Robin Hood and Little John.^[23]

The political and social assumptions underlying the early Robin Hood ballads have long been controversial. It has been influentially argued by J. C. Holt that the Robin Hood legend was cultivated in the households of the gentry, and that it would be mistaken to see in him a figure of peasant revolt. He is not a peasant but a yeoman, and his tales make no mention of the complaints of the peasants, such as oppressive taxes.^[24] He appears not so much as a revolt against societal standards as an embodiment of them, being generous, pious, and courteous, opposed to stingy, worldly, and churlish foes.^[25] Other scholars have by contrast stressed the subversive aspects of the legend, and see in the medieval Robin Hood ballads a plebeian literature hostile to the feudal order.^[26]

Early plays, May Day games and fairs

By the early 15th century at the latest, Robin Hood had become associated with May Day celebrations, with revellers dressing as Robin or as members of his band for the festivities. This was not common throughout England, but in some regions the custom lasted until Elizabethan times, and during the reign of Henry VIII, was briefly popular at court.^[27] Robin was often allocated the role of a May King, presiding over games and processions, but plays were also performed with the characters in the roles,^[28] sometimes performed at church ales, a means by which churches raised funds.^[29]

A complaint of 1492, brought to the Star Chamber, accuses men of acting riotously by coming to a fair as Robin Hood and his men; the accused defended themselves on the grounds that the practice was a long-standing custom to raise money for churches, and they had not acted riotously but peaceably.^[30]

Robin Hood and Maid Marian

It is from the association with the May Games that Robin's romantic attachment to Maid Marian (or Marion) apparently stems. A "Robin and Marion" figured in 13th-century French 'pastourelles' (of which Jeu de Robin et Marion c. 1280 is a literary version) and presided over the French May festivities, 'this Robin and Marion tended to preside, in the intervals of the attempted seduction of the latter by a series of knights, over a variety of rustic pastimes.'^[31] In the Jeu de Robin and Marion, Robin and his companions have to rescue Marion from the clutches of a 'lustful knight'.^[32] This play is distinct from the English legends.^[27] although Dobson and Taylor regard it as 'highly probable' that this French Robin's name and functions travelled to the English May Games where they fused with the Robin Hood legend.^[33] Both Robin and Marian were certainly associated with May Day festivities in England (as was Friar Tuck), but these may have been originally two distinct types of performance – Alexander Barclay in his Ship of Fools, writing in c. 1500, refers to 'some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood'—but the characters were brought together'.^[34] Marian did not immediately gain the unquestioned role; in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage, his sweetheart is 'Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses'.^[35] Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian.^[36]

The earliest preserved script of a Robin Hood play is the fragmentary Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham^[15] This apparently dates to the 1470s and circumstantial evidence suggests it was probably performed at the household of Sir John Paston. This fragment appears to tell the story of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.^[37] There is also an early playtext appended to a 1560 printed edition of the Gest. This includes a dramatic version of the story of Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar and a version of the first part of the story of Robin Hood and the Potter. (Neither of these ballads are known to have existed in print at the time, and there is no earlier record known of the "Curtal Friar" story). The publisher describes the text as a 'playe of Robyn Hood, verye proper to be played in Maye games', but does not seem to be aware that the text actually contains two separate plays.^[38] An especial point of interest in the "Friar" play is the appearance of a ribald woman who is unnamed but apparently to be identified with the bawdy Maid Marian of the May Games.^[39] She does not appear in extant versions of the ballad.

Robin Hood on the early modern stage

In 1598, Anthony Munday wrote a pair of plays on the Robin Hood legend, The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington (published 1601). These plays drew on a variety of sources, including apparently "A Gest of Robin Hood", and were influential in fixing the story of Robin Hood to the period of Richard I. Stephen Thomas Knight has suggested that Munday drew heavily on Fulk Fitz Warin a historical 12th century outlawed nobleman and enemy of King John, in creating his Robin Hood.^[40] The play identifies Robin Hood as Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, probably for the first time, and identifies Maid Marian with 'one of the semi-mythical Matildas persecuted by King John'.^[41] The plays are complex in plot and form, the story of Robin Hood appearing as a play-within-a-play presented at the court of Henry VIII and written by the poet, priest and courtier John Skelton. Skelton himself is presented in the play as acting the part of Friar Tuck. Some scholars have conjectured that Skelton may have indeed written a lost Robin Hood play for Henry VIII's court, and that this play may have been one of Munday's sources.^[42] Henry VIII himself with eleven of his nobles had impersonated "Robyn Hodes men" as part of his "Maying" in 1510. Robin Hood is known to have appeared in a number of other lost and extant Elizabethan plays. In 1599, the play George a Green, the Pinner of Wakefield places Robin Hood in the reign of Edward IV.^[43]Edward I, a play by George Peele first performed in 1590–91, incorporates a Robin Hood game played by the characters. Lleweleyn, the last independent Prince of Wales, is presented playing Robin Hood.^[44]

King Richard the Lionheart marrying Robin Hood and Maid Marian on a plaque outside Nottingham Castle

Fixing the Robin Hood story to the 1190s had been first proposed by John Major in his Historia Majoris Britanniæ (1521), (and he also may have been influenced in so doing by the story of Fulk Fitz Warin^[40]) This was the period in which King Richard was absent from the country, fighting in the Third Crusade.^[45]

William Shakespeare makes reference to Robin Hood in his late-16th-century play The Two Gentlemen of Verona. In it, the character Valentine is banished from Milan and driven out through the forest where he is approached by outlaws who, upon meeting him, desire him as their leader. They comment, 'By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for our wild faction!'^[46] Robin Hood is also mentioned in As You Like It. When asked about the exiled Duke Senior, the character of Charles says that he is '"already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England'. Justice Silence sings a line from an unnamed Robin Hood ballad, the line is "Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John" in Act 5 scene 3 of Henry IV, part 2. In Henry IV part 1 Act 3 scene 3, Falstaff refers to Maid Marian implying she is a by-word for unwomanly or unchaste behaviour.

Ben Jonson produced the (incomplete) masque The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood^[47] in part as a satire on Puritanism. It is about half finished and writing may have been interrupted by his death in 1637. It is Jonson's only pastoral drama, it was written in sophisticated verse and included supernatural action and characters.^[48] It has had little impact on the Robin Hood tradition but needs mention as the work of a major dramatist.

The London theatre closure 1642 by the Puritans interrupted the portrayal of Robin Hood on the stage. The theatres would reopen with the Restoration in 1660. Robin Hood did not appear on the Restoration stage unless one includes "Robin Hood and his Crew of Souldiers" acted in Nottingham on the day of the coronation of Charles II in 1661. This short play adapts the story of the king's pardon of Robin Hood to refer to the Restoration.^[49]

However Robin Hood appeared on the 18th-century stage in various farces and comic operas.^[50]Tennyson would write a four act Robin Hood play at the end of the 19th century, "The Forrestors". It is fundamentally based on the Gest but follows the tradition of placing Robin Hood as the Earl of Huntingdon in the time of Richard I, and making the Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John rivals with Robin Hood for Maid Marian's hand.^[51] The return of King Richard brings about a happy ending.

Broadside ballads and garlands

With the advent of printing came the Robin Hood broadside ballads. Exactly when they displaced the oral tradition of Robin Hood ballads is unknown but the process seems to have been completed by the end of the 16th century. Near the end of the 16th century an unpublished prose life of Robin Hood was written, and included in the Sloane Manuscript. Largely a paraphrase of the Gest, it also contains material revealing that the author was familiar with early versions of a number of the Robin Hood broadside ballads.^[52] Not all of the medieval legend was preserved in the broadside ballads, there is no broadside version of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne or of Robin Hood and the Monk, which did not appear in print until the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. However, the Gest was reprinted from time to time throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

No surviving broadside ballad can be dated with certainty before the 17th century, but during that century, the commercial broadside ballad became the main vehicle for the popular Robin Hood legend.^[53] These broadside ballads were in some cases newly fabricated but were mostly adaptations of the older verse narratives. The broadside ballads were fitted to a small repertoire of pre-existing tunes resulting in an increase of "stock formulaic phrases' making them 'repetitive and verbose',^[54] they commonly feature Robin Hood's contests with artisans: tinkers tanners and butchers. Among these ballads is Robin Hood and Little John telling the famous story of the quarter-staff fight between the two outlaws.

