The English Highwayman and his jolly friends have been the subject of many an offering from comic books, cartoons, small and silver screen. He's been played by Errol Flynn, a fox, Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, Carey Elwes, Russel Crowe and many others. His tale is well known Robin an english subject, is an outlaw he steals from the nobles and the corrupt Prince John to help those less fortunate feed their families. Prince John is only ruling because his brother King Richard is currently at war.
The wars have changed a few times sometimes he's off on the crusades other times he's fighting Prince Phillipe of France. Robin is usually a former archer of the king back from the wars to find his life turned upside down. Depending on where we pick up the story he either gathers his merry men on the way or has been travelling with them the whole time, Friar Tuck is always a Jolly and USUALLY an alcohol enjoying holy man who attempts to bring the lords word to Robins wayward group.
The Legend
As befitting the crafty outlaw it seems nobody knows:when, where, how, or exactly who he really was if he really was. There are so many ballads about him that I bet if Doctor Who went back in time and grabbed the actual man and brought him to the future nobody would believe either one of them. The name Robin it seems was the diminutive(I take it to say shortening/nick name for like Jim is to James, Dave is to David, and an extremely long one that I won't use because people mistake it for mine) for Robert, so while we Americans all say Robin Hood, it actually could have been Robert you learn something new everyday. It seems that the "accepted story" now is a combination of many bits, scraps and pieces that were worked out in the late 16th century. Some things that I would consider DISTINCTLY Robin Hood actually may have been added later:
Friar Tuck-it seems while there are often tails of Robin dealing with men of the cloth that our actual Jolly Fat friar was not amongst the earliest ballads.
Maid Marian(Marion)-While he has oft been married it seems that the dear lady in waiting was not added until the 16th century when the Robin Hood character was wedded to Maypole festivities.
Richard the LionHeart-Pick your mouths up off the floor, it seems that some early Robin Hood stories actually had a King Edward(though not specified as Ed I, Ed II, or Ed III) in it so that possibly our beloved outlaw had nothing to do with the crusades.
The Saracen- the middle eastern Companion who seems all the rage in Robin Hood movies(and TV shows) now actually wasn't added until the 1980's. In a TV show called Robin of Sherwood and then subsequently in the 1990's in the movie and TV show about the character. There was also a Muslim Exchange student in the Mel Brooks parody "Robin hood: Men In Tights" which the wiki seemed to ignore.
The last name Lockesly/Locksley/Loxley-It seems his last name good have been Hode, Hude,Hood, Goodfellow, lock/locke/loxley or a million other things. He's been around for almost a millenia if not more, has a million legends, has entertained young and old forever and we still don't fully know who he is. I'm loving this project already.
Prince John-I know now some of you are leaving, but bear with me. How if King Richard is not a given can his little brother John be? It is safe to say that if the King is not correct then his lecherous, crown stealing brother can't be cannon either. Now bear with me, I prefer the stories with Prince John and King Richard but if I want to do this topic justice I must be honest with what I found.
Now some may be waiting for me to put Sherwood Forrest or the Sheriff of Nottingham(or Nottinghamshire) up there but nope seems there was always a sheriff and a wood involved and it also seems that there were always joyous men of questionable virtue following him. Will Scarlet(Scathlocke), Little John, Much(who the hell is Much), and at some point in time Alan a Dale. Yes Alan was almost in the above section but as he actually appears in the first 300 years of lore I'll leave him as an original part of the story. Another interesting thing about the legend seems to be that at some point in time the name "Robin hood" seemed to become like the de facto title for seditious parties and groups of highwaymen for a good portion of English history after about the 15th century. I mean excuse me for saying it but how cool is that to be such a huge legend for that long that you become a title to be used in court to describe somebody, take that Jack Sparrow you may have been a great pirate but you weren't THE Great Pirate.
The Area
While it seems all of Nottingham County(or NottinghamShire) seems to want to lay claim to our lovable bandit for the purposes of the story for the most part it is Nottingham(or at least it's sheriff) and Sherwood Forrest. Now yes he did appear to travel through much of the lands between Sherwood and parts of Yorkshire as well as to some royal castles in a few tales, movies and stories(they never actually SAY London, it may be implied but they never say it, and as there were castles all over Britain at the time who knows where they were). And I don't know about you but one of the most endearing things to me about Robin Hood as a myth, story and legend was the fact that he was living in this lush green world, surrounded by life and able to leap out from anywhere at anytime. His life screamed adventure which is probably why many of us pretended to be him so often and sat down to watch tales of his exploits.
