Unravelling the Identity of the Real Robin Hood | Ancient Origins 28 December, 2014 - 12:25 dhwty Unravelling the Identity of the Real Robin Hood (Read the article on one page) Robin Hood is perhaps one of the most iconic English heroes. His ethos of ‘robbing from the rich and giving to the poor’ has endeared him to many, as he is seen as a figure who fought for the downtrodden. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether Robin Hood did actually exist, or whether he was just a fictional character. If he did exist, then who was he? Such questions have never been satisfactorily answered, and various versions of Robin Hood have been produced due to this ambiguity. Some have argued that Robin Hood was a fictional character, since the earliest records of this character are found in traditional ballads, i.e. narratives set to music. These ballads may not be taken as historical evidence for the existence of Robin Hood, and were probably not written at the time when Robin Hood was first alluded to. The stories of Robin Hood can thus be said to have been initially transmitted orally and could have been told by the ‘common folk’.

Robin Hood is the subject of many stories and legends. But how many, if any, are real? Robin Hood with Sir Guy "Bold Robin Hood and His Outlaw Band: Their Famous Exploits in Sherwood Forest", Louis Rhead. ( Wikimedia Commons ) Some have even argued that Robin Hood may have been a mythological character, and that the stories about him are filled with symbolic meaning. For instance, some have claimed that the traditional color of Robin Hood’s outfit, Lincoln green, was meant to represent the traditional color of fairies. The color green may also be associated with spring, which is featured prominently in the ballads, hence symbolically connecting Robin Hood with life and growth. Another argument is that Robin Hood was a medieval trickster character. For instance, Robin Hood has been associated with the Teutonic elf Hodekin, Woden (the Germanic form of Odin) and the hobgoblin known as Robin Goodfellow, known also as Puck. All three figures are supernatural characters, and it has been argued that Robin Hood should also be seen as one of them. Robin Goodfellow-Puck by Henry Fuseli ( Wikimedia Commons ) Despite these theories, others have claimed that Robin Hood was indeed a real historical figure.

Indeed, the early ballads linked Robin Hood with identifiable real places, such as Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. The biggest problem with this claim, however, is the fact that Robin Hood is a rather common name in medieval England. ‘Robert’ was a very common given name, as was its diminutive, ‘Robin’, especially during the 13 th century. ‘Hood’ was also a relatively frequent surname, as it referred to either a maker of hoods, or a person who wore a hood. Thus, it is entirely possible that there were several Robin Hoods roaming around medieval England, some of whom may even match the description of the legends. Statue of Robin Hood in Nottingham. Photo source: BigStockPhoto This scenario of multiple Robin Hoods has led to various claims about who the real Robin Hood was. For instance, one writer claimed that Robin Hood was the Earl of Huntington, and was buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory in West Yorkshire. This is supported by an alleged grave with an inscription indicating that that was Robin Hood’s resting place. Another claim is that Robin Hood was not, as the stories go, from Nottingham, but from York.

For instance, instead of Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood is said to have his base in Barnsdale Forest, which is on the border between South and West Yorkshire. This claim can be found in one of the earliest written ballads of Robin Hood, the 15 th century A Gest of Robyn Hode . Additionally, the ballad mentions a church, thought to be St. Mary Magdalene, Campsall, in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, where Robin Hood married Maid Marian. Moreover, only a few of the early ballads mentions Robin Hood’s arch-nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and only one early ballad, Robin Hood and the Monk , mentions Nottingham. robinhood Who was that Hooded Man? Historian Ronald Hutton points out that the search for the "original" Robin Hood has taken two divergent paths within academic circles: "From the beginning of scholarly investigation into the lengends about the outlaw, it had been obvious that at the end of the Middle Ages he had been celebrated in plays as well as ballads. Two very different approaches to research into his legend were proposed in response.

The first, by Joseph Ritson in 1795, assumed that Robin had been a real human being; the second, started by Thomas Wright in 1837, opined that he was originally a woodland god, honoured in the May revels. This latter argument gained more support in the early twentieth century. Douglas Kennedy and Lord Raglan suggested that he had been the dying and returning god of vegetation postulated by Sir James Frazer as a universal focus of devotion in ancient religion. Margaret Murray, copied by Robert Graves and Pennethorne Hughes, hailed him as the high priest of a coven of pagan witches, representing the horned god of nature worshipped by the "witch cult" which Murray believed to have existed in medieval Europe." Although this second "mythical" approach to the meaning of the Robin Hood legend has fallen into disfavour among academics since the 1950s, I believe it is still the more interesting of the two perspectives.

While the work of Frazer, Murray, Graves, and their followers has been dismissed as too speculative for historical research, it remains a clear indication of the extent to which the academic mindset of the late 19th and early 20th century was open to the concept of ancient pagan survivals embedded in modern Western culture. Indeed, these writers' imaginative analyses of myth, folklore and legend have provided the ideational basis for the neo-pagan spiritual movement of the late 20th century. If we are to assume that the legend of Robin Hood derives in any part from memories of ancient pagan deities, we should examine the mythology of the pagan cultures that once inhabited the British Isles, namely the "Celts", the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Danes, to find likely archetypes for the Robin Hood figure. The King of the Wood and the Battle between Summer and Winter To begin his masterpiece, The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer relates the story of the ancient cult of Diana at Nemi, and the priest who stood guard over her sacred grove and bore the title Rex Nemorensis, or "King of the Wood".