Dobson and Taylor wrote, 'More generally the Robin of the broadsides is a much less tragic, less heroic and in the last resort less mature figure than his medieval predecessor'.^[55] In most of the broadside ballads Robin Hood remains a plebeian figure, a notable exception being Martin Parker's attempt at an overall life of Robin Hood, A True Tale of Robin Hood, which also emphasises the theme of Robin Hood's generosity to the poor more than the broadsheet ballads do in general.

The 17th century introduced the minstrel Alan-a-Dale. He first appeared in a 17th-century broadside ballad, and unlike many of the characters thus associated, managed to adhere to the legend.^[35] The prose life of Robin Hood in Sloane Manuscript contains the substance of the Alan-a-Dale ballad but tells the story about Will Scarlet.

"Little John and Robin Hood" by Frank Godwin

In the 18th century, the stories began to develop a slightly more farcical vein. From this period there are a number of ballads in which Robin is severely 'drubbed' by a succession of tradesmen including a tanner, a tinker and a ranger.^[45] In fact, the only character who does not get the better of Hood is the luckless Sheriff. Yet even in these ballads Robin is more than a mere simpleton: on the contrary, he often acts with great shrewdness. The tinker, setting out to capture Robin, only manages to fight with him after he has been cheated out of his money and the arrest warrant he is carrying. In Robin Hood's Golden Prize, Robin disguises himself as a friar and cheats two priests out of their cash. Even when Robin is defeated, he usually tricks his foe into letting him sound his horn, summoning the Merry Men to his aid. When his enemies do not fall for this ruse, he persuades them to drink with him instead (see Robin Hood's Delight).

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Robin Hood ballads were mostly sold in "Garlands" of 16 to 24 Robin Hood ballads; these were crudely printed chap books aimed at the poor. The garlands added nothing to the substance of the legend but ensured that it continued after the decline of the single broadside ballad.^[56] In the 18th century also, Robin Hood frequently appeared in criminal biographies and histories of highwaymen compendia.^[57]

Rediscovery of the Medieval Robin Hood: Percy and Ritson

In 1765 Thomas Percy (bishop of Dromore) published Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, including ballads from the 17th-century Percy Folio manuscript which had not previously been printed, most notably Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne which is generally regarded as in substance a genuine late medieval ballad.

In 1795 Joseph Ritson published an enormously influential edition of the Robin Hood ballads Robin Hood: A collection of all the Ancient Poems Songs and Ballads now extant, relative to that celebrated Outlaw.^[58] 'By providing English poets and novelists with a convenient source book, Ritson gave them the opportunity to recreate Robin Hood in their own imagination,'^[59] Ritson's collection included the Gest and put the Robin Hood and the Potter ballad in print for the first time. The only significant omission was Robin Hood and the Monk which would eventually be printed in 1806. Ritson's interpretation of Robin Hood was also influential, having influenced the modern concept of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor as it exists today.^{[60][61][62][63]} Himself a supporter of the principles of the French Revolution and admirer of Thomas Paine Ritson held that Robin Hood was a genuinely historical, and genuinely heroic, character who had stood up against tyranny in the interests of the common people.^[59]

In his preface to the collection Ritson assembled an account of Robin Hood's life from the various sources available to him, and concluded that Robin Hood was born in around 1160, and thus had been active in the reign of Richard I. He thought that Robin was of aristocratic extraction, with at least 'some pretension' to the title of Earl of Huntingdon, that he was born in an unlocated Nottinghamshire village of Locksley and that his original name was Robert Fitzooth. Ritson gave the date of Robin Hood's death as 18 November 1247, when he would have been around 87 years old. In copious and informative notes Ritson defends every point of his version of Robin Hood's life.^[64] In reaching his conclusion Ritson relied or gave weight to a number of unreliable sources, such as the Robin Hood plays of Anthony Munday, and the Sloane Manuscript. Nevertheless, Dobson and Taylor credit Ritson with having 'an incalculable effect in promoting the still continuing quest for the man behind the myth', and note that his work remains an 'indispensable handbook to the outlaw legend even now'.^[65]

Ritson's friend Walter Scott used Ritson's anthology collection as a source for his picture of Robin Hood in Ivanhoe, written in 1818, which did much to shape the modern legend.^[66]

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

The title page of Howard Pyle's 1883 novel, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Main article: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

In the 19th century the Robin Hood legend was first specifically adapted for children. Children's editions of the garlands were produced and in 1820 a children's edition of Ritson's Robin Hood collection. Children's Robin Hood novels began to appear. It is not that children did not read Robin Hood stories before, but this is the first appearance of a Robin Hood literature specifically aimed at them.^[67] A very influential example of these children's novels was Pierce Egan the Younger's Robin Hood and Little John (1840).^[68][69] This was adapted into French by Alexandre Dumas in Le Prince des Voleurs (1872) and Robin Hood Le Proscrit (1873). Egan made Robin Hood of noble birth but raised by the forestor Gilbert Hood.

Another very popular version for children was Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which influenced accounts of Robin Hood through the 20th century.^[70] Pyle's version firmly stamp Robin as a staunch philanthropist, a man who takes from the rich to give to the poor. Nevertheless, the adventures are still more local than national in scope: while King Richard's participation in the Crusades is mentioned in passing, Robin takes no stand against Prince John, and plays no part in raising the ransom to free Richard. These developments are part of the 20th-century Robin Hood myth. Pyle's Robin Hood is a yeoman and not an aristocrat.

The idea of Robin Hood as a high-minded Saxon fighting Norman lords also originates in the 19th century. The most notable contributions to this idea of Robin are Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry's Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre par les Normands (1825) and Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819). In this last work in particular, the modern Robin Hood—'King of Outlaws and prince of good fellows!' as Richard the Lionheart calls him—makes his debut.^[71]

20th century onwards

The 20th century grafted still further details on to the original legends. The 1938 film, The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, portrayed Robin as a hero on a national scale, leading the oppressed Saxons in revolt against their Norman overlords while Richard the Lionheart fought in the Crusades; this movie established itself so definitively that many studios resorted to movies about his son (invented for that purpose) rather than compete with the image of this one.^[72]

In 1953, during the McCarthy era, the Republican members of the Indiana Textbook Commission called for a ban of Robin Hood from all Indiana school books for promoting communism because he stole from the rich to give to the poor.^[73]

Statue of Robin Hood, Nottingham

Films, animations, new concepts and other adaptations

Walt Disney's Robin Hood

Main articles: Robin Hood (1973 film) and Robin Hood (Disney character)

In the 1973 animated Disney film, Robin Hood, the title character is portrayed as an anthropomorphic fox voiced by Brian Bedford. Years before Robin Hood had even entered production, Disney had considered doing a project on Reynard the Fox. However, due to concerns that Reynard was unsuitable as a hero, animator Ken Anderson adapted some elements from Reynard into Robin Hood, thus making the title character a fox.^[74]

Robin and Marian

The 1976 British-American film Robin and Marian, starring Sean Connery as Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn as Maid Marian, portrays the figures in later years after Robin has returned from service with Richard the Lionheart in a foreign crusade and Marian has gone into seclusion in a nunnery. This is the first in popular culture to portray King Richard as less than perfect.

