Stone Hood (Source)
Because of Laura's email explaining how ingrained Robin Hood is in the history of England, I decided to watch a documentary about the origins of Robin Hood. The documentary is about 48 minutes long. The host of the documentary, using dialup internet, finds the original ballad of Robin Hood. He goes to the locations mentioned except these locations aren't what are commonly known today. Sherwood Forest isn't mentioned at all, and Robin Hood isn't a nobleman. He's a yeoman from Yorkshire. Not only that, he's a criminal in the worst sense. There is no mention of giving to the poor, but the stealing part remains. He steals from a monk. The reason he targets a monk is because at this time, monks in York held political power. Even though Robin Hood was a thief and even killed people in grotesque ways, he was still thought of as a folk hero at this time because his sins weren't viewed so negatively in a world where people died all the time. Not only that, monks were benefitting from a corrupt system in a corrupt way.
In modern stories about Robin Hood, King Richard the Lionheart is in power. In the ballads, King Edward is mentioned. There was a King Edward in thirteenth century, so it makes sense that Robin Hood existed during this time if he were real. In one of the ballads, King Richard visited York to put a stop to Robin Hood's lawlessness, but then he discovered Robin Hood was devoted to the king and invited him into his service.
Robin's Hood skill with archery existed with the original version of the character. The competition set up by the Sheriff of Nottingham was won by Robin and his men, and then Robin cut off the sheriff's head.
The documentary finds three historical figures that could have been Robin Hood. One was involved in a revolt against King Edward. Another was actually in the service of King Edward before retiring just like in the stories. He was also a noblemen. Another was a guy married to a woman named Matilda who could have gone by the name Marion. Marion was an addition to the Robin Hood mythos in the sixteenth century, but maybe there was some basis in fact for her, too. There were also many people in these times that were given the label of Robin Hood. It was tied to criminality. Overall, it seems like Robin Hood was an amalgamation of various stories. Perhaps an original figure existed at one time. All this evidence of various people perhaps being Robin Hood fits in with the direction I want to go: that Robin Hood is more of an idea that can be used for whatever purposes than he is an actual character.
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