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.
Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witnessed the rise of the yeoman longbow archer during the Hundred Years' War, and the yeoman outlaws celebrated in the Robin Hood ballads. Yeomen also joined the English Navy during the Hundred Years' War as seamen and archers. In the early 15th century, yeoman was the rank of chivalry between page and squire. By the late 17th century, yeoman became a rank in the Royal Navy for the common seamen who were in charge of ship's stores, such as foodstuffs, gunpowder, and sails.
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.
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator, painter, and author, primarily of books for young people. He was a native of Wilmington, Delaware, and he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.
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.
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.
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 Progress to Nottingham" is Child ballad 139, an original story that is part of the Robin Hood canon. This song has survived as, among other forms, a late 17th-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
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.
The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood is an English ballad of Robin Hood. It is a relatively late work in the corpus, found in the Forresters Manuscript from the 1670s. The work seems loosely based on the 7th and 8th fyttes of A Gest of Robyn Hode which recounts the end of Robin Hood's outlawry after an encounter with the king. Unlike Gest, the king is not acting out of the need to suppress Robin; additionally, The King's Disguise and Friendship uses the 17th century updates to the legend that places Robin as contemporaneous with King Richard's reign. In the late 1800s, Francis James Child included it in his influential collection, the Child Ballads, as #151.
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.
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. History The Merry Men are Robin Hood's group who work to rob from the rich and give to the poor. They have antagonized the tyrannical rule of Prince John while King Richard is fighting in the Crusades. This also puts them into conflict with Prince John's minions, Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Lincoln green is the colour of dyed woollen cloth formerly originating in Lincoln, England, a major cloth town during the high Middle Ages. The dyers of Lincoln, known for colouring wool with woad to give it a strong blue shade, created the eponymous Lincoln green by overdyeing this blue wool with yellow weld or dyers' broom, Genista tinctoria. Other colours like "Coventry blue" and "Kendal green" were linked to the dyers of different English towns.
Friar Tuck is one of the Merry Men, the band of heroic outlaws in the folklore of Robin Hood.
Robin Hood and Little John is Child ballad 125. It is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