A Muslim among the Merry Men

Since the 1980s, it has become commonplace to include a Saracen (Arab/Muslim) among the Merry Men, a trend that began with the character Nasir in the 1984 ITV Robin of Sherwood television series. Later versions of the story have followed suit: the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and 2006 BBC TV series Robin Hood each contain equivalents of Nasir, in the figures of Azeem and Djaq, respectively.^[72] Spoofs have also followed this trend, with the 1990s BBC sitcom Maid Marian and her Merry Men parodying the Moorish character with Barrington, a Rastafarian rapper played by Danny John-Jules,^[75] and Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights featuring Isaac Hayes as Asneeze and Dave Chappelle as his son Ahchoo. The 2010 movie version Robin Hood, did not include a Saracen character. The 2018 adaptation Robin Hood portrays the character of Little John as a muslim named Yahya, played by Jamie Foxx. The character Azeem in the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was originally called Nasir, until a crew member who had worked on Robin of Sherwood pointed out that the Nasir character was not part of the original legend and was created for the show Robin of Sherwood. The name was immediately changed to Azeem to avoid any potential copyright issues.^{[citation needed]}

Robin Hood in France

Between 1963 and 1966, French television broadcast a medievalist series entitled Thierry La Fronde (Thierry the Sling). This successful series, which was also shown in Canada, Poland (Thierry Śmiałek), Australia (The King's Outlaw), and the Netherlands (Thierry de Slingeraar), transposes the English Robin Hood narrative into late medieval France during the Hundred Years' War.^[76]

Historicity

The historicity of Robin Hood has been debated for centuries. A difficulty with any such historical research is that Robert was a very common given name in medieval England, and 'Robin' (or Robyn), was its very common diminutive, especially in the 13th century;^[77] it is a French hypocorism,^[78] already mentioned in the Roman de Renart in the 12th century. The surname Hood (or Hude, Hode, etc.) was also fairly common because it referred either to a hooder, who was a maker of hoods, or alternatively to somebody who wore a hood as a head-covering. It is therefore unsurprising that medieval records mention a number of people called 'Robert Hood' or 'Robin Hood', some of whom are known to have fallen foul of the law.

Another view on the origin on the name is expressed in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica which remarks that 'hood' was a common dialectical form of 'wood'; and that the outlaw's name has been given as 'Robin Wood'.^[79] There are a number of references to Robin Hood as Robin Wood, or Whood, or Whod, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest recorded example, in connection with May games in Somerset, dates from 1518.^[80]

Early references

The oldest references to Robin Hood are not historical records, or even ballads recounting his exploits, but hints and allusions found in various works. From 1261 onward, the names 'Robinhood', 'Robehod' or 'Robbehod' occur in the rolls of several English Justices as nicknames or descriptions of malefactors. The majority of these references date from the late 13th century. Between 1261 and 1300, there are at least eight references to 'Rabunhod' in various regions across England, from Berkshire in the south to York in the north.^[14]

Leaving aside the reference to the "rhymes" of Robin Hood in Piers Plowman in the 1370s,^[81][82] the first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Chronicle, written in about 1420. The following lines occur with little contextualisation under the year 1283:

Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude

Wayth-men ware commendyd gude

In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale

Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.

The next notice is a statement in the Scotichronicon, composed by John of Fordun between 1377 and 1384, and revised by Walter Bower in about 1440. Among Bower's many interpolations is a passage that directly refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun's account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort and the punishment of his adherents. Robin is represented as a fighter for de Montfort's cause.^[83] This was in fact true of the historical outlaw of Sherwood Forest Roger Godberd, whose points of similarity to the Robin Hood of the ballads have often been noted.^[84][85]

Bower writes:

Then [c. 1266] arose the famous murderer, Robert Hood, as well as Little John, together with their accomplices from among the disinherited, whom the foolish populace are so inordinately fond of celebrating both in tragedies and comedies, and about whom they are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing above all other ballads.

The word translated here as "murderer" is the Latin sicarius (literally "dagger-man"), from the Latin sica for "dagger". Bower goes on to tell a story about Robin Hood in which he refuses to flee from his enemies while hearing Mass in the greenwood, and then gains a surprise victory over them, apparently as a reward for his piety.^[86]

Another reference, discovered by Julian Luxford in 2009, appears in the margin of the "Polychronicon" in the Eton College library. Written around the year 1460 by a monk in Latin, it says:

Around this time [ie reign of Edward I], according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies.^[87]

In a petition presented to Parliament in 1439, the name is used to describe an itinerant felon. The petition cites one Piers Venables of Aston, Derbyshire, "who having no liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be Robyn Hude and his meyne."^[88] The name was still used to describe sedition and treachery in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his associates were branded "Robin Hoods" by Robert Cecil.

"Robin shoots with Sir Guy" by Louis Rhead

Robin Hood of York

The earliest known legal records mentioning a person called Robin Hood (Robert Hod) are from 1226, found in the York Assizes, when that person's goods, worth 32 shillings and 6 pence, were confiscated and he became an outlaw. Robert Hod owed the money to St Peter's in York. The following year, he was called "Hobbehod". Robert Hod of York is the only early Robin Hood known to have been an outlaw. L.V.D. Owen in 1936 floated the idea that Robin Hood might be identified with an outlawed Robert Hood, or Hod, or Hobbehod, all apparently the same man, referred to in nine successive Yorkshire Pipe Rolls between 1226 and 1234.^[89][90] There is no evidence however that this Robert Hood, although an outlaw, was also a bandit.^[91]

Robert and John Deyville

Historian Oscar de Ville discusses the career of John Deyville and his brother Robert, along with their kinsmen Jocelin and Adam, during the Second Barons' War, specifically their activities after the Battle of Evesham. John Deyville was granted authority by the faction led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester over York Castle and the Northern Forests during the war in which they sought refuge after Evesham. John, along with his relatives, led the remaining rebel faction on the Isle of Ely following the Dictum of Kenilworth.^[92] De Ville connects their presence there with Bower's mention of "Robert Hood" during the aftermath of Evesham in his annotations to the Scotichronicon.

While John was eventually pardoned and continued his career until 1290, his kinsmen are no longer mentioned by historical records after the events surrounding their resistance at Ely, and de Ville speculates that Robert remained an outlaw. Other points de Ville raises in support of John and his brothers' exploits forming the inspiration for Robin Hood include their properties in Barnsdale, John's settlement of a mortgage worth £400 paralleling Robin Hood's charity of identical value to Sir Richard at the Lee, relationship with Sir Richard Foliot, a possible inspiration for the former figure, and ownership of a fortified home at Hood Hill, near Kilburn, North Yorkshire. The last of these is suggested to be the inspiration for Robin Hood's second name as opposed to the more common theory of a head covering.^[93] Perhaps not coincidentally, a "Robertus Hod" is mentioned in records among the holdouts at Ely.^[94]

Although de Ville does not explicitly connect John and Robert Deyville to Robin Hood, he discusses these parallels in detail and suggests that they formed prototypes for this ideal of heroic outlawry during the tumultuous reign of Henry III's grandson and Edward I's son, Edward II of England.^[95]

Roger Godberd as Robin Hood

David Baldwin identifies Robin Hood with the historical outlaw Roger Godberd, who was a die-hard supporter of Simon de Montfort, which would place Robin Hood around the 1260s.^[96] There are certainly parallels between Godberd's career and that of Robin Hood as he appears in the Gest. John Maddicott has called Godberd "that prototype Robin Hood".^[97] Some problems with this theory are that there is no evidence that Godberd was ever known as Robin Hood (Bower mentions both Roger Godberd and "Robert Hood" but explicitly as two separate individuals) and no sign in the early Robin Hood ballads of the specific concerns of de Montfort's revolt.^[98]

Robin Hood of Wakefield

The antiquarian Joseph Hunter (1783–1861) believed that Robin Hood had inhabited the forests of Yorkshire during the early decades of the fourteenth century. Hunter pointed to two men whom, believing them to be the same person, he identified with the legendary outlaw:

1. Robert Hood who is documented as having lived in the city of Wakefield at the start of the fourteenth century.


2. "Robyn Hode" who is recorded as being employed by Edward II of England during 1323.

Hunter developed a fairly detailed theory implying that Robert Hood had been an adherent of the rebel Earl of Lancaster, who was defeated by Edward II at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322. According to this theory, Robert Hood was thereafter pardoned and employed as a bodyguard by King Edward, and in consequence he appears in the 1323 court roll under the name of "Robyn Hode". Hunter's theory has long been recognised to have serious problems, one of the most serious being that recent research has shown that Hunter's Robyn Hood had been employed by the king before he appeared in the 1323 court roll, thus casting doubt on this Robyn Hood's supposed earlier career as outlaw and rebel.^[99]

Robin Hood as an alias

It has long been suggested, notably by John Maddicott, that "Robin Hood" was a stock alias used by thieves.^[100] What appears to be the first known example of "Robin Hood" as stock name for an outlaw dates to 1262 in Berkshire, where the surname "Robehod" was applied to a man apparently because he had been outlawed.^[101] This could suggest two main possibilities: either that an early form of the Robin Hood legend was already well established in the mid-13th century; or alternatively that the name "Robin Hood" preceded the outlaw hero that we know; so that the "Robin Hood" of legend was so called because that was seen as an appropriate name for an outlaw.

