Meet Robin Hood, the Legendary Rebel of English Myth

Robin Hood is perhaps the most recognisable figure in English folklore. Along with his band of Merry Men, Robin darts through legend, standing up to the wealthy and living in Sherwood Forest. Since the 20th century, plenty of different film and TV adaptations mean there is a Robin to suit everyone.

Yet discussions in the past tried to claim Robin as an ancient god, recast as a literary outlaw, or as one of the Good Folk, whether a local sprite or Robin Goodfellow himself. How did these writers draw the conclusion that Robin Hood was anything other than a leading character in a series of medieval ballads? Let’s find out!

Was Robin Hood Real?

In many ways, Robin actually fits in well with the Fictional Or Not? figures we’ve looked at this month. Queen Mab and Herne the Hunter may have been part of older traditions, but they first make their named appearance in writing via Shakespeare. King Arthur has plenty of legends about him, and if he did exist, then links between the historical reality and the legends are clearly tenuous.

Robin, however, is almost entirely fictional. Ronald Hutton even explained as much in a talk he gave to the Last Tuesday Society. It seems the stories about Robin can also be found about other outlaws. This makes it more likely Robin is a composite figure.

That said, this post is unconcerned with whether or not Robin Hood actually existed. I originally wanted to look at how Robin appears in folklore, but then, we have the legends for that. They are the folklore. And after looking into him further, I found an incredibly odd side to Robin Hood – the weird mythical stuff projected onto him. That’s what we’ll look at in this post!

A Bit of Background

Still, let’s have a whistle-stop tour of Robin Hood before we look at his links with myth. The first known literary reference is in 1377 (Johnson n.d.). In fact, all of the earliest texts about Robin are ballads.

Some manuscripts claim he was born in c. 1160 in Loxley, South Yorkshire. Others claim he came from Wakefield and was part of Thomas of Lancaster’s 1322 rebellion.

His stories link him with both Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood’s Bay. Some chroniclers place him in the reign of Edward II. Others put him under Richard I. Sometimes, he finds his way to fight in the Crusades; these legends see him as a noble whose lands are seized by the Sheriff of Nottingham.

He fell ill towards the end of his life and Little John took him to Kirklees Priory near Huddersfield. His aunt was the Prioress there, but Sir Roger de Doncaster persuaded her to betray Robin. She bled him to death and Robin realised too late. Little John carried Robin to the window, and Robin loosed a single arrow. Little John buried him where the arrow landed, which is apparently the mound in Kirklees Park (Johnson n.d.).

I watched an episode of Expedition Unknown in which host Josh Gates went in search of Robin’s grave at Kirklees, and it very much looks like that mound is empty (2015).

Maid Marian does not appear in the original stories that gave rise to the legend. She only appears later, connected with Robin for the first time in The downfall of Robert, earle of Huntington (etc.) (Harris 1956: 103).

The Man, the Legend?

He’s been a yeoman, a noble stripped of his riches, an Englishman pushing back against the Normans, and a rebel fighting back against class oppression (Holt 1991: 8). Even our belief that Robin robbed from the rich to give it to the poor is wrong. The earliest stories are adventure tales, unconcerned with financial issues. Robin is an outlaw, literally living outside the law – and outlaws came from any part of society (Holt 1991: 8). We never actually find out why he’s an outlaw, but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. As JC Holt points out, “[t]he identity of the man matters less than the persistence of the legend” (1991: 7).

Adaptation lies at the centre of the legend, and “[i]n each generation it acquired new twists from shifts in the composition, outlook and interests of the audience, or changes in the level of literacy, or developments in the means of communication” (1991: 7).

Plenty of scholars have argued as to whether Robin is a real person, but there’s a far more interesting aspect to Robin if we’re looking at this from a folklore point of view.

That relates to whether or not he represented mythical figures, some pre-Christian witch cult, the Good Neighbours, or whoever else people have tried to link him to. It’s impressive given the total lack of supernatural elements in the Robin Hood stories.