He was the consort of the virgin goddess of the hunt, the divine lover/son who died only to return again, as the greenery does each year. The archaic title "King of the Wood" seems to sit naturally on Robin Hood's head. Even his name is sometimes claimed to have originally been Robin (of the) Wood, and he holds de facto sovereignty over the forest of Sherwood (or in some tales, Barnesdale). Moreover, Robin is clearly the consort of the goddess. In the earliest extant ballads, he is devoted to the Virgin Mary, the Christian Queen of Heaven. Most often, however, he refers to her only as "dear Lady", an appellation that has strong connotations for neo-pagans; moreover, he speaks of her as being "both mother and may". Later in the canon, of course, Robin is joined by Maid Marian, in her role as the May Queen, an archetype of the goddess in her virgin aspect. Frazer argued that the "King of the Wood" was a manifestation of the universal pagan archetype of the dying and resurrected vegetation god, whose rebirth was often acted out in springtime mock combat between the personifications of Summer and Winter.

Frazer gives several Germanic examples of this folk custom, in which Summer is clad in greenery or finery, and Winter is clad in skins or fur. The battle between Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne , then, provides an echo of this pagan pageantry. Robin, in the role of Summer King, defeats Guy of Gisborne, the villain whose appearance in a horse-hide is utterly inexplicable, unless, of course, he represents the Winter King in his animal skins. Similar mock combats, complete with resurrection, took place in England at Yuletide in mummers' plays , in which Robin Hood occassionally appeared as the hero. After killing Guy, Robin dons his horse-hide as a disguise in order to rescue Little John from the Sheriff. In so doing, Robin takes on the attributes of the Winter King, conflating the two roles and becoming a Year God, presiding over the entire cycle of vegetative growth, death and rebirth. This motif of seasonal alternation and conflict seems to have also been an underlying theme in the May Games of the 15th and 16th centuries, at which Robin Hood replaced or appeared with the traditional Summer Lord who presided over the festivities.

In his monograph Early Plays of Robin Hood, David Wiles, the first scholar to thoroughly study the historical records of these games (which usually involved mock combat) determined that, "beneath all this lies the ritual combat of winter and spring." Moroever, Wiles concluded that, through these festivities, "from a very early date, Robin Hood the outlaw became identified with the May King, the anarchic priest of the pagan summer spirit." "There lives a curtal frier in Fountains Abby Will beat both him and thee Furthermore, Robin and the friar's reciprocal piggybacking across the river is sometimes described as "playing horsey". And indeed, we see the vagaries of fortune and pride as each goes in turn from being in control and on top to being the beast of burden.

The idea of floating down the river and seeing where fate takes you also shows up in this ballad: And coming to the middle stream, There he threw Robin in: "And chuse thee, chuse thee, fine fellow, Whether thou wilt sink or swim." Robin Hood swam to a bush of broom, The frier to a wicker wand; This incident also appears to be a mock "baptism", which would link it further to the Feast of St. John the Baptist, aka Midsummer Day. There is no explicit reference to Midsummer in the later ballad of Robin Hood and Little John , but it also seems to explore the same solstitial themes. Again, we have a reciprocal baptism in a river, this time involving someone named John, recalling the baptist saint. In addition, Robin's youth and "hot"-headednesss in fighting are emphasized -- themes which Billington also links to the Midsummer sub-text in medieval and early modern European literature as mirroring the heat of the sun at its peak (with the stages of a man's life frequently symbolized by the metaphor of the four seasons). Also, there is a rapid change of fortune with the foes becoming friends.

These two ballad thus seem to fit within what Sandra Billington terms a "festive matrix", which links the Robin Hood legend to a cultural subtext of midsummer religious metaphors that can be traced back to ancient Roman celebrations. The Green Man We may gain some clues to Robin's mythic nature if we analyze his habitual form of dress. Why is Robin so frequently described as wearing green? Likely because he is associated with the mysterious Green Man of art and folklore. Like the Green Man, Robin possibly represents the ancient pagan god of vegetation and fertility, a primordial "Lord of the Trees". In his seminal study of the May Games, Robin Hood scholar David Wiles wrote that: "[I]n the figure of Robin Hood two elements are combined, the outlaw who ignores the requirements of society, and the green man, the incarnation of spring." However, the term "Green Man" is problematic, as it has been applied to a number of very different figures from folklore and religious art over the centuries. Originally, the term referred to 17th century pageant figures, who were dressed in costumes of leaves, wielded clubs in a comically drunken manner, and behaved as "whifflers" to control crowds.