Mythology

There is at present little or no scholarly support for the view that tales of Robin Hood have stemmed from mythology or folklore, from fairies or other mythological origins, any such associations being regarded as later development.^[102][103] It was once a popular view, however.^[79] The "mythological theory" dates back at least to 1584, when Reginald Scot identified Robin Hood with the Germanic goblin "Hudgin" or Hodekin and associated him with Robin Goodfellow.^[104]Maurice Keen^[105] provides a brief summary and useful critique of the evidence for the view Robin Hood had mythological origins. While the outlaw often shows great skill in archery, swordplay and disguise, his feats are no more exaggerated than those of characters in other ballads, such as Kinmont Willie, which were based on historical events.^[106]

Robin Hood has also been claimed for the pagan witch-cult supposed by Margaret Murray to have existed in medieval Europe, and his anti-clericalism and Marianism interpreted in this light.^[107] The existence of the witch cult as proposed by Murray is now generally discredited.

Associated locations

Sherwood Forest

The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest

The early ballads link Robin Hood to identifiable real places. In popular culture, Robin Hood and his band of "merry men" are portrayed as living in Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire. Notably, the Lincoln Cathedral Manuscript, which is the first officially recorded Robin Hood song (dating from approximately 1420), makes an explicit reference to the outlaw that states that "Robyn hode in scherewode stod."^[108] In a similar fashion, a monk of Witham Priory (1460) suggested that the archer had 'infested shirwode'. His chronicle entry reads:

'Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies'.^[109]

Nottinghamshire

Specific sites in the county of Nottinghamshire that are directly linked to the Robin Hood legend include Robin Hood's Well, located near Newstead Abbey (within the boundaries of Sherwood Forest), the Church of St. Mary in the village of Edwinstowe and most famously of all, the Major Oak also located at the village of Edwinstowe.^[110] The Major Oak, which resides in the heart of Sherwood Forest, is popularly believed to have been used by the Merry Men as a hide-out. Dendrologists have contradicted this claim by estimating the tree's true age at around eight hundred years; it would have been relatively a sapling in Robin's time, at best.^[111]

Yorkshire

Nottinghamshire's claim to Robin Hood's heritage is disputed, with Yorkists staking a claim to the outlaw. In demonstrating Yorkshire's Robin Hood heritage, the historian J. C. Holt drew attention to the fact that although Sherwood Forest is mentioned in Robin Hood and the Monk, there is little information about the topography of the region, and thus suggested that Robin Hood was drawn to Nottinghamshire through his interactions with the city's sheriff.^[112] Moreover, the linguist Lister Matheson has observed that the language of the Gest of Robyn Hode is written in a definite northern dialect, probably that of Yorkshire.^[113] In consequence, it seems probable that the Robin Hood legend actually originates from the county of Yorkshire. Robin Hood's Yorkshire origins are generally accepted by professional historians.^[114]

Barnsdale

Blue Plaque commemorating Wentbridge's Robin Hood connections

A tradition dating back at least to the end of the 16th century gives Robin Hood's birthplace as Loxley, Sheffield, in South Yorkshire. The original Robin Hood ballads, which originate from the fifteenth century, set events in the medieval forest of Barnsdale. Barnsdale was a wooded area covering an expanse of no more than thirty square miles, ranging six miles from north to south, with the River Went at Wentbridge near Pontefract forming its northern boundary and the villages of Skelbrooke and Hampole forming the southernmost region. From east to west the forest extended about five miles, from Askern on the east to Badsworth in the west.^[115] At the northernmost edge of the forest of Barnsdale, in the heart of the Went Valley, resides the village of Wentbridge. Wentbridge is a village in the City of Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, England. It lies around 3 miles (5 km) southeast of its nearest township of size, Pontefract, close to the A1 road. During the medieval age Wentbridge was sometimes locally referred to by the name of Barnsdale because it was the predominant settlement in the forest.^[116] Wentbridge is mentioned in an early Robin Hood ballad, entitled, Robin Hood and the Potter, which reads, "Y mete hem bot at Went breg,' syde Lyttyl John". And, while Wentbridge is not directly named in A Gest of Robyn Hode, the poem does appear to make a cryptic reference to the locality by depicting a poor knight explaining to Robin Hood that he 'went at a bridge' where there was wrestling'.^[117] A commemorative Blue Plaque has been placed on the bridge that crosses the River Went by Wakefield City Council.

The Saylis

The site of the Saylis at Wentbridge

The Gest makes a specific reference to the Saylis at Wentbridge. Credit is due to the nineteenth-century antiquarian Joseph Hunter, who correctly identified the site of the Saylis.^[118] From this location it was once possible to look out over the Went Valley and observe the traffic that passed along the Great North Road. The Saylis is recorded as having contributed towards the aid that was granted to Edward III in 1346–47 for the knighting of the Black Prince. An acre of landholding is listed within a glebe terrier of 1688 relating to Kirk Smeaton, which later came to be called "Sailes Close".^[119] Professor Dobson and Mr. Taylor indicate that such evidence of continuity makes it virtually certain that the Saylis that was so well known to Robin Hood is preserved today as "Sayles Plantation".^[120] It is this location that provides a vital clue to Robin Hood's Yorkshire heritage. One final locality in the forest of Barnsdale that is associated with Robin Hood is the village of Campsall.

Church of Saint Mary Magdalene at Campsall

St. Mary Magdalene's church, Campsall

The historian John Paul Davis wrote of Robin's connection to the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene at Campsall.^[121]A Gest of Robyn Hode states that the outlaw built a chapel in Barnsdale that he dedicated to Mary Magdalene,

I made a chapel in Bernysdale,

That seemly is to se,

It is of Mary Magdaleyne,

And thereto wolde I be.^[122]

Davis indicates that there is only one church dedicated to Mary Magdalene within what one might reasonably consider to have been the medieval forest of Barnsdale, and that is the church at Campsall. The church was built in the late eleventh century by Robert de Lacy, the 2nd Baron of Pontefract.^[123][124] Local legend suggests that Robin Hood and Maid Marion were married at the church.

Abbey of Saint Mary at York

The backdrop of Saint Mary's Abbey at York plays a central role in the Gest as the poor knight who Robin aids owes money to the abbot.

Grave at Kirklees

Robin Hood's Grave in the woods near Kirklees Priory

At Kirklees Priory in Yorkshire stands an alleged grave with a spurious inscription, which relates to Robin Hood. The fifteenth-century ballads relate that before he died, Robin told Little John where to bury him. He shot an arrow from the Priory window, and where the arrow landed was to be the site of his grave. The Gest states that the Prioress was a relative of Robin's. Robin was ill and staying at the Priory where the Prioress was supposedly caring for him. However, she betrayed him, his health worsened, and he eventually died there. The inscription on the grave reads,

Hear underneath dis laitl stean

Laz robert earl of Huntingtun

Ne’er arcir ver as hie sa geud

An pipl kauld im robin heud

Sick [such] utlawz as he an iz men

Vil england nivr si agen

Obiit 24 kal: Dekembris, 1247

Despite the unconventional spelling, the verse is in Modern English, not the Middle English of the thirteenth century. The date is also incorrectly formatted—using the Roman calendar, "24 kal Decembris" would be the twenty-third day before the beginning of December, that is, 8 November. The tomb probably dates from the late eighteenth century.^[125]

The grave with the inscription is within sight of the ruins of the Kirklees Priory, behind the Three Nuns pub in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. Though local folklore suggests that Robin is buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory, this theory has now largely been abandoned by professional historians.

