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Much, the Miller's Son is one of the Merry Men in the tales of Robin Hood. He appears in some of the oldest ballads, A Gest of Robyn Hode and Robin Hood and the Monk , as one of the company. [1]
In A Gest of Robyn Hode , he helps capture Richard at the Lee, and when Robin lends that knight money to pay off his debts, he is one of the Merry Men who insist on giving him a horse and clothing appropriate to his station. [2] In Robin Hood and the Monk , he is one of the rescuers of the captive Robin. In this brutal ballad, Moche kills a page boy so the boy cannot bear word that the outlaws killed the monk of the title. He then disguises himself as the page and Little John disguises himself as the monk. The implication that Much is of small stature is not made explicit. [3]
In other tales, he was known as Midge, the Miller's Son, [4] the name by which he is known in Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar [5] and Robin Hood and Queen Katherine (version 145B). [6] It is also the name used by Howard Pyle for the character in his Merry Adventures of Robin Hood . [7] This is in further contrast to the ballad Robin Hood and Allan-a-Dale where he is known as Nick, the Miller's Son. [8]
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Much is the main character in a Xeric award-winning webcomic, Much the Miller's Son [9] by Steve LeCouilliard. This comedy series loosely follows the legend of Robin Hood (drawing heavily from the Errol Flynn version) from the point of view of Much.
In the play Marian: or the True Tale of Robin Hood by Adam Szymkowicz, [10] Much appears as a member of the band of thieves, originally addressed as Much the Miller’s Son. After showing discomfort to the group being referred to as the Merry Men, Much comes out as nonbinary. This leads to them being referred to as Much the Miller's Kid and the band of thieves calling themselves "Robin Hood and his Merry Men- and Much!"
Much is also a major character in the BBC television series Robin Hood (2006–2009), but he is no longer a miller's son; in the second episode, he claims to have no family at all. Instead, he is Robin's former manservant, comrade-in-arms, and best friend from the Third Crusade, who has been given his freedom as a result of his services there, but finds himself outlawed with Robin upon their return home. In this version, he is the gang's cook and immensely loyal to Robin; he is often seen to be jealous of the attention Robin gives to others, especially Marian. In the series, Much was played by Sam Troughton, grandson of Patrick Troughton, the first actor to play Robin Hood on British television.
The role of Much as a cook has some literary precedent in J. Walker McSpadden's Stories of Robin Hood and His Merry Outlaws (1904). In this collection of Robin Hood tales, Much (who is still the son of a miller) is living in the household of the Sheriff of Nottingham and serving as his cook until he meets Robin and Little John and joins the Merry Men. He is portrayed as a "stout man and bold" and a highly skilled swordsman. [11]
Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. 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 retellings 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 stolen from the rich to give to the poor.
Little John is a companion of Robin Hood who serves as his chief lieutenant and second-in-command of the Merry Men. He is one of only a handful of consistently named characters who relate to Robin Hood and one of the two oldest Merry Men, alongside Much the Miller's Son. His name is an ironic reference to his giant frame, as he is usually portrayed in legend as a huge warrior – a 7-foot-tall (2.1-metre) master of the quarterstaff. In folklore, he fought Robin Hood on a tree bridge across a river on their first meeting.
Maid Marian is the heroine of the Robin Hood legend in English folklore, often taken to be his lover. She is not mentioned in the early, medieval versions of the legend, but was the subject of at least two plays by 1600. Her history and circumstances are obscure, but she commanded high respect in Robin’s circle for her courage and independence as well as her beauty and loyalty. For this reason, she is celebrated by feminist commentators as one of the early strong female characters in English literature.
The Bishop of Hereford is a character in the Robin Hood legend. He is typically portrayed as a wealthy and greedy clergyman who is robbed by Robin and his Merry Men.
Alan-a-Dale is a figure in the Robin Hood legend. According to the stories, he was a wandering minstrel who became a member of Robin's band of outlaws, the "Merry Men".
Will Scarlet is a prominent member of Robin Hood's Merry Men. He is present in the earliest ballads along with Little John and Much the Miller's Son.
