Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn c.1940
Born	Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn[1] (1909-06-20)20 June 1909[1] Hobart, Tasmania, Australia[1]
Died	14 October 1959(1959-10-14) (aged 50) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Cause of death	heart attack
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1932–1959
Height	6'2"
Spouse	Lili Damita (m. 1935–1942) «start: (1935)–end+1: (1943)»"Marriage: Lili Damita to Errol Flynn" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Errol_Flynn)(divorce) Nora Eddington (m. 1943–1948) «start: (1943)–end+1: (1949)»"Marriage: Nora Eddington to Errol Flynn" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Errol_Flynn)(divorce) Patrice Wymore (m. 1950–1959) «start: (1950)–end+1: (1960)»"Marriage: Patrice Wymore to Errol Flynn" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Errol_Flynn)(his death)
Children	Arnella (1953-1998) and Deirdre Flynn (b. 1945) with Patrice Wymore Rory Flynn (b. 1947) with Nora Eddington Sean Flynn (1941-1970} with Lili Damita

Errol Leslie Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959)^[1] was an Australian-born American^[2] actor.^[3] He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films and his flamboyant lifestyle.

Early life[link]

Errol Flynn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, where his father, Theodore Thomson Flynn, was a lecturer (1909) and later professor (1911) of biology at the University of Tasmania. Flynn was born at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Battery Point. His mother was born Lily Mary Young, but dropped the first names Lily Mary shortly after she was married and changed her name to Marelle.^[4] Flynn described his mother's family as "seafaring folk"^[5] and this appears to be where his life-long interest in boats and the sea originated. Despite Flynn's claims, the evidence indicates that he was not descended from any of the Bounty mutineers.^[6][7] Married at St John's Church of England, Balmain North, Sydney, New South Wales, on 23 January 1909,^[8][9] both of his parents were native-born Australians of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, with convict links to Tasmania long before Flynn's birth.^[6][10] Flynn, living at Mclean Avenue Chatswood, Sydney in 1926, attended Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore School)^[11] where he was the classmate of future Australian Prime Minister, John Gorton.^[12] He was expelled for fighting and, allegedly, having sex with a school laundress.^[13] He was also expelled from several other schools he had attended in Tasmania. At the age of 20 he moved to New Guinea where he bought a tobacco plantation, a business which failed. A copper mining venture in the hills near the Laloki Valley, behind the present national capital, Port Moresby, also failed.

In the early 1930s, Flynn left for England and, in 1933, snagged an acting job with the Northampton repertory company at the town's Royal Theatre, where he worked for seven months. He also performed at the 1934 Malvern Festival and in Glasgow and London's West End.^[14]

In 1933, he starred in the Australian film In the Wake of the Bounty, directed by Charles Chauvel, and in 1934 appeared in Murder at Monte Carlo, produced at the Warner Bros. Teddington Studios, England. This latter film is now considered a lost film.^[15] During the filming of Murder at Monte Carlo, Flynn was discovered by a Warner Brothers executive, signed to a contract and emigrated to America as a contract actor. He became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 1942, eight months after America entered World War II.

Acting career[link]

Flynn as Captain Blood

Flynn was an overnight sensation in his first starring role, Captain Blood (1935). Quickly typecast as a swashbuckler, he followed it with The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). After his appearance as Miles Hendon in The Prince and the Pauper (1937), he was cast in his most celebrated role as Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), his first film in Technicolor. He went on to appear in The Dawn Patrol (1938) with David Niven, Dodge City (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940) and Adventures of Don Juan (1948).

Working throughout his career with a cross section of Hollywood's best fight arrangers, Flynn became noted for his fast-paced sword fights as seen in The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood.^[16]

Flynn co-starred with Olivia de Havilland in eight films: Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Four's a Crowd (1938), Dodge City (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941).

While Flynn acknowledged his attraction to de Havilland, film historian Rudy Behlmer's assertions that they were romantically involved during the filming of Robin Hood (see the Special Edition of Robin Hood on DVD, 2003) have been disputed by de Havilland. In an interview for Turner Classic Movies, she said that their relationship was platonic, mostly because Flynn was already married to Lili Damita.

During the shooting of The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Flynn and co-star Bette Davis quarrelled off-screen, causing Davis to allegedly strike him harder than necessary while filming a scene. Although their relationship was always strained, Warner Bros. co-starred them twice. Their off-screen relationship was later resolved. A contract was even drawn up to lend them out for the roles of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, but that prospect failed to materialise.