All Saints' Church at Pontefract

A more recent theory^[126] proposes that Robin Hood died at Kirkby, Pontefract. Drayton's Poly-Olbion Song 28 (67–70) composed in 1622 speaks of Robin Hood's death and clearly states that the outlaw died at 'Kirkby'.^[127] Acknowledging that Robin Hood operated in the Went Valley, located three miles to the southeast of the town of Pontefract, historians today indicate that the outlaw is buried at nearby Kirkby. The location is approximately three miles from the site of Robin's robberies at the now famous Saylis. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Kirkby was home to All Saints' Church. All Saints' Church had a priory hospital attached to it. The Tudor historian Richard Grafton stated that the prioress who murdered Robin Hood buried the outlaw beside the road,

Where he had used to rob and spoyle those that passed that way ... and the cause why she buryed him there was, for that common strangers and travailers, knowing and seeing him there buryed, might more safely and without feare take their journeys that way, which they durst not do in the life of the sayd outlaes.^[128]

All Saints' Church at Kirkby, modern Pontefract, which was located approximately three miles from the site of Robin Hood's robberies at the Saylis, accurately matches Richard Grafton's description because a road ran directly from Wentbridge to the hospital at Kirkby.^[129]

The new church within the old. After All Saints' church in Pontefract was damaged during the civil war, a new one was built within in 1967

Place-name locations

Within close proximity of Wentbridge reside several notable landmarks relating to Robin Hood. One such place-name location occurred in a cartulary deed of 1422 from Monkbretton Priory, which makes direct reference to a landmark named Robin Hood's Stone, which resided upon the eastern side of the Great North Road, a mile south of Barnsdale Bar.^[130] The historians Barry Dobson and John Taylor suggested that on the opposite side of the road once stood Robin Hood's Well, which has since been relocated six miles north-west of Doncaster, on the south-bound side of the Great North Road. Over the next three centuries, the name popped-up all over the place, such as at Robin Hood's Bay near Whitby Yorkshire, Robin Hood's Butts in Cumbria, and Robin Hood's Walk at Richmond Surrey. Robin Hood type place-names occurred particularly everywhere except Sherwood. The first place-name in Sherwood does not appear until the year 1700.^[131] The fact that the earliest Robin Hood type place-names originated in West Yorkshire is deemed to be historically significant because, generally, place-name evidence originates from the locality where legends begin.^[132] The overall picture from the surviving early ballads and other early references^[133] indicate that Robin Hood was based in the Barnsdale area of what is now South Yorkshire, which borders Nottinghamshire.

Some other place names and other references

Robin Hood Tree aka Sycamore Gap, Hadrian's Wall, UK. This location was used in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

The Sheriff of Nottingham also had jurisdiction in Derbyshire that was known as the "Shire of the Deer", and this is where the Royal Forest of the Peak is found, which roughly corresponds to today's Peak District National Park. The Royal Forest included Bakewell, Tideswell, Castleton, Ladybower and the Derwent Valley near Loxley. The Sheriff of Nottingham possessed property near Loxley, among other places both far and wide including Hazlebadge Hall, Peveril Castle and Haddon Hall. Mercia, to which Nottingham belonged, came to within three miles of Sheffield City Centre. But before the Law of the Normans was the Law of the Danes, The Danelaw had a similar boundary to that of Mercia but had a population of Free Peasantry that were known to have resisted the Norman occupation. Many outlaws could have been created by the refusal to recognise Norman Forest Law.^[134] The supposed grave of Little John can be found in Hathersage, also in the Peak District.

Further indications of the legend's connection with West Yorkshire (and particularly Calderdale) are noted in the fact that there are pubs called the Robin Hood in both nearby Brighouse and at Cragg Vale; higher up in the Pennines beyond Halifax, where Robin Hood Rocks can also be found. Robin Hood Hill is near Outwood, West Yorkshire, not far from Lofthouse. There is a village in West Yorkshire called Robin Hood, on the A61 between Leeds and Wakefield and close to Rothwell and Lofthouse. Considering these references to Robin Hood, it is not surprising that the people of both South and West Yorkshire lay some claim to Robin Hood, who, if he existed, could easily have roamed between Nottingham, Lincoln, Doncaster and right into West Yorkshire.

A British Army Territorial (reserves) battalion formed in Nottingham in 1859 was known as The Robin Hood Battalion through various reorganisations until the "Robin Hood" name finally disappeared in 1992. With the 1881 Childers Reforms that linked regular and reserve units into regimental families, the Robin Hood Battalion became part of The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment).

A Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Salisbury Plain has acquired the name Robin Hood's Ball, although had Robin Hood existed it is doubtful that he would have travelled so far south.

List of traditional ballads

Elizabethan song of Robin Hood

Ballads dating back to the 15th century are the oldest existing form of the Robin Hood legends, although none of them were recorded at the time of the first allusions to him, and many are from much later. They share many common features, often opening with praise of the greenwood and relying heavily on disguise as a plot device, but include a wide variation in tone and plot.^[135] The ballads are sorted into three groups, very roughly according to date of first known free-standing copy. Ballads whose first recorded version appears (usually incomplete) in the Percy Folio may appear in later versions^[136] and may be much older than the mid-17th century when the Folio was compiled. Any ballad may be older than the oldest copy that happens to survive, or descended from a lost older ballad. For example, the plot of Robin Hood's Death, found in the Percy Folio, is summarised in the 15th-century A Gest of Robyn Hode, and it also appears in an 18th-century version.^[137]

Early ballads (i.e., surviving in 15th- or early-16th-century copies)

• A Gest of Robyn Hode


• Robin Hood and the Monk


• Robin Hood and the Potter

Ballads appearing in 17th-century Percy Folio

NB. The first two ballads listed here (the "Death" and "Gisborne"), although preserved in 17th-century copies, are generally agreed to preserve the substance of late medieval ballads. The third (the "Curtal Friar") and the fourth (the "Butcher"), also probably have late medieval origins.^[138]

• Robin Hood's Death


• Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne


• Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar


• Robin Hood and the Butcher


• Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly


• Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires


• The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield


• Robin Hood and Queen Katherine

Other ballads

• A True Tale of Robin Hood


• Robin Hood and the Bishop


• Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford


• Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow


• Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon


• Robin Hood and the Ranger


• Robin Hood and the Scotchman


• Robin Hood and the Tanner


• Robin Hood and the Tinker


• Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight


• Robin Hood Newly Revived


• Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage


• Robin Hood's Chase


• Robin Hood's Delight


• Robin Hood's Golden Prize


• Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham


• The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood


• The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood


• The Noble Fisherman

Some ballads, such as Erlinton, feature Robin Hood in some variants, where the folk hero appears to be added to a ballad pre-existing him and in which he does not fit very well.^[139] He was added to one variant of Rose Red and the White Lily, apparently on no more connection than that one hero of the other variants is named "Brown Robin".^[140]Francis James Child indeed retitled Child ballad 102; though it was titled The Birth of Robin Hood, its clear lack of connection with the Robin Hood cycle (and connection with other, unrelated ballads) led him to title it Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter in his collection.^[141]

In popular culture

Main articles: Robin Hood in popular culture and List of films and television series featuring Robin Hood

Main characters of the folklore

• Robin Hood (a.k.a. Robin of Loxley or Locksley)


• The band of "Merry Men"
  
  
  
  • Little John
  
  
  • Friar Tuck
  
  
  • Will Scarlet
  
  
  • Alan-a-Dale
  
  
  • Much the Miller's Son
  
  
  
  


• Maid Marian


• King Richard the Lionheart


• Prince John


• Sir Guy of Gisbourne


• The Sheriff of Nottingham
  

See also

• Chucho el Roto


• Coterel gang


• Eustace Folville


• Gauchito Gil


• Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd


• Hajduk


• Hong Gildong


• Iancu Jianu


• Im Kkeokjeong


• Ishikawa Goemon


• Jesús Malverde


• Juraj Jánošík


• Kayamkulam Kochunni


• Kobus van der Schlossen


• Ned Kelly


• Nezumi Kozō


• Redistribution of wealth


• Redmond O'Hanlon


• Robin Hood tax


• Rummu Jüri


• Saint Tail


• Schinderhannes


• Tadas Blinda


• Trysting Tree


• Ustym Karmaliuk


• Utuwankande Sura Saradiel


• Verysdale


• William de Wendenal


• William Tell


• Joaquin Murrieta


• Zorro

References

1. 
   ^ A Gest of Robin Hood stanzas 10–15, stanza 292 (archery) 117A: The Gest of Robyn Hode. Retrieved 15 April 2008.
   


2. 
   ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 203. Friar Tuck is mentioned in the play fragment Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham dated to c. 1475.
   