These figures, because of their apparent drunkenness, became popular images for pub signs, as evidenced by the large number of Green Man pubs at the time. However, during the Reformation, such images were roundly denounced as "pagan", and the image of the whiffler on "Green Man" signs was often replaced by that of Robin Hood. Clearly, these two folk figures were already considered roughly interchangeable at this time. The term "Green Man" was further expanded in the popular imagination, however, in 1939, when folklorist Lady Raglan asserted that the late medieval foliate head carvings in medieval churches represented: "the figure variously known as the Green Man, Jack-in-the-Green, Robin Hood, the King of the May, and the Garland, who is the central figure in the May-Day celebrations throughout Northern and Central Europe". This perspective was accepted as standard wisdom in folklore and academic circles until the late 1970s, when two historians, Kathleen Basford and Roy Judge, examined two key components of the claim in greater detail.

Basford's monograph, The Green Man, and Roy Judge's study of The Jack-in-the-Green were groundbreaking works in the field of folklore and are best viewed as companion pieces. Written almost simultaneously, published in 1978 and 1979 respectively, both took as their starting point Lady Raglan's 1939 article on the Green Man and attempted to use historical methodologies to test her claim. Both Basford and Judge's monographs are often cited as historically documented refutations of the very influential claim made by Lady Raglan. Yet, neither author entirely rejected or disproved Lady Raglan's theory. Basford did reject Raglan's claim that late medieval English congregations were actively "worshipping" the foliate heads as pagan deities. However, Basford found that the very first appearance of such a foliate head in a European church was actually a physical "borrowing" and remounting of reclaimed ancient pagan art. Moreover, Basford admitted that perhaps a few of the later English "Green Man" carvings could be interpreted as May King figures.

And of course, we know that Robin Hood WAS equated with the May King in the May Games of the 15th and 16th century. Furthermore, Basford almost automatically accepted Lady Raglan's name for the figure. And while Judge could find no direct historical evidence of a link between the 18th century "Jack" figure and the late medieval carvings, he still accepted Lady Raglan's (and C.J.P. Cave's earlier) equation of the two figures as a potentially valuable "poetic insight". More recent scholarship has also gone on to rehabilitate Lady Raglan's offhand and much maligned equation of these various green/man motifs. Brandon Centerwall, in his article "The Name of the Green Man" (in Folklore, 1997) notes several examples of 16th century English church art that seem to explicity equate the pageant figures called "Green Men", who act as whifflers with the earlier medieval foliate head carvings. He concluded that: "...

when Lady Raglan pondered the foliate head in St Jerome's, Llangwm, Gwent she recollected the "extraordinary number of 'Green Man' inns all over the country"(Raglan 1939, 53). It was her intuition that a phenomenon so widely diffused as the Green Man inns must be ancient in origin and must stem from the same root as the equally widely diffused foliate heads of church architecture. It is unfortunate that she subsequently dragged into her hypothesis every green figure in sight, but heroriginal intuition was not only correct but grounded on sound observation. It was not just luck. // By the standards of sober scholarship, her argument would never pass muster today. Lady Raglan has no business being right, yet there it is: the name of the "Green Man" was, and is, the Green Man." Lorraine Stock, in a paper entitled "Lords of the Wildwood: The Wild Man, the Green Man, and Robin Hood", delivered at the International Robin Hood Conference [collected in Hahn, ed., Robin Hood in Popular Culture Violence, Transgression, and Justice (D.S.

Brewer, 2000)] argued that the modern tendency to "lump" such figures together (as Lady Raglan did) is actually not a new phenomenon at all. Indeed she argues that these figures ARE semantically analogous, and have been perceived as such at least since the late medieval period when both the Robin Hood ballads/games and the foliate head church carvings flourished in England. In her analysis of Green Man carvings at Exeter Cathedral, Stock states quite boldly that: "I believe that exposure to the conjoined iconography of a May queen and May king, Mary and the Green Man in the local cathedral ...suggested or influenced the creation of festive representations of another May king and queen, Robin and Marian, in Exeter" [the location of the first recorded Robin Hood play-game in 1427]. Moreover, Stock points out that: "A fourteenth century misericord at Southwell [14 mi. NE of Nottingham] depicts a seated human male figure, from whose mouth issue two branches of oak leaves, each as large as he is. Thisotherwise human figure wears a gown and a stylized coif, hood, or cap.

Situated in the heart of Robin Hood's literary locale, this misericord's "Green Man" could easily suggest the Lincoln green-gowned outlaw, devotee of Mary, and greenwood denizen of the forest near Nottingham." Thus, while Lady Raglan's claim may have lacked scholarly rigour, we see that Robin Hood was explicitly associated with the Green Man at least as early as the Reformation, and possibly even in the earliest medieval forms of the legend. Received and did deliver to our age This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth. In God of the Witches, Margaret Murray posits that both Herne and Robin Hood were local variants of the Horned God of the witch cult, or his priestly representatives. Wood Sprite and Trickster Because of the similarity in name, Robin Hood is often thought to be a manifestation of Robin Goodfellow, the mischievous hobgoblin also known as Puck . Jacob Grimm apparently noted the close association of the two Robins, but did not elaborate upon it. Robin Hood is a clearly a trickster figure, and may have indeed taken on attributes associated with Robin Goodfellow. He is often content to publicly humiliate a foe, rather than kill him.

