The
Spirit of Sherwood
Robin Hood
- Outside-the-Law.
Over 800 years ago
the collective imagination of the suppressed Saxons gave birth to a
popular folklore hero. Initially, the hooded man was a creation of the
storytellers and ballad singers who told stories of escapades of the
real outlaws of the day. These were woven together with folk beliefs,
born of superstitious minds, of the nameless and shapeless things that
lurked in the great forest of giant oaks. As fact was embellished with
fiction, Robin Hood of legend was born and became a symbol of the common
man standing up for himself in the face of unjust authority. He was
a manifestation of the community spirit of the down trodden peasants
who needed a symbol of hope.
Through ballads
in the medieval period, Robin Hood became part of the popular consciousness
as an outlawed Saxon yeoman. By the fifteenth century he had entered
the May Games and as indigenous folklore embellished legend, became
recognised as the King of the May, Lord of the Greenwood. It is also
here that he met other characters who became absorbed into the legend
– the Jolly Friar of the Games became Friar Tuck and Maid Marian
who, as his consort, became the Queen of the May.
With royal interest
from Henry VIII, playwrights elevated Robin Hood up through the social
ranks to become the displaced Saxon Earl of Loxley or Huntingdon, take
your pick. With the invention of the printing press in the sixteenth
century the legend grew as broadsides, plays and books proliferated
and Robin Hood, once a foolhardy young Saxon buck became a semi-mythical
being who, over the next few centuries would go on to achieve immortality.
Harnessing
the Spirit
Over the centuries
fact was woven with fiction and boundaries blurred. The eighteenth century
antiquarian William Stukeley added a fanciful lineage. Sir Walter Scott
and other romantic writers in the nineteenth century, depressed by the
loss countryside, conjured up a magical greenwood of sylvan deities,
feeding the public imagination’s demand for something colourful
to believe in.
They influenced
others and theories abounded that rural customs, the strange figures
carved in churches and Robin Hood were all manifestations of our pagan
past. All relied on similarities and parallels to maintain the popular
theories that Robin Hood was one guise of the ‘Green Man’.
After all, both were to be found hiding in the forest, peering at you
between the leaves.
With the legend
brought to life on film, Robin Hood now holds world wide fame as a popular
symbol of truth, justice and freedom which are things everybody wants.
Each age interprets
its folklore to express its pre-occupations and it is happening around
us now. In the medieval period, Robin Hood was seen as the common man
standing up for himself against unjust laws. By Victorian times, as
the countryside was being lost to the encroachment of industry, he was
also seen as a guise of the Green Man. Today, in our environmentally
conscious times, Robin Hood is being re-invented as the first eco-warrior,
who would have lived in harmony with the forest that gave him shelter,
food, protection and ultimately, life.
Once again the clarion
call can be heard. The community spirit of England that conjured him
up over 800 years ago is being rallied to the cause to help save the
birth place of Sherwood’s local legend, the world’s greatest
folklore hero.
www.sherwoodforest.org.uk
Extract taken from
the Sherwood Forest Trust’s book “The Spirit of Sherwood”
written by Ade Andrews, due for publication November 2008.