3. 
   ^ Dobson and Taylor, pp. 5, 16.
   


4. 
   ^ Dobson and Taylor, pp. 14–16.
   


5. 
   ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 34.
   


6. 
   ^ Dobson and Taylor, pp. 34–35.
   


7. 
   ^ Dobson and Taylor, pp. 33, 44, and 220–223.
   


8. 
   ^ Singmam, 1998, Robin Hood; The Shaping of the Legend p. 62.
   


9. 
   ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 41. 'It was here [the May Games] that he encountered and assimilated into his own legend the jolly friar and Maid Marian, almost invariably among the performers in the 16th century morris dance,' Dobson and Taylor have suggested that theories on the origin of Friar Tuck often founder on a failure to recognise that 'he was the product of the fusion between two very different friars,' a 'bellicose outlaw', and the May Games figure.
   


10. 
    ^ "Robin Hood and the Monk". Lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 12 March 2010..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/12px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
    


11. 
    ^ Introduction accompanying Knight and Ohlgren's 1997 ed.
    


12. 
    ^ Ohlgren, Thomas, Robin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465–1560, (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007), From Script to Print: Robin Hood and the Early Printers, pp. 97–134.
    


13. 
    ^ "Robin Hood and the Potter". Lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
    


14. 
    ^ ^ab Holt
    


15. 
    ^ ^ab "Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham". Lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
    


16. 
    ^ Singman, Jeffrey L. Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend (1998), Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 51.
    ISBN 0-313-30101-8.
    


17. 
    ^ Robin Hood and the Monk. From Child's edition of the ballad, online at Sacred Texts, 119A: Robin Hood and the Monk Stanza 16:
    
    

    Then Robyn goes to Notyngham, :Hym selfe mornyng allone, :And Litull John to mery Scherwode, :The pathes he knew ilkone.

    
    


18. 
    ^ Holt, p. 11.
    


19. 
    ^ Child Ballads 117A:210, ie "A Gest of Robyn Hode" stanza 210.
    


20. 
    ^ Stephen Thomas Knight 2003 Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography p. 43 quoting John Stow, 1592,Annales of England 'poor men's goodes hee spared, aboundantly releeving them with that, which by thefte he gote from Abbeyes and the houses of riche Carles'.
    


21. 
    ^ for it being the earliest clear statement see Dobson and Taylor (1997), Rhymes of Robyn Hood p. 290.
    


22. 
    ^ "The Child Ballads: 117. The Gest of Robyn Hode". sacred-texts.com.
    


23. 
    ^ Holt, p. 36.
    


24. 
    ^ Holt, pp. 37–38.
    


25. 
    ^ Holt, p. 10.
    


26. 
    ^ Singman, Jeffrey L Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend, 1998, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 46, and first chapter as a whole.
    ISBN 0-313-30101-8.
    


27. 
    ^ ^ab Hutton, 1997, pp. 270–271.
    


28. 
    ^ Hutton (1996), p. 32.
    


29. 
    ^ Hutton (1996), p. 31.
    


30. 
    ^ Holt, pp. 148–149.
    


31. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 42.
    


32. 
    ^ Maurice Keen The Outlaws of Medieval England Appendix 1, 1987, Routledge,
    ISBN 0-7102-1203-8.
    


33. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), p. 42.
    


34. 
    ^ Jeffrey Richards, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York, p. 190, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lond, Henly and Boston (1988).
    


35. 
    ^ ^ab Holt, p. 165
    


36. 
    ^ Allen W. Wright, "A Beginner's Guide to Robin Hood"
    


37. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), "Rhymes of Robyn Hood", p. 204.
    


38. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), "Rhymes of Robyn Hood", p. 215.
    


39. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, "Rhymes of Robyn Hood", p. 209.
    


40. 
    ^ ^ab Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography p. 63.
    


41. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), p. 44.
    


42. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), "Rhymes of Robin Hood", pp. 43, 44, and 223.
    


43. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), pp. 42–44.
    


44. 
    ^ Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography, p. 51.
    


45. 
    ^ ^ab Holt, p. 170.
    


46. 
    ^ Act IV, Scene 1, line 36–37.
    


47. 
    ^ "Johnson's "The Sad Shepherd"". Lib.rochester.edu. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
    


48. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), p. 231.
    


49. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, pp. 45, 247
    


50. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 45
    


51. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 243
    


52. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, "Rhymes of Robyn Hood", p. 286.
    


53. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), "Rhymes of Robin Hood", p. 47.
    


54. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, "Rhymes of Robyn Hood", p. 49.
    


55. 
    ^ Rhymes of Robyn Hood" (1997), p. 50.
    


56. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, "Rhymes of Robin Hood", pp. 51–52.
    


57. 
    ^ Basdeo, Stephen (2016). "Robin Hood the Brute: Representations of the Outlaw in Eighteenth Century Criminal Biography". Law, Crime and History. 6: 2: 54–70.
    


58. 
    ^ 1887 reprint, publisher J.C. Nimmo, https://archive.org/details/robinhoodcollect01ritsrich accessed 18 January 2016, digitized 2008 from book provided by University of California Libraries.
    


59. 
    ^ ^ab Dobson and Taylor (1997), p. 54.
    


60. 
    ^ J.C. Holt, Robin Hood, 1982, pp. 184, 185
    


61. 
    ^ Robin Hood, Volume 1, Joseph Ritson
    


62. 
    ^ Robin Hood, Doctor Who, and the emergence of the a modern rogue!
    


63. 
    ^ Myth and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood
    


64. 
    ^ https://archive.org/stream/robinhoodcollect01ritsrich/robinhoodcollect01ritsrich_djvu.txt Retrieved 12 January 2016.
    


65. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), pp. 54–55.
    


66. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), p. 56.
    


67. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), pp. 58ff.
    


68. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), p. 47.
    


69. 
    ^ Egan, Pierce the Younger (1846). Robin Hood and Little John or The Merry Men of Sherwood Forest. Pub. George Peirce, London.
    


70. 
    ^ "Robin Hood: Development of a Popular Hero Archived 7 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine". From The Robin Hood Project at the University of Rochester. Retrieved 22 November 2008.
    


71. 
    ^ Allen W. Wright, "Wolfshead through the Ages Revolutions and Romanticism"
    


72. 
    ^ ^ab Allen W. Wright, "Wolfshead through the Ages Films and Fantasy"
    


73. 
    ^ "When the McCarthyites tried to Ban "Robin Hood" as a Communist; and the Green Feather Movement". www.juancole.com.
    


74. 
    ^ Movies, Andrew E. Larsen – An Historian Goes to the Movies. "The Inspiration For Disney's Robin Hood Wasn't Actually Robin Hood". Retrieved 13 August 2016.
    


75. 
    ^ "Maid Marian and Her Merry Men" – via www.imdb.com.
    


76. 
    ^ See Richard Utz, "Robin Hood, Frenched", in: Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture, ed. by Gail Ashton and Daniel T. Kline (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 145–58.
    


77. 
    ^ Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names, EG Withycombe, 1950.
    


78. 
    ^ Albert Dauzat, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de familles et prénoms de France, Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1980, Nouvelle édition revue et commentée par Marie-Thérèse Morlet, p. 523b.
    


79. 
    ^ ^ab A number of such theories are mentioned at  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Robin Hood" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 420–21..
    


80. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 12, 39n, and chapter on place-names.
    


81. 
    ^ Alfred Stapleton (1899). Robin Hood: the Question of His Existence Discussed, More Particularly from a Nottinghamshire Point of View. Sissons and son. pp. 17–.
    


82. 
    ^ John Paul Davis (20 July 2016). Robin Hood: The Unknown Templar. Peter Owen Publishers. pp. 21–. ISBN 978-0-7206-1865-5.
    


83. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 5.
    


84. 
    ^ J. R. Maddicott, "Sir Edward the First and the Lessons of Baronial Reform" in Coss and Loyd ed, Thirteenth century England:1 Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1985, Boydell and Brewer, p. 2.
    


85. 
    ^ Maurice Hugh Keen The Outlaws of Medieval England (1987), Routledge.
    


86. 
    ^ Passage quoted and commented on in Stephen Knights, Robin Hood; A Mythic Biography, Cornell University Press (2003), p. 5.
    