Moreover, he is a master of disguise and enjoys misleading his enemies. Germanic Gods The Saxons re-paganized Britain after the initial conversion to Christianity under the Romans, and the Danes brought a later wave of pagan culture after even the Saxons themselves had converted to Christianity. It is the shared mythology of these two cultures, then, that is most likely to have had the strongest potential pagan influence on the construction and development of the Robin Hood legend. Within the Germanic pantheon (common to both the Saxons and the Danes), the chief god is Woden or Odin. As both a Summer Lord and a leader of the Wild Hunt, Woden is often proposed as a Robin precursor. In the ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk , Little John swears constantly "by him that died on tree". Now, this expression is generally interpreted to refer to Christ on the cross; however, it is more strongly evocative of Woden, who sacrificed himself to himself by hanging for nine days on the world tree Yggdrasil, until he had almost perished. Yggdrasil spanned the three levels of Norse cosmology, and was a haven to wildlife.

As a primordial paradise, Yggdrasil could thus be equated with Sherwood. Interestingly enough, Little John is bound to a tree after being captured by the Sheriff in the very early ballad Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne , and must be rescued at the last moment by Robin Hood, in the guise of Sir Guy, a Winter King archetype. An equally compelling candidate for a Robin prototype within the Germanic pantheon is Woden's rival (or sometimes son) Ull (also known as Hollin, Holler, Oller, Uller or Vulder). He is the Norse god of archery, and the personification of Winter. According to some versions of the Norse myths, each summer, Ull must descend to Hel so that Odin, in his role of Summer King, can govern the weather. Ull is sometimes portrayed as the husband of the giantess Skadi, another personification of Summer; elsewhere he is one of the lovers of Frigga, the goddess of love and beauty. Robin Hood, as a Year God, thus takes on attributes of both Odin and Ull, playing both the Summer King and the Winter King, and wins the love of the Summer Queen, or Queen of the May, Marian.

Ull: Archer God of Winter Skadi and Njord (another Winter God) A further Germanic model for Robin Hood would be Vali , the archer god of revenge. Vali, son of Odin and Rind, goddess of the frozen earth, was conceived for the sole purpose of killing Hoder (the blind god of Darkness) in revenge for the death of Baldur (the god of Light). Robin, of course, is a clear force of vengence against the oppressive feudal hierarchy. In the early ballads, he takes savage revenge on his enemies, beheading both Guy of Gisborne and the Sheriff. Vali is considered the Eternal God of Light, and is one of the few gods prophecied to survive Ragnorak (the Germanic equivalent of Armageddon). Like Robin, Vali is also a vegetation god, born from the frozen earth, Rind, as she thaws and accepts the advances of Odin, the Summer God. Vali: God of Vengence and Rebirth Finally, Robin Hood also assumes some of the attributes of the Germanic trickster god Loki, who continually stirs up trouble among the other gods, and deftly evades capture on many occassions.

Death of a Celtic Hero In one of the earliest versions of " The Death of Robin Hood " ballad, we find a surprising pagan echo. As Robin makes his way to Kirklees abbey, to be bled as a cure by his cousin the Abbess, he meets on old woman kneeling on a bridge "banning" (i.e. mourning for) him: Until they came to blacke water, And over it laid a planke. Upon it there kneeled an old woman, Was banning Robin Hoode; "Why dost thou bann Robin Hoode?" said Robin, "Knowst thou of him no good?" "We women have no benison To give to Robin Hoode; Wee weepen for his deare body, That this day must be lett bloode." Robin Hood scholars Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren suggest that the old woman is a "washer at the ford" figure. In Celtic folklore, this fairy figure presaged a hero's death in battle by washing his bloodied garments in a river as he passed by on his way to war.

Her presence, in somewhat altered form, at the death of Robin Hood, links the mediaeval woodland hero to such ancient semi-divine figures as the Irish hero Chu Chulainn , suggesting that the Robin legend may have roots in pre-Roman British mythology. Robin's Band of Merry Men Robin, like Woden, is the leader of a Wild Hunt, as represented by his band of Merry Men. In Shakespeare's "As You Like It", the deposed Duke and his retinue are described in the following manner: They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. As "Merry Men", the Duke's followers participate in an arcane hunting ritual, with obvious pagan overtones. They place the antlers of the slain deer on the successful hunter's head and carry him on their shoulders, while singing: What shall he have that kill'd the deer? His leather skin and horns to wear.

Then sing him home; [The rest shall bear this burden] Take thou no scorn to wear the horn; It was a crest ere thou wast born: Thy father's father wore it, And thy father bore it: The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. Robin's band of Merry Men may thus be a holdover from ancient pagan men's mysteries and initiation rites. This secret brotherhood retreats to the woodland to live in all-male isolation, hunting together and sharing cameraderie. In the modern context, remnants of these practices may have survived in customs such as the "blooding" of a young man at his first fox hunt in England. The Iron John movement (though arising from misguided political perspectives) is an attempt to reclaim some of these lost traditions. Even fraternal organizations such as the Freemasons, although thoroughly Christianized, may harken back in structure and practice to such pagan rites. Robin Hood and his Merry Men may also be a late British parallel to the Celtic Fianna, or Fenians, of the Irish myth cycle. The Fianna were a legendary band of heroes who defended Ireland and Scotland and kept law and order. Their main passtime, however, was hunting.