I mean many of us have had tree houses and POSSIBLY tree "forts" but he had full on Tree villages in some stories and Tree outposts that would put our measly creations of plywood and rope to shame. I mean come on you can ride a horse or stand on a huge tree limb and talk down to authority figures and escape pretty much unscathed. With a crew of mischievous friends and cohorts gathering together to share tales of your glorious exploits.
The Weapons
For the most part it appears that Robin ALWAYS used a Bow and Arrow as well as a sword, his skills as an Archer never in question supposedly being the best to ever draw back the sinew/rawhide. Robin is also said to be a very skilled swordsman. A Quarterstaff usually used by Little John though in some stories Robin does best John with the quarterstaff so obviously he is decent with that two, Will Scarlet is said to be good with knives and usually all are decent with bows as usually somewhere in the story Robin trains them all.
Part of me wants to due a but on the clothes but I will save that til a later blog, one this is getting long, two it ties into a movie and three in essence it's a period piece so honestly the clothes aren't really important other then the way they differ from current norms, and if you take a picture from 30 years ago most of us aren't wearing those left over 70's bell bottoms, wanna be cowboy jeans, or fledgling khakis. And lets not even talk about the 40's, 50's, or 60's for the most part Robin Hood is a Medievalish tale with clothes to match. Granted with what I have learned of his "origin" they may of course change slightly from what I expect, while many robin hood stories have shown him in tights others have turned more to the Tunic and breeches style of dress. Honestly I don't really find the clothes too important to the story, it was a great joke in a certain movie(that will definitely be discussed later) but it's like doing a piece about something that happened today in the future folks might look and be like "you wore that" but at the time in question it wouldn't even be an afterthought(okay POSSIBLY not an afterthought I'm sure there were some "wild" outfits then as there are now, people dressing in strange ways that folks gave a funny look to).
Robin Hood falls into the Remake category because while there have been "sequels" in the past the current studio trend is to just out and out make the Robin Hood origin story all over again to sell to a new audience. Back in the early days of movie making(as in Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks) you might get a few Sequels here and there and if not sequels then continuations of the tale of Robin not exactly starting from the beginning but moving you along in the story and not exactly ending it either. I remember some of the replays of the early 1900's movies on TV where Robin would escape and get away and Richard would not yet have returned. There was even a Tom and Jerry cartoon where Jerry and the young gray mouse freed our hero from his cell by dropping a key stolen from Tom the cat. Don't know where I will go next with this because Robin Hood being such an old story means there are far more areas that I can cover than say Comic Book characters or say old Western stories. I hope you have enjoyed your read so far and will return for other parts of the story(even though this one took me a few weeks to write)
The wars have changed a few times sometimes he's off on the crusades other times he's fighting Prince Phillipe of France. Robin is usually a former archer of the king back from the wars to find his life turned upside down. Depending on where we pick up the story he either gathers his merry men on the way or has been travelling with them the whole time, Friar Tuck is always a Jolly and USUALLY an alcohol enjoying holy man who attempts to bring the lords word to Robins wayward group.
The Legend
As befitting the crafty outlaw it seems nobody knows:when, where, how, or exactly who he really was if he really was. There are so many ballads about him that I bet if Doctor Who went back in time and grabbed the actual man and brought him to the future nobody would believe either one of them. The name Robin it seems was the diminutive(I take it to say shortening/nick name for like Jim is to James, Dave is to David, and an extremely long one that I won't use because people mistake it for mine) for Robert, so while we Americans all say Robin Hood, it actually could have been Robert you learn something new everyday. It seems that the "accepted story" now is a combination of many bits, scraps and pieces that were worked out in the late 16th century. Some things that I would consider DISTINCTLY Robin Hood actually may have been added later:
Friar Tuck-it seems while there are often tails of Robin dealing with men of the cloth that our actual Jolly Fat friar was not amongst the earliest ballads.
Maid Marian(Marion)-While he has oft been married it seems that the dear lady in waiting was not added until the 16th century when the Robin Hood character was wedded to Maypole festivities.
Richard the LionHeart-Pick your mouths up off the floor, it seems that some early Robin Hood stories actually had a King Edward(though not specified as Ed I, Ed II, or Ed III) in it so that possibly our beloved outlaw had nothing to do with the crusades.
The Saracen- the middle eastern Companion who seems all the rage in Robin Hood movies(and TV shows) now actually wasn't added until the 1980's. In a TV show called Robin of Sherwood and then subsequently in the 1990's in the movie and TV show about the character. There was also a Muslim Exchange student in the Mel Brooks parody "Robin hood: Men In Tights" which the wiki seemed to ignore.
The last name Lockesly/Locksley/Loxley-It seems his last name good have been Hode, Hude,Hood, Goodfellow, lock/locke/loxley or a million other things. He's been around for almost a millenia if not more, has a million legends, has entertained young and old forever and we still don't fully know who he is. I'm loving this project already.