87. 
    ^ Luxford, Julian M. (2009). "An English chronicle entry on Robin Hood". Journal of Medieval History. 35 (1): 70–76. doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2009.01.002.
    


88. 
    ^ Rot. Parl. v. 16.
    


89. 
    ^ Crook, David "The Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood: The Genesis of the Legend?" In Peter R. Coss, S.D. Lloyd, ed. Thirteenth Century England University of Newcastle (1999).
    


90. 
    ^ E372/70, rot. 1d, 12 lines from bottom.
    


91. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. xvii.
    


92. 
    ^ de Ville, Oscar (1998). "John Deyville: A Neglected Rebel". Northern History. 34 (1): 17–40. doi:10.1179/007817298790178420.
    


93. 
    ^ de Ville, Oscar (1999). "The Deyvilles and the Genesis of the Robin Hood Legend". Nottingham Medieval Studies. 43: 90–109. doi:10.1484/J.NMS.3.295.
    


94. 
    ^ Rennison, Nick. Robin Hood: Myth, History and Culture (Oldcastle Books, 2012).
    


95. 
    ^ de Ville 1999, pp. 108–09
    


96. 
    ^ See BBC website, accessed 19 August 2008 on the Godberd theory. The real Robin Hood.
    


97. 
    ^ J.R. Maddicott, "Edward the First and the Lessons of Baronial Reform" in Coss and Loyd ed, Thirteenth century England:1 Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference 1985, Boydell and Brewer, p. 2.
    


98. 
    ^ Dobson and Taylor, introduction.
    


99. 
    ^ Hunter, Joseph, "Robin Hood", in Robin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism, ed. by Stephen Knight (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999) pp. 187–96. Holt, pp. 75–76, summarised in Dobson and Taylor, p. xvii.
    


100. 
     ^ Dobson and Taylor, pp. xxi–xxii.
     


101. 
     ^ D. Crook English Historical Review XCIX (1984) pp. 530–34; discussed in Dobson and Taylor, pp. xi–xxii.
     


102. 
     ^ Holt, p. 55.
     


103. 
     ^ Dobson and Taylor (1997), p. 63.
     


104. 
     ^ Reginald Scot "Discourse upon divels and spirits" Chapter 21, quoted in Charles P. G. Scott "The Devil and His Imps: An Etymological Investigation" p. 129 Transactions of the American Philological Association (1869–1896) Vol. 26, (1895), pp. 79–146 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press JSTOR 2935696 2004, Imagining Robin Hood: The Late-Medieval Stories in Historical Context, Routledge
     ISBN 0-415-22308-3.
     


105. 
     ^ The Outlaws of Medieval England Appendix 1, 1987, Routledge,
     ISBN 0-7102-1203-8.
     


106. 
     ^ Holt, p. 57.
     


107. 
     ^ Robert Graves English and Scottish Ballads. London: William Heinemann, 1957; New York: Macmillan, 1957. See, in particular, Graves' notes to his reconstruction of Robin Hood's Death.
     


108. 
     ^ Thomas H. Ohlgren, Robin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465–1560, Texts, Contexts and Ideology (Newark: The University of Delaware Press, 2007) p. 18.
     


109. 
     ^ Luxford, Julian. "An English Chronicle entry on Robin Hood", Journal of Medieval History, 35 (2009) pp. 70–76.
     


110. 
     ^ "Edwinstowe". Edwinstowe Parish Council. Archived from the original on 24 July 2009. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
     


111. 
     ^ "BBC – Nottingham 360 Images – Where to go : Inside the Major Oak". bbc.co.uk.
     


112. 
     ^ Holt, Robin Hood pp. 90–91.
     


113. 
     ^ Matheson, Lister, "The Dialects and Language of Selected Robin Hood Poems", in Robin Hood: The Early Poems, 1465–1560 Texts, Contexts and Ideology ed. by Thomas Ohlgren (Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 2007 pp. 189–210).
     


114. 
     ^ Bellamy, John, Robin Hood: An Historical Enquiry (London: Croom Helm, 1985). Bradbury, Jim, Robin Hood (Stroud: Amberley Publishing: 2010). Dobson, R.B., "The Genesis of a Popular Hero" in Robin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence, Transgression and Justice, ed. by Thomas Hahn (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000) pp. 61–77. Keen, Maurice, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, 2nd edn (London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1977). Maddicot, J.R., Simon De Montfort (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
     


115. 
     ^ Bradbury, p. 180.
     


116. 
     ^ Dr Eric Houlder, PontArch Archaeological Society.
     


117. 
     ^ The Gest, stanza 135, p. 88.
     


118. 
     ^ Joseph Hunter, "The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England", Critical and Historical Tracts, 4 (1852) (pp. 15–16).
     


119. 
     ^ Borthowick Institute of Historical Research, St Anthony's Hall, York: R.III. F I xlvi b; R. III. F.16 xlvi (Kirk Smeaton Glebe Terriers of 7 June 1688 and 10 June 1857).
     


120. 
     ^ Dobson, Dobson and Taylor, p. 22.
     


121. 
     ^ Davis, John Paul, Robin Hood: The Unknown Templar (London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2009) See locations associated with Robin Hood below for further details.
     


122. 
     ^ The Gest, Stanza 440 p. 111.
     


123. 
     ^ Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1151464)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
     


124. 
     ^ http://www.heritageinspiredbyorg.uk/partner?partner_ID=97^{[permanent dead link]}
     


125. 
     ^ Roberts, Kai (20 March 2010). "Robin Hood's Grave, Kirklees Park". Ghosts and Legends of the Lower Calder Valley. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
     


126. 
     ^ "Was Robin Hood from Yorkshire? Outlaw is closely tied to the area".
     


127. 
     ^ David Hepworth, "A Grave Tale", in Robin Hood: Medieval and Post-Medieval, ed. by Helen Phillips (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005) pp. 91–112 (p. 94.)
     


128. 
     ^ Grafton, Richard, A Chronicle at Large (London: 1569) p. 84 in Early English Books Online.
     


129. 
     ^ La' Chance, A, "The Origins and Development of Robin Hood". Kapelle, William E., The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and Its Transformation, 1000–1135 (London: Croom Helm, 1979).
     


130. 
     ^ Monkbretton Priory, Abstracts of the Chartularies of the Priory of Monkbretton, Vol. LXVI, ed. by J.W. Walker (Leeds: The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1924) p. 105.
     


131. 
     ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 18.
     


132. 
     ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 22.
     


133. 
     ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 18: "On balance therefore these 15th-century references to the Robin Hood legend seem to suggest that during the later Middle Ages the outlaw hero was more closely related to Barnsdale than Sherwood."
     


134. 
     ^ "According to Ancient Custom: Research on the possible Origins and Purpose of Thynghowe Sherwood Forest". Issuu.com. 9 March 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
     


135. 
     ^ Holt, pp. 34–35.
     


136. 
     ^ Dobson and Taylor, Appendix 1.
     


137. 
     ^ Dobson and Taylor, p. 133.
     


138. 
     ^ Dobson & Taylor, see introduction to each individual ballad.
     


139. 
     ^ Child, v. 1, p. 178
     


140. 
     ^ Child, v. 2, p. 416
     


141. 
     ^ Child, vol. 2, p. 412.
     

Bibliography

.mw-parser-output .refbegin{font-size:90%;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul{list-style-type:none;margin-left:0}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul>li,.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>dl>dd{margin-left:0;padding-left:3.2em;text-indent:-3.2em;list-style:none}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-100{font-size:100%}

• 
  Baldwin, David (2010). Robin Hood: The English Outlaw Unmasked. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84868-378-5.
  


• 
  Barry, Edward (1832). Sur les vicissitudes et les transformations du cycle populaire de Robin Hood. Rignoux.
  


• 
  Blamires, David (1998). Robin Hood: A Hero for All Times. J. Rylands Univ. Lib. of Manchester. ISBN 0-86373-136-8.
  


• 
  Child, Francis James (1997). The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 1–5. Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-43150-5.
  


• 
  Coghlan, Ronan (2003). The Robin Hood Companion. Xiphos Books. ISBN 0-9544936-0-5.
  


• 
  Deitweiler, Laurie, Coleman, Diane (2004). Robin Hood Comprehension Guide. Veritas Pr Inc. ISBN 1-930710-77-1.
  