Their leader was the semi-divine Fionn mac Cumhaill, a decidedly Robinesque figure. Maid Marian Marian represents the Goddess in her maiden aspect. According to Rober Graves, the name "Marian" is a variant of "Mare", one of the most ancient names for the Lady, dating back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, Sumeria and Minoan Crete. In his masterpiece of mythological interpretation, The White Goddess, Graves equates Maid Marian with the goddess of the sea and sensuality, variously known as Mari, Miriam, Mariamne, Myrrha, Marina and Mary Gipsy. This goddess was Christianized as both St. Mary of Egypt and the Virgin Mary. Graves suggests that the name "Maid Marian" is a sort of cultural pun on the term 'mermaid' (literally, "maiden of the sea"), also formerly written 'merry-maid'. The painting above is by Howard Pyle, whose beloved 19th century retelling of the legend, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire, has become a classic of the canon.

The goddess Mare also appears in classical mythology as Venus, who rose from the sea and is the mother of the archer god of love, Cupid. Maid Marian's hidden divinity manifests itself in this mysterious paradox: she is clearly Robin's lover, yet she remains ever the "Maid" or virgin, both in name and reputation. Thus she is like the threefold goddess, ever renewed as the maiden in springtime. Despite the limited acceptable social roles for mediaeval women, Marian is not disparaged in the Robin Hood ballads for following her lover Robin into the Greenwood and living the life of an outlaw, as the only woman among a band of men. As the maiden aspect of the Goddess, Marian is simultaneously slut and virgin, expressing her sexuality outside patriarchal norms of morality and choosing her own lover, yet remaining autonomous and unsubordinated. Her strong, unconventional character is made clear in the ballad of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Moreover, Robert Graves argues that Marian is not even faithful to Robin, but rather, during the dark time of the year, becomes the mistress of his mythical rival. Thus, she becomes the Lady of Misrule during Twelfth Night celebrations.

Although Marian appears in very few of the surviving ballads, she is central to the legend. Even where Marian is absent, it is apparent that Robin is inherently the consort of the Goddess in her maiden aspect. In the Christianized versions, Robin is devoted to the Virgin Mary and follows a code of chivalry, never harming a woman. With her bow & quiver and crescent-shaped horn, Marian closely resembles the classical goddess Diana/Artemis, the virgin huntress, whose consort at Nemi was the King of the Wood. Beltane Rites & Greenwood Marriage The pagan themes embedded within the Robin Hood legend become increasingly clear when we examine the rites associated with the celebration of Beltane, or May Day as the festival is now more commonly known. In pre-christian Britain on Beltane Eve, large bonfires were lit on the hilltops, and the community gathered and danced around them. Young couples would sneak away from the festivities, into the shadows and nearby woods to tryst. They would stay out all night, ostensibly gathering hawthorn flowers (the "may" flower) to welcome in the dawn on May Day morn.

In anticipation of these trysts, the young men would prepare a lovers' nest somewhere private, in the nearby woods or countryside. They would make a bower, a crude shelter of branches, decorated with flowers. The folk name for these love nests is "Robin Hood's Bowers". The young couples would make love in these rustic arbours and their unions were sanctioned by the community and referred to as "Greenwood Marriages". Children born of these couplings were considered particularly blessed and known as "Children of the May" or "merrybegots". Some couples chose to make their liaisons more formal and entered into trial marriages at Beltane, becoming handfast for a year and a day. At some of these weddings, a Friar Tuck figure officiated. With the Christianization of Britain, these gleefully orgiastic rites became somewhat more symbolic, yet they were not entirely extinguished. To this day, many towns in Britain still choose a young girl as their May Queen (originally representing the maiden aspect of the Goddess) and her traditional escort is the Green Man.

In the May Games the mediaeval church festival begun at Exeter, (generally held somewhat later in May or June, at Whitsuntide), the King and Queen of the May were explicitly represented by Robin Hood and Maid Marian in plays and processions. We are all familiar with the image of the Maypole and the quaint country dances that children still do around it. Originally, however, the Maypole was a pagan symbol of sexuality, as phallic as Robin's quarterstaff, and those dances were fertility rites. At Beltane, the Maypole, a large sapling harvested from the greenwood, was thrust into the earth, symbolizing the sacred marriage of the god and goddess, in their springtime form of young lovers. Young men and women danced with ribbons around the pole, binding it to the earth to ensure fertility for the land and the people. Similarly, Morris dancers, traditionally all "merry men", or as Robert Graves suggests, "Marian's men", danced and beat the earth with phallic sticks to ensure fertility. Robin as Sun God and Sacrificial King As the King of the May, Robin can be equated with Bel, the Celtic sun god worshipped at Beltane.

Called "The Shining One", Bel is parallel to Apollo in the Classical Greek pantheon. Indeed, Robert Graves argues that, during Celtic times, Stonehenge would have been the primary shrine of Bel, and he points out that the ancient monument's layout is similar to an Apollonian temple. Appropriately, Apollo is both an archer and the twin brother of Artemis, who appears to be a likely model for our image of Marian. Apollo also appears as a lusty woodland god equivalent to Pan in the myth of Daphne, the nymph who transformed herself into a laurel tree to escape the god's advances. If we assume Robin & Marian are siblings, like Apollo & Artemis, we are faced with the problematic issue of incest. Within mythology, however, brother/sister incest is often accepted unthinkingly. We need only look to Mt. Olympus for evidence of that. We see the same theme played out between Arthur & Morgana in the Arthurian tradition. Within the modern pagan religion of Wicca, the sun god is depicted as first the son and then the lover of the earth goddess, as the cycle of the year progresses.