Adam Bell was a legendary English outlaw. He and his companions William of Cloudsley and Clym of the Clough lived in Inglewood Forest near Carlisle and were figures similar to Robin Hood. Their story is told in Child Ballad 116 entitled Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee. The basis of the tale has historical roots in the criminal activities of the Folville and Coterel gangs. At one point William of Cloudsley, who is famed as an archer, shoots an arrow through an apple on his son's head at six score paces, a feat also ascribed to William Tell and other heroes. The oldest printed copy of this ballad dates from 1505 and was printed by Wynkyn de Worde. There are notable parallels between this ballad and that of Robin Hood and the Monk, but whether either legend was the source for the other cannot be established.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Pyle compiled the traditional Robin Hood ballads as a series of episodes of a coherent narrative. For his characters' dialog, Pyle adapted the late Middle English of the ballads into a dialect suitable for children.
Richard at the Lee is a major character in the early medieval ballads of Robin Hood, especially the lengthy ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode, and has reappeared in Robin Hood tales throughout the centuries.
Gilbert Whitehand is a member of Robin Hood's Merry Men about whom next to nothing is known. It is possible that he is a character known from oral literature, with only allusions remaining in written literature.
"Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar" is Child Ballad number 123, about Robin Hood.
Robin Hood's Death, also known as Robin Hoode his Death, is an Early Modern English ballad of Robin Hood. It dates from at the latest the 17th century, and possibly originating earlier, making it one of the oldest existing tales of Robin Hood. It is a longer version of the last six stanzas of A Gest of Robyn Hode, suggesting that one of the authors was familiar with the other work and made an expansion or summary of the other, or else both were drawing from a lost common tale. The surviving version in the Percy Folio is fragmentary, with sections missing. A more complete but later version is from the middle of the 18th century, and is written in modern English. Both versions were later published by Francis James Child as Child ballad #120 in his influential collection of popular ballads.
"Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow" is Child ballad 152. It features an archery competition for a golden arrow that has long appeared in Robin Hood tales, but it is the oldest recorded one where Robin's disguise prevents his detection.
A Gest of Robyn Hode is one of the earliest surviving texts of the Robin Hood tales. Written in late Middle English poetic verse, it is an early example of an English language ballad, in which the verses are grouped in quatrains with an ABCB rhyme scheme, also known as ballad stanzas. Gest, which means tale or adventure, is a compilation of various Robin Hood tales, arranged as a sequence of adventures involving the yeoman outlaws Robin Hood and Little John, the poor knight Sir Richard at the Lee, the greedy abbot of St Mary's Abbey, the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham, and King Edward of England. The work survives in printed editions from the early 16th century, just some 30 years after the first printing press was brought to England. Its popularity is proven by the fact that portions of more than ten 16th- and 17th-century printed editions have been preserved. While the oldest surviving copies are from the early 16th century, many scholars believe that based on the style of writing, the work likely dates to the 15th century, perhaps even as early as 1400. The story itself is set somewhere from 1272 to 1483, during the reign of a King Edward; this contrasts with later works, which generally placed Robin Hood earlier in 1189–1216, during the reigns of Richard I of England and John, King of England.
Robin Hood and the Monk is a Middle English ballad and one of the oldest surviving ballads of Robin Hood. The earliest surviving document with the work is from around 1450, and it may have been composed even earlier in the 15th century. It is also one of the longest ballads at around 2,700 words. It is considered one of the best of the original ballads of Robin Hood.
Robin Hood is a 1991 British adventure film directed by John Irvin, executive produced by John McTiernan, and starring Patrick Bergin, Uma Thurman, Jürgen Prochnow, Jeroen Krabbé, and Edward Fox. Although originally intended for a theatrical release in the United States and South America, the film instead premiered on television, on the Fox network in those territories a month before the release of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It was released in cinemas in several countries in Europe and elsewhere, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
The folkloric hero Robin Hood has appeared many times, in many different variations, in popular modern works.
The Merry Men are the group of outlaws who follow Robin Hood in English literature and folklore. The group appears in the earliest ballads about Robin Hood and remains popular in modern adaptations.
Friar Tuck is one of the Merry Men, the band of heroic outlaws in the folklore of Robin Hood.
Wentbridge is a small village in the City of Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, England. It lies around 3 miles (5 km) southeast of its nearest town of size, Pontefract, close to the A1 road.
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