• 
  Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (2006). The Robin Hood Handbook. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-3977-X.
  


• 
  Dobson, R.B.; Taylor, John (1977). The Rymes of Robin Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1661-3.
  


• 
  Doel, Fran, Doel, Geoff (2000). Robin Hood: Outlaw and Greenwood Myth. Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-1479-8.
  


• 
  Green, Barbara (2001). Secrets of the Grave. Palmyra Press. ISBN 0-9540164-0-8.
  


• 
  Hahn, Thomas (2000). Robin Hood in Popular Culture: Violence, Transgression and Justice. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-564-6.
  


• 
  Harris, P.V. (1978). Truth About Robin Hood. Linney. ISBN 0-900525-16-9.
  


• Hilton, R.H., The Origins of Robin Hood, Past and Present, No. 14. (Nov. 1958), pp. 30–44. JSTOR 650091
  


• 
  Holt, J.C. (1982). Robin Hood. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27541-6.
  


• Holt, J.C. (1989). "Robin Hood", Perspectives on culture and society, vol. 2, 127–144


• 
  Hutton, Ronald (1997). The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-288045-4.
  


• 
  Hutton, Ronald (1996). The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400–1700. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285327-9.
  


• 
  Knight, Stephen Thomas (1994). Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-19486-X.
  


• 
  Knight, Stephen Thomas (2003). Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3885-3.
  


• 
  Phillips, Helen (2005). Robin Hood: Medieval and Post-medieval. Four Courts Press. ISBN 1-85182-931-8.
  


• 
  Pollard, A.J. (2004). Imagining Robin Hood: The Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context. Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd. ISBN 0-415-22308-3.
  


• 
  Potter, Lewis (1998). Playing Robin Hood: The Legend as Performance in Five Centuries. University of Delaware Press. ISBN 0-87413-663-6.
  


• 
  Pringle, Patrick (1991). Stand and Deliver: Highway Men from Robin Hood to Dick Turpin. Dorset Press. ISBN 0-88029-698-4.
  


• 
  Ritson, Joseph (1832). Robin Hood: A Collection of All the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads, Now Extant Relative to That Celebrated English Outlaw: To Which are Prefixed Historical Anecdotes of His Life. William Pickering. ISBN 1-4212-6209-6.
  


• 
  Rutherford-Moore, Richard (1999). The Legend of Robin Hood. Capall Bann Publishing. ISBN 1-86163-069-7.
  


• 
  Rutherford-Moore, Richard (2002). Robin Hood: On the Outlaw Trail. Capall Bann Publishing. ISBN 1-86163-177-4.
  


• 
  Vahimagi, Tise (1994). British Television: An Illustrated Guide. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-818336-4.
  


• 
  Wright, Thomas (1847). Songs and Carols, now first imprinted. Percy Society.
  

External links

Robin Hoodat Wikipedia's sister projects

• 
  Definitions from Wiktionary
  


• 
  Media from Wikimedia Commons
  


• 
  News from Wikinews
  


• 
  Quotations from Wikiquote
  


• 
  Texts from Wikisource
  


• 
  Travel guide from Wikivoyage
  


• 
  Data from Wikidata
  

• International Robin Hood Bibliography


• 
  Robin Hood at Curlie
  


• 
  Robin Hood – from the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg and Google Books (scanned books, original editions, color illustrated)


• 
  "Robin Hood", BBC Radio 4 discussion with Stephen Knight, Thomas Hahn & Juliette Wood (In Our Time, Oct. 30, 2003)

v t e Robin Hood
Characters	Robin Hood Maid Marian Merry Men Little John Much the Miller's Son Will Scarlet Arthur a Bland David of Doncaster Will Stutely Friar Tuck Alan-a-Dale Gilbert Whitehand The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield Sheriff of Nottingham Guy of Gisbourne Prince John Bishop of Hereford Richard at the Lee King Richard
Settings	Sherwood Forest Nottingham Loxley St Mary's Abbey, York Barnsdale Wentbridge
Screen	Film Robin Hood (1912) Robin Hood (1922) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946) The Prince of Thieves (1948) Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950) The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952) The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954) Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960) A Challenge for Robin Hood (1967) The Scalawag Bunch (1971) Wolfshead: The Legend of Robin Hood (1973) The Arrows of Robin Hood (1975) Robin and Marian (1976) Aaj Ka Robin Hood (1988) O Mistério de Robin Hood (1990) Robin Hood (1991) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) Robin Hood (2010) Robin Hood (2018) TV Robin Hood (1953) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955) The Legend of Robin Hood (1968) The Legend of Robin Hood (1975) Robin of Sherwood (1984) The New Adventures of Robin Hood (1997) Robin Hood (2006) Animated Robin Hood Makes Good (1939) Rabbit Hood (1949) Robin Hood Daffy (1958) Robin Hoodwinked (1958) Robin Hood (1973) Robin Hood (1990) Young Robin Hood (1991) Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse (2012) Parody When Things Were Rotten (1975) The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood (1984) Maid Marian and Her Merry Men (1989) Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) Alternate settings Mexicali Rose (1939 film) Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964 film) Naan Sigappu Manithan (1985 Tamil film) Nyayam Meere Cheppali (1985 Telugu film) Catch Me Now (2008 Chinese TV series) Alyas Robin Hood (2016 Philippines TV series)
Popular culture	Robin Hood (Disney character) Robin Hood (Once Upon a Time character) Robin Hood (DC Comics character)
Child ballads	8: Erlinton 102: Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter 103: Rose the Red and White Lily 115: Robyn and Gandeleyn 117: A Gest of Robyn Hode 118: Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne 119: Robin Hood and the Monk 120: Robin Hood's Death 121: Robin Hood and the Potter 123: Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar 124: The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield 126: Robin Hood and the Tanner 127: Robin Hood and the Tinker 128: Robin Hood Newly Revived 129: Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon 130: Robin Hood and the Scotchman 131: Robin Hood and the Ranger 132: The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood 136: Robin Hood's Delight 138: Robin Hood and Allan-a-Dale 139: Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham 140: Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires 141: Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly 142: Little John a Begging 143: Robin Hood and the Bishop 144: Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford 145: Robin Hood and Queen Katherine 146: Robin Hood's Chase 147: Robin Hood's Golden Prize 148: The Noble Fisherman 149: The Noble Fisherman 151: The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood 152: Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow 153: Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight 154: A True Tale of Robin Hood
Stage / theatre	The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington (1598 and 1601 plays) The Merrie Men of Sherwood Forest (1871 operetta) Robin Hood (1890 De Koven opera) The Foresters (1892 play) Twang!! (1965 musical parody) Robin Hood (1934 Tippett opera) Robin Hood (1998 ballet) Robin des Bois (2013 musical)
Video games	Robin of the Wood (1985) The Curse of Sherwood (1987) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1991) Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood (1991) Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood (2002) Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown (2003) Volume (2015)
Literature	Ivanhoe (1819) Maid Marian (1822) The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883) Bows against the Barons (1934) The Once and Future King (1958) The Outlaws of Sherwood (1988) Through a Dark Mist (1991) Lady of the Forest (1992) In the Shadow of Midnight (1994) The Last Arrow (1997) Lady of Sherwood (1999) Ronin Hood of the 47 Samurai (2005) King Raven Trilogy (2006)
Music	Legend (1984 soundtrack) Robin Hood (2006 soundtrack) Robin Hood – czwarta strzała (1997) "Love" (song) "Not in Nottingham" (song) "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" (song) The Tale of Gamelyn
Alan Dale	Outlaw (2009) Holy Warrior (2010) King's Man (2011) Warlord (2012) Grail Knight (2013) The Iron Castle (2014) The King's Assassin (2015) The Death of Robin Hood (2016)
Related	Miss Robin Hood Son of the Guardsman The Son of Robin Hood The Bandit of Sherwood Forest Princess of Thieves Robin Hood Morality Test "Robot of Sherwood" "Robin Good and His Not-So-Merry Men" Once Upon a Time

Authority control	BNF: cb119573112 (data) GND: 118745557 LCCN: nb2015015087 NLA: 58472945 SUDOC: 02755838X VIAF: 59879353 WorldCat Identities (via VIAF): 59879353

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