Gilbert’s tale begins with an account of how Robin actually became an outlaw. King Richard’s judgment of the man sums up the author’s view and the tone of the book: ‘Thy justice is a wild justice, but like thy bolts, it hits the mark. There is no doubt that Gilbert saw Robin Hood as a dashing romantic hero, an enemy of injustice and a friend to the downtrodden. And of course, the villainous Guy of Gisborne and the Sherriff of Nottingham play their usual dastardly roles in the drama. All the familiar characters are here, too, including Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet and Maid Marian, whom we are told was Robin’s childhood sweetheart and, when they were just children, they vowed to marry each other. Robin emerges from the text as a vivid and fully rounded individual. The book re-conceives all the familiar set-pieces of the story along the lines of a sweeping narrative arc that gives to the whole the grandeur of an epic. So, by the time the twentieth century dawned, Robin was a well-known and well-documented character, but it was Henry Gilbert’s book Robin Hood, published in 1912, which assembled all the disparate elements of the legend into an elegiac and detailed version of Robin’s life and adventures. There is a mention of the ‘rhymes of Robin Hood’ in the poem Piers Plowman, thought to have been composed in the 1370s, but the earliest surviving copies of the narrative ballads that tell the outlaw’s story date to the second half of the 15th century. References to this colourful outlaw of Sherwood Forest go back into the mists of time. Robin Hood is perhaps the greatest British folk hero and is celebrated in many books, films and other forms of entertainment. ‘While I have my good bow, and the greenwood stands to shelter me, I can laugh at all who wish me ill.’ David Stuart Davies takes a look at the famous outlaw.
Robin Hood 2018 marks 150 years since the birth of Henry Gilbert, author of the best-known version of the classic tales of Sherwood Forest.
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