Flynn was a member of the Hollywood Cricket Club with David Niven. His suave, debonair, and devil-may-care attitude toward both ladies and life has been immortalised in the English language by author Benjamin S. Johnson as, "Errolesque," in his treatise on the subject, An Errolesque Philosophy on Life.^[13]

As Capt. Nelson in Objective, Burma! (1945).

When Flynn became a naturalised American citizen on 15 August 1942, he also became eligible for the military draft, as the United States had entered World War II eight months earlier. Grateful to the country that had given him fame and wealth,^[17] Flynn attempted to join every branch of the armed services. But he had several health problems. His heart was enlarged, with a murmur, and he'd already suffered at least one heart attack. That was not all: he had recurrent malaria (contracted in New Guinea), chronic back pain (for which he self-medicated with morphine and later, with heroin), lingering chronic tuberculosis, and numerous venereal diseases. Flynn, famous for his athletic roles and promoted as a paragon of physical beauty, was classified 4-F – unqualified for military service because of not meeting the minimum physical fitness standards.^[17][18]

This created a public image problem for both Flynn and Warner Brothers. Flynn was often criticised for his failure to enlist while continuing to play war heroes in films. The studios' failure to counter the criticism was due to a desire to hide the state of Flynn's health.

By the 1950s, Flynn had become a parody of himself. Heavy alcohol and drug abuse left him prematurely aged and bloated, but he won acclaim as a drunken ne'er-do-well in The Sun Also Rises (1957), and as his idol John Barrymore in Too Much, Too Soon (1958). Flynn starred in a 1956 anthology series The Errol Flynn Theatre that was filmed in England, where he presented the episodes and sometimes appeared in them. About this time he also guest starred on NBC's comedy/variety show, The Martha Raye Show.

Flynn and Beverly Aadland met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss appearing together in Lolita.^[19]

As a curious postscript to his life of adventure, Flynn went to Cuba in late 1958 to meet with the rebel leader Fidel Castro. Flynn was a great supporter of Castro and narrated a short movie titled Cuban Story: The Truth About Fidel Castro Revolution, one of his last works as an actor.^[20]

Writing and journalism efforts[link]

Flynn's first book, Beam Ends, is an autobiographical account of his sailing trips around Australia, and was published in 1937. His adventure novel Showdown was published in 1946.

Flynn went to Spain in 1937 as a war correspondent to report for the United States during the Spanish Civil War.^[21]

Newspaper articles written for the New York Journal American by Flynn documenting his time in Cuba with Fidel Castro and his rebels went unpublished, and were to remain missing until 2009, when they were discovered in the University of Texas at Austin's Center for American History.^[22]

His final book, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was written with the aid of ghostwriter Earl Conrad as Flynn, who was suffering from depression, anxiety and alcoholism had long lost the discipline to write. Published shortly after his death, the book contains humorous anecdotes about life in Hollywood as well as his youth in New Guinea. According to one literary critic, the book "remains one of the most compelling and appalling autobiographies written by a Hollywood star, or anyone else for that matter".^[23] Flynn wanted to call the book In Like Me, but the publisher refused.^[24]

Popularity[link]

In 1940 he was voted the 14th most popular star in the US and the 7th most popular in Britain.^[25][26]

In 1984, CBS produced a television film based on Flynn's autobiography, starring Duncan Regehr as Flynn. Regehr commented that it was an amazing coincidence in his life that he'd had the opportunity to portray two characters (the other being the fictional character Zorro) that "helped define our image of swashbuckling in movies".^[27]

Personal life[link]

Lifestyle[link]

Flynn had a reputation for womanizing. His freewheeling, hedonistic lifestyle caught up with him in 1942 when two under-age girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, accused him of statutory rape,^[28] alleging that the event occurred at the Bel Air home of Flynn's friend Frederick McEvoy.^[29] A group was organized to support Flynn, named the American Boys' Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn (ABCDEF); its members included William F. Buckley, Jr.^[30] The trial took place in January and February 1943, and Flynn was cleared of the charges. The incident served to increase his reputation as a ladies' man, which led to the popular phrase "in like Flynn".^[31]

Marriages and family[link]

Flynn and first wife Lili Damita at Los Angeles airport in 1941.