Each year, the god is sacrificed at the harvest, only to be reborn as his own son/self at the Winter Solstice. The pagan theme of divine incest goes back at least as far as the ancient Egyptians, and is often tied to the divine right of kings. Robin, like Arthur, may also be a Sacrificial King, whose blood is shed to heal the land. In the ballad The Death of Robin Hood , Robin is ill and goes to his cousin, the Abbess of Kirklees, a knowledgeable healer, in order to be bled and cured. The Abbess cuts Robin's vein, then allows him to bleed to death. Within the ballad, the Abbess betrays Robin for petty political reasons. However, from a pagan perspective, the Abbess may have been carrying out a ritual duty to collect the blood of the Sacrificial King (who must not die of illness or old age) and pour it on the earth for the good of the land. In fact, the Abbess may represent Marian in her crone aspect. Indeed, she was portrayed as such in the 1970s film Robin and Marian, starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn.

Notice also the theme of consanguinity, in that the Abbess is called Robin's "cousin". Coincidentally, we see the theme of consanguinity played out in popular culture as well. Only a decade after Sean Connery portrayed the aging Robin Hood in Robin and Marian, his son, Jason Connery, took on the role of Robert of Huntington in the British TV series Robin of Sherwood. The King is dead; long live the King! The Robin and the Wren The association of Robin Hood with the Celtic god Bel clarifies some otherwise arcane yuletide customs and helps us interpret an obscure English nursery rhyme. Within the Welsh mythic cycles, Bel, of course, had a rival, Bran. Respectively, their totemic birds were the Robin of springtime, and the Raven of winter, while their sacred woods were the Willow and the Alder. Over time, within English folklore, these rival gods came to be represented by the Robin & the Wren; the Oak King & the Holly King; Robin Hood & the Sherrif of Nottingham. The battle between Bel and Bran is a religious metaphor for the cyclical transition from light to darkness and back again throughout the year.

While we have already equated Bel with Apollo, the archer god of the Sun, Robert Graves suggests that Bran is equivalent to Saturn, the classical god of time and crops. Upon the Wheel of the Year, Beltane, or May Day, the beginning of summer, is the festival of Bel, and its celebration is clearly linked to the Robin Hood legend; the Midwinter celebrations of Yule and Twelfth Night, on the other hand, mark the festival of Bran, or Saturn, with customs going back to the Roman Saturnalia. During the dark time of the year surrounding the Winter Soltice, Bran appears as the Lord of Misrule at Twelfth Night, and as Father Time, with his hour glass and scythe (both symbols of Saturn) on New Year's Eve. In these last days of the year, Bran, the Holly King, is making merry, before he must relinquish his role as Lord of the Greenwood to his rival, Bel, the Oak King. The yule log, of course, is traditionally a piece of oak. Graves links the burning of the yule log to both the Robin Hood legend, and the bizarre custom of "Hunting the Wren" on St.

Stephen's Day (Boxing Day): "By his successful defiance of the ecclesiastics, [the historical] Robin became such a popular hero that he was regarded as the founder of the Robin Hood religion, and its primitive forms are difficult to discover. However, 'Hood' (or Hod or Hud) meant 'log' - the log put on the back of the fire - and it was in this log, cut from the sacred oak, that Robin was once believed to reside. Hence, 'Robin Hood's Steed', the wood-louse which ran out when the Yule log was burned. In the popular superstition, Robin [Hood] himself escaped up the chimney in the form of a Robin [bird] and, when Yule ended, went out as Belin against his rival Bran, or Saturn - who had been 'Lord of Misrule' at the Yule-tide revels. Bran hid from pursuit in the ivy-bush disguised as a Gold Crest Wren; but Robin always caught and hanged him.

Hence the song: 'Who'll hunt the Wren?' cries Robin the Bobbin." The song Graves refers to is part of an old yuletide custom still practiced in Ireland and parts of England. Young boys hunt and kill a wren on St. Stephen's Day or on Christmas day itself. At any other time of the year, it was considered unlucky to harm this bird. Sir James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, describes the wren hunt as it was carried out on the Isle of Man in the late 19th century: "On the twenty-fourth of December, towards evening, all the servants got a holiday; they did not go to bed all night, but rambled about till the bells rang in all the churches at midnight. When prayers were over, they went to hunt the wren, and having found one of these birds, they killed it and fastened it to the top of a long pole with the wings extended.

Thus they carried it in procession to every house chanting the following rhyme: "We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin, We hunted the wren for Jack of the Can, We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin, We hunted the wren for every one." When they had gone from house to house and collected all the money they could, they laid the wren on a bier and carried it in procession to the parish churchyard, where they made a grave and buried it 'with the utmost solemnity, singing dirges over her in the Manks language, which they call her knell; after which Christmas begins.' The burial over, the company outside the churchyard formed a circle and danced to music." A similar custom prevailed in parts of Ireland, although the rhyme is a bit more to the point: "The wren, the wren, the king of all birds, St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze; Although he is little, his family's great, I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat." In Irish tradition, the treat was usually money or food.

