Robin Hood

[palefrost]

Robin Hood

Does anyone know if robin hood ever existed or was it a character built up, generation by generation, to meet the needs and desires of his audience?

I think its interesting how we have kept stories regarding outlaws: for example Batman and Zorro and The Scarlet Pimpernel tells us much about our changing understanding of order and honor and justice.

 

[jason]

The story of Robin Hood has changed many times over the years. Some are like our modern tales where he fought injustices, others have as a headstrong rebel who beheads his enemies.

There are references in his tales to real locations, but the locations are often seperated by distance, and not next to each as the story would lead one to believe.

I do think that if he did excist in history as a real person, that the stories have been exaggerated.

 

[LilOne1989]

I think Robin Hood was probably made up stories about good vs. evil that just caught on really well. There may have been real life Robin Hoods here and there but I think most of the stories are probably dramas that someone told around the fire before bedtime.

 

[doodlebug]

I think the tales of Robin Hood are probably a lot like Santa Clause. Both real people who did something out of the ordinary to help the poor, but whose actions were highly exaggerated. A good reminder of the dangers of gossip.

 

[Plumley]

I think there's probably some historic basis for the stories but I would guess the details were embroidered and enlarged to make a good story. Regardless, it's a great mythology. It's entertaining while encouraging a value. I'm surprised there's not a movement underway to sanitize this story, since there's still so much fun in it.

 

[vicki2]

This one might not get as sanitized as some of the others because the politically correct people are generally quite liberal and the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor is very ingrained in their general psyche LOL.

 

[doodlebug]

Too funny, Vivki2!

I just had an interesting thought relating to another thread about foxes in fairy tales being sly and cunning. In the Disney version, Robin Hood is a fox. Robin Hood is both sly and cunning, but for good reasons. So maybe disney was on to something there. Sly and cunning is neither good nor bad, it's what you do with it that counts.

 

[htmlmaster]

I might be wrong, but I always thought he was fiction.

However, the Robin Hood idea exists everywhere. Basically anyone who stands up to the powerful to help the rest of the people is a Robin Hood.

 

[kelkat]

Family lore has it that he (or the basis for him) is a distant relative and that he eventually came over to America because he was labled and outlaw. "If outlaw I be called, then outlaw be my name." And there is a branch on our family tree of "Outlaws."

 

[Veles]

Well, there was a probably an original Robin Hood, some outlaw who captured the imagination of the people. However, that doesn't mean that the stories attributed to him are genuine.

Actually, there are some interesting facts about Robin Hood that few know. In the past, he wasn't always the good outlaw that stole from the rich and gave to the poor. There were many songs where he beheads people without mercy (even after they asked him to be merciful and spare their lives), not to steal from them, but to take his revenge or because they were sent after him. That's not exactly folk hero material and that's why those songs were either changed or ousted from collections in the last 2 centuries.

 

[Oziris]

Robin Hood dident exsist becous the story tells he was some man that took money from the rich and gave it to the poor ones.But that is like deeft mobiles.Father is telling his kid a story of Robin Hood and the kid dosent get it right and the kid talks about the story of Robin Hood to his kid and so on and so on...

 

[Drizzt]

Actually Robin Hood was a very real man, his story is just a lot like King Arthur's. A lot of stuff was made up, but Robin Hood was real.