Flynn was married three times: to actress Lili Damita from 1935 until 1942 (one son, Sean Flynn, born 1941, reported missing in Cambodia in 1970 and presumed dead); to Nora Eddington from 1943 until 1949 (two daughters, Deirdre born 1945 and Rory born 1947); and to actress Patrice Wymore from 1950 until his death (one daughter, Arnella Roma, 1953–98). In Hollywood, he tended to refer to himself as Irish rather than Australian (his father Theodore Thomson Flynn had been a biologist and a professor at the Queen's University of Belfast in Northern Ireland during the latter part of his career). Flynn lived with Wymore in Port Antonio, Jamaica in the 1950s. He was largely responsible for developing tourism to this area, and for a while owned the Titchfield Hotel, which was decorated by the artist Olga Lehmann. He also popularised trips down rivers on bamboo rafts.^[32]

Flynn was a long-time friend of the painter Boris Smirnoff, who painted his portrait several times, as well as those of Lili Damita, Patrice Wymore and celebrity friends such as Edward G. Robinson, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer and Barbara Stanwyck.^[33]

The gossips took note of his friendships with Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich and Dolores del Río. Dietrich flaunted her promiscuity throughout her life, and Del Río allegedly succumbed to Flynn's charm immediately, but Lombard is said to have resisted his advances. She had already met and fallen in love with Clark Gable, but she liked Flynn and invited him to her extravagant soirees.^[34]

In the late 1950s, Flynn met and courted the 15-year-old Beverly Aadland at the Hollywood Professional School, casting her in his final film, Cuban Rebel Girls (1959). According to Aadland, he planned to marry her and move to their new house in Jamaica, but during a trip together to Vancouver, British Columbia, he died of a heart attack at the age of 50.

His only son, Sean, an actor and later a noted war correspondent, disappeared in Cambodia in 1970 during the Vietnam War while working as a freelance photojournalist for Time magazine.^[35] Flynn was presumed dead in 1971, probably murdered by the Khmer Rouge. In 1984, he was officially declared dead in a granted petition of declaration sought by his mother, Lili Damita. Sean's life was recounted in Inherited Risk by Jeffrey Meyers (Simon & Schuster), and he is also mentioned on page 194 in the Colleagues section of Dispatches by Michael Herr.

Flynn's daughter Rory has one son, Sean Rio Flynn, named after her half-brother. He is an actor.^[36] Rory Flynn has written a book about her father entitled The Baron of Mulholland: A Daughter Remembers Errol Flynn.

Errol Flynn's coffin on Los Angeles Union Station train platform in 1959.

Death[link]

Errol Flynn's grave

Flynn flew with Aadland to Vancouver on 9 October 1959, to lease his yacht Zaca to millionaire George Caldough. On 14 October, Caldough was driving Flynn to the airport when Flynn felt ill. He was taken to the apartment of Caldough's friend, Dr. Grant Gould, uncle of pianist Glenn Gould. A party ensued, with Flynn regaling guests with stories and impressions. Feeling ill again, he announced "I shall return" and retired to a bedroom to rest. A half hour later, Aadland checked in on him and discovered him unconscious. Flynn had suffered a heart attack. According to the Vancouver Sun (16 December 2006), "When Errol Flynn came to town in 1959 for a week-long binge that ended with him dying in a West End apartment, his local friends propped him up at the Hotel Georgia lounge so that everyone would see him." The story is a myth; following Flynn's death, his body was turned over to a coroner (George Brayshaw), who performed an autopsy, and released his body to his next of kin.

Errol Flynn is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. Both of his parents survived him.

Posthumous allegations[link]

In 1961, Florence Aadland co-authored with Tedd Thomey The Big Love, a book alleging Flynn was involved in a sexual relationship with her 15-year-old daughter, actress Beverly.^[37][38] It was later made into a play starring Tracey Ullman.^[39][40]

In 1980, author Charles Higham published a controversial biography, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, in which he alleged that Flynn was a fascist sympathiser who spied for the Nazis before and during World War II, and also that he was bisexual.^[41][42] Higham did confess to the New York Times, however, that he had no documents proving Flynn was a Nazi agent.^[43] Flynn's ex-wife Nora Eddington Black denounced the allegations and members of Flynn’s family subsequently attempted to sue Higham and his publisher Doubleday for libel, but since the actor had died in 1959 the suit was dismissed.^[44][45] Other biographers accused Higham of altering FBI documents to sustain his charges against Flynn.^[46] That Flynn was bisexual was also claimed by David Bret in Errol Flynn: Satan's Angel (2000), although Bret denounced the Nazi claims.