Prince John-I know now some of you are leaving, but bear with me. How if King Richard is not a given can his little brother John be? It is safe to say that if the King is not correct then his lecherous, crown stealing brother can't be cannon either. Now bear with me, I prefer the stories with Prince John and King Richard but if I want to do this topic justice I must be honest with what I found.
Now some may be waiting for me to put Sherwood Forrest or the Sheriff of Nottingham(or Nottinghamshire) up there but nope seems there was always a sheriff and a wood involved and it also seems that there were always joyous men of questionable virtue following him. Will Scarlet(Scathlocke), Little John, Much(who the hell is Much), and at some point in time Alan a Dale. Yes Alan was almost in the above section but as he actually appears in the first 300 years of lore I'll leave him as an original part of the story. Another interesting thing about the legend seems to be that at some point in time the name "Robin hood" seemed to become like the de facto title for seditious parties and groups of highwaymen for a good portion of English history after about the 15th century. I mean excuse me for saying it but how cool is that to be such a huge legend for that long that you become a title to be used in court to describe somebody, take that Jack Sparrow you may have been a great pirate but you weren't THE Great Pirate.
The Area
While it seems all of Nottingham County(or NottinghamShire) seems to want to lay claim to our lovable bandit for the purposes of the story for the most part it is Nottingham(or at least it's sheriff) and Sherwood Forrest. Now yes he did appear to travel through much of the lands between Sherwood and parts of Yorkshire as well as to some royal castles in a few tales, movies and stories(they never actually SAY London, it may be implied but they never say it, and as there were castles all over Britain at the time who knows where they were). And I don't know about you but one of the most endearing things to me about Robin Hood as a myth, story and legend was the fact that he was living in this lush green world, surrounded by life and able to leap out from anywhere at anytime. His life screamed adventure which is probably why many of us pretended to be him so often and sat down to watch tales of his exploits.
I mean many of us have had tree houses and POSSIBLY tree "forts" but he had full on Tree villages in some stories and Tree outposts that would put our measly creations of plywood and rope to shame. I mean come on you can ride a horse or stand on a huge tree limb and talk down to authority figures and escape pretty much unscathed. With a crew of mischievous friends and cohorts gathering together to share tales of your glorious exploits.
The Weapons
For the most part it appears that Robin ALWAYS used a Bow and Arrow as well as a sword, his skills as an Archer never in question supposedly being the best to ever draw back the sinew/rawhide. Robin is also said to be a very skilled swordsman. A Quarterstaff usually used by Little John though in some stories Robin does best John with the quarterstaff so obviously he is decent with that two, Will Scarlet is said to be good with knives and usually all are decent with bows as usually somewhere in the story Robin trains them all.
Part of me wants to due a but on the clothes but I will save that til a later blog, one this is getting long, two it ties into a movie and three in essence it's a period piece so honestly the clothes aren't really important other then the way they differ from current norms, and if you take a picture from 30 years ago most of us aren't wearing those left over 70's bell bottoms, wanna be cowboy jeans, or fledgling khakis. And lets not even talk about the 40's, 50's, or 60's for the most part Robin Hood is a Medievalish tale with clothes to match. Granted with what I have learned of his "origin" they may of course change slightly from what I expect, while many robin hood stories have shown him in tights others have turned more to the Tunic and breeches style of dress. Honestly I don't really find the clothes too important to the story, it was a great joke in a certain movie(that will definitely be discussed later) but it's like doing a piece about something that happened today in the future folks might look and be like "you wore that" but at the time in question it wouldn't even be an afterthought(okay POSSIBLY not an afterthought I'm sure there were some "wild" outfits then as there are now, people dressing in strange ways that folks gave a funny look to).
Robin Hood falls into the Remake category because while there have been "sequels" in the past the current studio trend is to just out and out make the Robin Hood origin story all over again to sell to a new audience. Back in the early days of movie making(as in Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks) you might get a few Sequels here and there and if not sequels then continuations of the tale of Robin not exactly starting from the beginning but moving you along in the story and not exactly ending it either. I remember some of the replays of the early 1900's movies on TV where Robin would escape and get away and Richard would not yet have returned. There was even a Tom and Jerry cartoon where Jerry and the young gray mouse freed our hero from his cell by dropping a key stolen from Tom the cat. Don't know where I will go next with this because Robin Hood being such an old story means there are far more areas that I can cover than say Comic Book characters or say old Western stories. I hope you have enjoyed your read so far and will return for other parts of the story(even though this one took me a few weeks to write)
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