But let’s get into it.

Robin Hood as a Mythical Figure?

William E Simeone noted that Jacob Grimm tried to claim a peculiar mythic component to Robin Hood. In Deutsche Mythologie of 1835, Grimm claimed that “[i]n England Robin goodfellow seems to get mixed up with Robin Hood the archer” (1958: 22). Even moreso, Grimm suggests Robin Hood being derived from a “goblin […] universally known to the people” was preferable to the many attempts at a historical backstory (1958: 22). There’s no real evidence presented to back up the assertion, and sadly Grimm never returned to the idea.

Grimm wasn’t the first to make this link. Reginald Scot likewise drew a link between the two characters “because [Goodfellow] alwaies ware a cap or a hood; and therefore I thinke it was Robin hood” (1996 [1584]: 438). That’s as much as he says, so it’s unclear to what extent Scot thought Robin Goodfellow and Robin Hood were one and the same.

Thomas Keightley also drew the same link, saying, “Robin Good-fellow answers to the Nisse God-dreng of the Norwegians. He was called Robin Hood, because, like the Nis and the Brownie, he wore a hood” (1828: 121).

I thought it was worth an aside to have a quick look at Robin Goodfellow to see if we can find any obvious links between him and Robin Hood.

Who is Robin Goodfellow?

Now, you might know Robin Goodfellow better as Puck. Shakespeare certainly didn’t invent him, yet he did popularise him for us through his appearance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Despite various attacks on his character by Protestant writers, people continued to believe in Robin Goodfellow in the early modern period (Sparkes n.d.). He was especially associated with the home, where he punished maids who didn’t clean to his standards by pinching them. Yep, we saw that with Queen Mab, too.

He expected payment of white bread and milk for helping with the chores. Missing the payment could see Robin steal milk or grain to make up for it. It was also advised to leave out a bucket of clean water for Robin and his fairy companions to bathe in (Sparkes n.d.). Keightley’s reference to the nisse and brownie makes sense in this context for Robin Goodfellow as a form of house spirit or household fairy. The idea he wore a hood, giving him his name, is less obvious, but also suggests that Robin Hood the household spirit and Robin Hood the archer were not the same figure.

Robin Goodfellow was renowned for practical jokes, seeing him take on the role of the trickster. Shapeshifting, swapping babies for changelings, and pestering people in their sleep were all part of his repertoire (Sparkes n.d.).

Granted, the trickster aspect of Robin Goodfellow appears in some of Robin Hood’s antics, especially regarding the Sheriff of Nottingham or Prince John. Yet Robin Goodfellow is very much linked with the home, not a wild wood.

Robin as Wodan?!

But it gets weirder. Adalbert Kuhn identified Robin Hood as Wodan, trying to link Hood from Wodan. Robin apparently came from Ruprecht, a popular name for Wodan (Simeone 1958: 22).

Part of Kuhn’s evidence was seasonal festivals held in both Germany and England, as if the similarity proved Robin Hood and Wodan were one and the same (Simeone 1958: 22). One of these examples was a northern German festival in which an actor rode a white horse. Somehow, the article isn’t specific as to the mechanics, the horse was rigged to sound like it snapped at people. Kuhn pointed to the English hobby horse tradition at Christmas in Ramsgate, where an actor carried a horse’s head on a pole and hid under a cloth. When the actor pulled a string, it moved the lower jaw and made the horse ‘snap’. This was known as a hooden horse.

According to Kuhn, in the German version, the horse rider was Wodan. Furthermore, he said ‘hooden’ came from Wodan, meaning Robin Hood’s surname was a variation on hooden (Simeone 1958: 23). The problem with all of this is that Wodan was the central figure in feasts associated with the arrival of summer. These English hooden horses appeared at Christmas. That’s not the only problem; the fact that Robin Hood and the festivals described by Kuhn bear no relation to each other is another (Simeone 1958: 23). Thankfully, Francis James Child refuted this myth, and no one accepted it.