In 2000, Higham wrote an article that also claimed that Flynn was previously accused of sympathising with Adolf Hitler based on his association with Dr. Hermann Erben, an Austrian who served in the German military intelligence, and that declassified files held by the CIA show that, in an intercepted letter in September 1933, Flynn wrote to Erben: "A slimy Jew is trying to cheat me… I do wish we could bring Hitler over here to teach these Isaacs a thing or two. The bastards have absolutely no business probity or honour whatsoever."^[42] Unreleased MI5 files held by the British Home Office were claimed in 2000 to demonstrate Flynn worked for the Allies during the war.^[47] Flynn offered to spy on Ireland for America during the war but was turned down because of FDR's fear that he sympathised with the Nazis.^[48]

Subsequent biographies – notably Tony Thomas' Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was (Citadel, 1990) and Buster Wiles' My Days With Errol Flynn: The Autobiography of a Stuntman (Roundtable, 1988) – have rejected Higham's claims as pure fabrication. Flynn's political leanings, say these biographies, appear to have been leftist: he was a supporter of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War and of the Cuban Revolution, even narrating a documentary titled Cuban Story shortly before his death. Flynn also wrote, financed and starred in the film Cuban Rebel Girls in which his character helps Castro's revolution. Flynn defended his visit to Cuba in an appearance on a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) television show Front Page Challenge early in 1959. According to his autobiography, he considered Fidel Castro a close personal friend and drinking partner.^{[citation needed]}

Film portrayals[link]

• Duncan Regehr portrayed Flynn in a 1985 American TV movie My Wicked, Wicked Ways, loosely based on Flynn's autobiography of the same name.
• Guy Pearce played Errol Flynn in the 1996 Australian film Flynn, which covers Flynn's youth and early manhood, ending before the start of his Hollywood career.
• Flynn was portrayed by Jude Law in Martin Scorsese's 2004 film The Aviator.

The character of Alan Swann, portrayed by Peter O'Toole in the 1982 film My Favorite Year, was based on Flynn.^[49]

Filmography[link]

Select Radio Performances[link]

^[50]

• Captain Blood – Lux Radio Theatre 22 February 1937
• British Agent – Lux Radio Theatre 7 June 1937
• These Three – Lux Radio Theatre 6 December 1937
• Green Light – Lux Radio Theatre 31 January 1938
• The Perfect Specimen – Lux Radio Theatre 2 January 1939
• Lives of a Bengal Lancer – Lux Radio Theatre 10 April 1939
• Trade Winds – Lux Radio Theatre 4 March. 1940
• Virginia City – Lux Radio Theatre 26 May 1941
• They Died With Their Boots On – Cavalcade of America 17 November 1941.
• Command Performance 30 July 1944
• The Modern Adventures of Casanova 22 May 1952

Books by Flynn[link]

Flynn wrote the following books:

• Beam Ends (1937)
• Showdown (1946)
• My Wicked, Wicked Ways, with ghost-writer Earl Conrad (1959)

Posthumous cultural references[link]

• Errol Flynn's life was the subject of the opera Flynn (1977–78) by British composer Judith Bingham. The score is titled: Music-theatre on the life and times of Errol Flynn, in three scenes, three solos, four duets, a mad song and an interlude^[51]
• Australian Crawl recorded a lyrical biography of Flynn, "Errol", released in July 1981 and reached No.18 on the Australian singles charts. The song was taken from the album Sirocco, named after one of Flynn's yachts.
• Disney's 1991 action film The Rocketeer features Timothy Dalton as the primary antagonist Neville Sinclair; Sinclair, a Hollywood star famous for swashbuckling roles, is secretly an undercover agent for the Nazis, clearly inspired by rumors of same surrounding Flynn.
• In June 2009 the Errol Flynn Society of Tasmania Inc. organised the Errol Flynn Centenary Celebration, a 10-day series of events designed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth^[52] On the actual centenary, 20 June 2009, his daughter Rory Flynn unveiled a star with his name on the footpath outside Hobart's heritage State Cinema.^[53]
• The Pirate's Daughter, a 2008 novel by Margaret Cezair-Thompson, is a fictionalised account of Flynn's later life.^[54]
• Roman Polanski's 1986 film, Pirates was intended to pay homage to the beloved Errol Flynn swashbucklers of his childhood.^[55]
• Flynn was portrayed loosely as a racist actor in a fist fight with John Huston in Clint Eastwood's 1990 film White Hunter Black Heart. Although this fist fight allegedly took place, it did not occur in Africa and not with Huston coming to the rescue of an African manservant.
• The character Eugene Fitzherbert/Flynn Rider from the 2010 film Tangled was named Flynn in homage to Errol Flynn, as the two share character traits.
• In 2005, a small waterfront reserve in Sandy Bay, a suburb of Flynn's hometown of Hobart, was renamed from Short Beach to the "Errol Flynn Reserve".^[56]
• In 2009, the Port Antonio mega-yacht marina in the northeastern coast of Jamaica underwent a name change to the Errol Flynn Marina.^[57][58]
• The 2010 novel Errol, Fidel and the Cuban Rebel Girls by Boyd Anderson is a fictionalised account of the last year of Flynn's life in Cuba^[59]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Flynn, Errol. My Wicked, Wicked Ways: the Autobiography of Errol Flynn. Intro. by Jeffrey Meyers. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2003. Rpt. of My Wicked, Wicked Ways. New York: G.P. Putnam's sons, 1959. ISBN 0-8154-1250-9.
• Flynn, Errol "The Quest for an Oscar." by James Turiello, BearManor Media, Duncan, OK. 2012.

