Robin Hood

Robin Hood

The legend of Robin Hood has enthralled us now for centuries. Whether based on a real man or created as a fictional story for entertainment, the tales of Robin Hood have a rich history that many have tried to trace. Ballads were the first way that stories of a man named Robyn Hod were spread among the people of England and the earliest extant ballads, from the 15th century, are echoes of a much older minstrel tradition. The high rate of illiteracy brought about the oral tradition of passing on stories, or history. Because the wandering minstrel would sing in different areas to different audiences, the lyrics of the ballads would change to reflect the type of audience and their interests, and the story grew and changed. The ballads are explicitly Christianised, so that certain elements of the Robin legend point to underlying Pagan roots.

In the ballads, the man who is Robin Hood represents nature and freedom; he is green (a forest figure), he has a festive time with his men, and he is natural. He is the fight against oppression and misery, but he does not have a problem with authority. He is simply against the misuse of authority, against those people whom the king appointed and who were unjust. Robyn becomes the hero of the people for fighting this injustice. He would have needed the help of the people to survive as a traveller, and so robbing the rich and giving to the poor was a way of bringing the common people on his side. Robin is the protector of the innocent, the defender of the weak and poor. In this respect, he embodies the gentler aspect of the Horned Lord, in his role as the guardian of the small creatures, as so beautifully described in The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, in the chapter entitled 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn'.

Robin is an outlaw, or wolfshead, shunning civilization for the wild. The 'outlaw' status may also reflect the demonization of the Horned Lord by the Christian church. Even in the Christianised versions of the story, Robin steals from church officials, who are depicted as corrupt. Robin is a trickster figure, like Puck or the Greek woodland god Pan. He is often content to publicly humiliate a foe, rather than kill him.

Robin's weapons and tools are laden with pagan significance. Robin uses a longbow as his weapon and it is associated with the weapon of Diana, virgin Goddess of the Hunt, and its shape echoes the crescent moon. It was important to be skilled at the bow and arrow in the 13th and 14th centuries because it was the means of hunting and survival and the means of protection. Because Robin became a mythical legend, he was the best archer. One story that demonstrates his archery skill is the Golden Arrow contest set up by the Sheriff to bring Robin out of hiding. Robin's secondary weapons, the quarterstaff and sword, are phallic symbols of virility, well known to Tarot practitioners. Even the horn with which Robin calls his followers has meaning, recalling the hidden horns on his head.

Robin, as the Horned God, is the leader of the Wild Hunt, as represented by his band of Merry Men. Robin's band of Merry Men may also 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 camaraderie. 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 Christianised, may hearken back in structure and practice to such pagan rites. Alternatively, the Merry Men may be a late British parallel to the Fianna 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 pastime, however, was hunting. Their leader was the mythical Fionn Mac Cumhaill, a decidedly Robinesque figure.

Marian represents the Goddess in her maiden aspect. Indeed, 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, Robert Graves equates Maid Marian with the goddess of the sea and sensuality, who was Christianised as both St. Mary of Egypt and the Virgin Mary. 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. 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 Christianised versions, Robin is devoted to the Virgin Mary and follows a code of chivalry, never harming a woman.

It is told that the downfall of Robin Hood takes place at Kirklees Castle, or Priory, in Yorkshire, where Robyn's cousin is the Prioress. She was having an affair and bled Robyn to death under the guise of medicinal healing to keep him out of the way of her indiscretions. Little John was at Robyn's side until Robyn's death. Toward the end of his life, Robyn shot his last arrow out the window and told Little John to bury him where the arrow fell.