Robin as Fertility God?!

And naturally, Margaret Murray suggested that Robin Hood was the remnant of a pre-Christian religion, beloved by the people as a fertility god. This, to her, explains the antipathy from Robin towards clergymen (1960: 35). Murray clearly misses the wider context here since the church was also a landlord and Robin treated them as such. That’s why he treats the clergy and the Sheriff of Nottingham in the same way (Lowe 1955: 229). Robin even says mass before in dines in some ballads, following Catholic protocols in the stories before the Reformation (Lowe 1955: 230).

As you might expect given Murray’s involvement, evidence is scant for her theory. Murray even suggests that Robin’s band of merry men had twelve men and one woman, which she thought suggested a Grandmaster and his coven (1960: 35). Yet there are plenty of stories in which Robin has more or fewer people in his band. He has 140 men in the Lytell Geste of Robin Hode! (Lowe 1955: 228)

Furthermore, Murray tries to rewrite his death, bled to death by his aunt, as a sacrifice fitting of a god (1960: 36). Except he was an old man at the time. Finally, she tried to claim that variations of Robin Hood in different parts of the country are actually “Robin with a Hood“, and then points to the ubiquity of head-coverings “among the fairy folk” (1960: 36). Is he a fertility god or one of the Good Neighbours, Margaret? Can’t you decide?

It’s possibly worth noting that Sir James Frazer, for all his flaws, didn’t try to claim Robin Hood as a god at all (Simeone 1958: 27).

Robin as a fairy?

Speaking of Robin and fairies, what do we make of Robin and his men wearing green, the fairy colour?

They lived in the forest. They’re hardly going to have worn royal blue, are they? Some of the stories actually specified that the men wore brown in autumn and winter, and green in spring and summer.

One illustration from 1550, accompanying the Play of Robin Hood, sees Robin wearing armour. So here, he’s not wearing green and he’s also not even wearing a hood (Lowe 1955: 229).

What do we make of Robin Hood as a figure from myth?

Robin Hood already is a myth, without having to be linked with extra mythical figures. Robin has been adapted, reused, rewritten and rebooted so many times since he first appeared in the mediaeval period that he already has enough myths about him. It seems he has become a figure of myth. But that doesn’t mean there’s any truth to the idea that he was a pre-Christian god, a member of the Good Folk, or some remnant of an old belief system.

Maybe you accept that there may be some grain of truth to the idea he was very loosely based on a real person, much like King Arthur. At the same time, the legends have taken on their own life and existence. New characters have been added, and other characters have ended up being forgotten. People are largely familiar with the name, if nothing else. When a character reaches this peak, you don’t need to start bolting on extra ideas. You can enjoy Robin Hood as a myth of his own without linking him to other myths.

Which is your favourite cinematic version of Robin Hood? Let me know below!

References

Expedition Unknown (2015), ‘The Real Robin Hood’, aired 4 November, United States: Ping Pong Productions.

Holt, JC (1991), Robin Hood London: Thames and Hudson.

Johnson, Ben (no date), ‘Robin Hood – Fact or Fiction?’, Historic UK, https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Robin-Hood/.

Keightley, Thomas (1828), The Fairy Mythology, volume 2, London: William Harrison Ainsworth.

Lowe, Barbara (1955), ‘Robin Hood in the Light of History’, Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 7 (4), pp. 228–38.

Murray, Margaret (1960), The God of the Witches, New York: Anchor Books.

Scot, Reginald (1886 [1584]), The Discoverie of Witchcraft, London: Elliot Stock.

Simeone, William E. (1958), ‘The Mythical Robin Hood’, Western Folklore, 17 (1), pp. 21–28.

Sparkes, Abigail (no date), ‘Robin Goodfellow’, Historic UK, https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Robin-Goodfellow/.