" By killing the wren, the boys are symbolically slaying the Holly King, so that his solar brother, the Oak King, can again take his place as the Lord of the Greenwood. At the same time, they represent Robin Hood's band of merry men, catching and executing the Sherrif of Nottingham. The flip side of this yuletide custom can be found in the Mother Goose rhyme "The Death and Burial of Cock Robin" : The DEATH and BURIAL of COCK ROBIN Who killed Cock Robin? Listen to a Real Audio folk-punk rendition of this song by Chris Piuma The first lines of the Cock Robin rhyme and the wren hunting song that Graves quotes are nearly identical in structure: "Who'll hunt the wren?"; "Who killed Cock Robin?" Perhaps the old Mother Goose rhyme even relates to a lost pagan custom of hunting the robin, possibly at the Summer Solstice, parallel to the wren hunt at Yule. It is not surprising we should find old pagan wisdom hidden in the apparently nonsensical rhymes of Mother Goose , as she clearly represents a sort of crone goddess or witch figure.

The "bow & arrow" reference in the first stanza of the rhyme suggests that Cock Robin is a metaphor for Robin Hood. Similary, the other birds and animals represent characters within the Robin Hood legend, and can be taken together as Robin's band of merry men. The third stanza, in which the fish catches Robin's blood in a dish, brings us back to the theme of the sacrificial king. Indeed, the fish symbolizes the goddess of the sea, or the mermaid, and thus Marian. It is interesting to note that the pall-bearer, the Wren, Robin's rival, appears as part of a mated pair in this rhyme: Who'll bear the pall?/"We," said the Wren,/"Both the cock and the hen;/We'll bear the pall." All the other birds and animals, however, act out their parts alone. Where does the Wren's mate come from? It could be argued that she is, again, Marian, since, in another children's rhyme, Jenny Wren is the mate of Robin Redbreast.

Graves points out that, during the yuletide and Twelfth Night revels, Maid Marion became the Lady of Misrule, the mistress of the Lord of Misrule, and thus the consort of Robin's rival, the Wren or Holly King. Graves claims that this inconstancy on Marian's part was well known, and that she was often referred to as Maud Marian during the yuletide celebrations, "Maud" being a diminutive of Mary Magdalene, and used in the middle ages as an epithet equivalent to "whore". Within more contemporary versions of the Robin myth, we see this theme played out in the abduction, attempted rape and attempted forced marriage of Marian by the Sherrif of Nottingham (or, sometimes, Prince John or Guy of Gisbourne). In "going over to the dark side" at midwinter, Marian evokes another maiden goddess of the classical world, Persephone, who was abducted by Pluto and taken to the underworld to be its Queen. Persephone's mother, Demeter, Goddess of Grain, was so distraught by her daughter's abduction, that she refused to allow anything to grow. The world withered and died, experiencing its first winter.

Zeus intervened, allowing Persephone to return to her mother and the world for most of the year. However, because Persephone had eaten several pomegranate seeds (varying from 3 to 6 in various versions of the myth) during her stay with Pluto, Zeus decreed that each year, Persephone must return to the underworld for the equivalent number of months. During the months her daughter is absent, Demeter mourns, and we experience the dark time of the year, or winter. The pattern of romantic triangle between Robin, his rival, and Marion can also be found within Arthurian lore. We have already suggested that, as a sacrificial king, Robin is equivalent to Arthur. Similarly, Maid Marion's inconstancy at Twelfth Night can be equated with Guinevere's infidelity. Moreover, although Arthur and Lancelot become fast friends, they first meet each other as rivals and engage in single combat. In fact, Lancelot is referred to within some sources as the son of King Ban of Brittany, whom Graves equates with Bran. Camelot, moreover, is presented as a land of eternal summer.

However, when Marian betrays Arthur with Lancelot, the realm becomes a bleak, barren wasteland, engulfed in winter, with nothing able to flourish or grow. A Mythical Place, Outside of Time The Major Oak, Sherwood Forest There is much debate as to where Robin's forest really was. Although Nottingham has the strongest literary tradition, Barnsdale Forest in Yorkshire and Plumpton Park in Lancashire also lay claim to the legend. Sadly, the Sherwood Forest near Nottingham is greatly diminished in size, increasingly encroached by human settlement. To learn about the efforts being made to conserve what is left, check out the Sherwood Initiative homepage. Within the remaining forest of Sherwood is a huge, ancient oak tree, known as the Major Oak. Once thought to be 1000 years old, it is the fabled meeting place of Robin and his men. The tree is now propped up to prevent it succumbing to age. Modern dating techniques suggest the tree may actually be only 300 years old, but it is symbolic of Robin and the Greenwood nonetheless. As we have argued, Robin is the Oak King, and any such venerable tree would be sacred to him.

The name "Sherwood" derives from the term "shire wood", meaning the forest local to a shire or region. As such, it is a fairly generic term. Rather than being a single physical place, Sherwood is more likely an abstraction, representing "the wilderness" as a whole. Within the legends of Sherwood, time stands still. It is perpetually May Day inside Sherwood forest. The Wheel of the Year has ground to a halt. Robin and Marian are the eternal springtime divine lovers. They live happily ever after together without needing to marry, have children, work or grow old. Although there is a ballad telling of the death of Robin, the character will not die. Rather, he is continuously reborn, like the Sun at the Winter Solstice. The tales of Robin & Marian continue to be rewritten and retold even to this day. Perhaps, just as Arthur sleeps in Avalon, to arise when Britain has need of him, so too does Robin sleep in Sherwood, ready to awake and return. Comic Book Robins: Projecting the Robin Hood Myth into the Future. Comic books have often been described as modern mythology, transmuting ancient tales of wonder and transmitting them to the young in a secularized form.

Robin Hood has been portrayed many times in comic book form, and other more modern heros have also assumed his mythic attributes. Could the young, masked, cape-wearing comic book superhero named Robin thus be a manifestation of Robin Hood in pop culture? I think so! Here we find Robin paired with the "bird" of night, The Bat, roughly equivalent to the Wren or Raven of winter. This time, however, the relationship between the two is not one of rivalry, but rather that of master and apprentice. And where is Marian in this modern myth? Given her two-fold nature, she shows up twice: first in her maiden aspect as Bat Girl; then as the Lady of Misrule, the Cat Woman. Sherwood now is an urban jungle: Gotham City. The Sheriff has mellowed into Commissioner Gordon, but there are plenty of villains to battle just the same. A more blatant example of a Robin Hood figure in the modern mythical realm of comic books is, of course, The Green Arrow . Hindu Archer God and Mediaeval Chinese Heroes The story of Robin Hood has many parallels around the world in myth, folklore and mythology.

One of the most strikingly similar stories is the Ramayana , the sacred tale of the adventures of the Hindu lord Rama, an atavar (human incarnation) of the god Krishna. Rama was a crown prince who was wrongly exiled to the forest for fourteen years. He was a skilled archer who won his wife's hand by proving his skill with the bow. His beautiful wife Sita and his loyal brother Laksmana accompanied him into the forest in exile, where they lived by hunting game. Sita was abducted by a monster and Rama was aided in rescuing her by a monkey named Hanuman, a servant of the monkey king. In return, Rama helped the deposed king of the monkeys reclaim his throne from a usurper brother. From this synopsis, we can see the structural parallels with the Robin Hood story. Robin, the outlaw archer, banished to the forest, like Rama, is accompanied by his wife Marian (from the early 16th century at least) and his loyal lieutenant (and, in a 17th century version, cousin) Little John. In many of the later romances, Marian is abducted by the sheriff or his men and must be rescued.

Also, since Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Robin Hood has been the supporter of King Richard over his usurper brother Prince John. Certainly from the time of the British colonization of India, beginning in 1600 CE, there has been contact between the two cultures. The evolution of the Robin Hood story may thus in part reflect a knowledge of the Ramayana among Britons who had visited India. At the same time, the two cultures share an ancient linguistic and cultural heritage, representing the western and eastern extremities of the Indo-European language region. The basic similarity then, of Rama and Robin, as archer heroes exiled to the forest, may reflect an ancient Proto-Indo-European myth that has developed separately in the two wideflung cultures, only to coalesce further at the time of renewed cultural contact. Looking farther east, beyond the Indo-European region, we find a second surprising parallel to the Robin Hood myth, in the 14th century Chinese novel "The Water Margins", about the 12th century outlaw Song Jiang and his band of 108 freedom fighters who retreated to a swampland wilderness to wage war against a corrupt feudal system.

Perhaps, here the closer parallel is to the historical figure Hereward the Wake, the Saxon hero who held Ely and its surrounding boglands against the invading Normans. Hereward, of course, is thought to be one of the historical models for the Robin Hood legend. The Great Story Of Robin Hood-Historical Documentary-National Documentary - YouTube The Great Story Of Robin Hood-Historical Documentary-National Documentary Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jun 22, 2015 The Great Story Of Robin Hood-Historical Documentary-National Documentary The Great Story Of Robin Hood-Historical Documentary-National Documentary The Great Story Of Robin Hood-Historic documentary 2016 robin hood cast documentary 2016 traileral Documentary-National Documentary Robin Hood is a heroic outlaw in English folklore who, according to legend, was a highly skilled archer and swordsman.

Traditionally depicted as being dressed in Lincoln green,[1] he is often portrayed as "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor" alongside his band of Merry Men. Robin Hood became a popular folk figure in the late-medieval period, and continues to be widely represented in literature, films and television documentary national geographic national geographic national geographic 2014 national geographic documentary documentary documentary 2014,documentaries documentaries 2014 bbc documentary discovery channel history channel history channel documentary national geographic channel,documentary films,documentary films 2014 national geographic animals documentary history channel documentaries national geographic documentary national geographic and i will be happy if you visiting my other channel: and thank you for every one watching my movies ramadan elshenawy

Question: Historical figure Robin Hood is associated with which shade of green?
Answer: Lincoln Green