ISBN 978-1-59393-695-2.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Errol Flynn

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Errol Flynn

• Errol Flynn at the Internet Movie Database
• Flynn, Errol (1909–1959) National Library of Australia, Trove, People and Organisation record for Errol Flynn
• Errol Flynn at the National Film and Sound Archive
• Errol Flynn's official web site, owned by daughter, Rory Flynn
• Errol Flynn centenary 1909–2009 article by Nick Thomas in Washington Post
• Profile @ Turner Classic Movies
• Errol Flynn Resource Website Flynn resource website, filmography & photographs.
• Programs and related material in the National Library of Australia's PROMPT collection
• His Wicked Wicked Ways: Flynn's 100th Birthday
• Errol Flynn segment from The Collectors
• Errol Flynn's Cuban Adventures by BBC News
• Errol Flynn & Patrice Wymore Marry in Monaco – TCM Movie Morlocks
• Errol Flynn at Find a Grave

Olivia de Havilland
in 1940
Born	Olivia Mary de Havilland (1916-07-01) 1 July 1916 (age 95) Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1935-present
Spouse	Marcus Goodrich (m.1946-1953; divorced) Pierre Galante (m.1955-1979; divorced))

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born 1 July 1916) is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.

Early life[link]

In 1933

Olivia de Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan, to parents from the United Kingdom. Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (31 August 1872 – 20 May 1968, aged 95), was a patent attorney with a practice in Japan, and her mother, Lilian Augusta (née Ruse; 11 June 1886 – 20 February 1975, aged 88)^[1][2] was a stage actress who had left her career after going to Tokyo with her husband – she would return to work after her daughters had already won fame in the 40s, with the stage name of Lillian Fontaine. Her parents married in 1914 and they separated in 1919, when Lilian decided to end the marriage after discovering that her husband used the sexual services of geisha girls, but divorce was not signed until February 1925.

Her younger sister is the actress Joan de Havilland – better known as Joan Fontaine (born 22 October 1917). Her paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882–1965), an aircraft designer, notably of the De Havilland Mosquito,^[3] and founder of the aircraft company which bore his name. Her paternal grandfather was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.^[4][5]

When her mother came from Tokyo, Olivia was two years old, and due to health problems of Joan, who had anemia at the time, they had to go to the United States, by medical recommendation. There, they settled in the town of Saratoga, California. Joan's health improved after they emigrated.

Although she left the profession as an actress, her mother did not fail to appreciate the arts, as she read Shakespeare to her children, and taught them diction and voice. In April 1925, the girls' mother remarried, this time to the owner of a department store, named George M. Fontaine, a man hated by both girls. It was the surname of her stepfather which, years later, Joan took as her stage name after her mother refused to allow her to use the de Havilland name. Her sister Olivia, was already a rising star under the family surname. The girls have never had a good relationship. Olivia, 95, and Joan, 94 years of age, have not spoken since the death of their mother in 1975.^[6]

Both sisters attended Los Gatos High School and de Havilland also attended the Notre Dame High School, Belmont.^[7] An acting award at Los Gatos is named after her. She participated in school drama club, and in 1933 made her debut in amateur theater, in the lead role in Alice in Wonderland, a production of the Saratoga Community Players based on the work of Lewis Carroll. Her talent for art was beginning to be noticed from there.

Career[link]

De Havilland appeared as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, her first stage production, at the Hollywood Bowl. The stage production was later turned into a 1935 movie, her film debut.^[8] Although the stage cast was largely replaced with Warner Bros. contract players, she was hired to reprise her role as Hermia. After appearing with Joe E. Brown in Alibi Ike and James Cagney in The Irish in Us, she played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Overall, she starred opposite Flynn in eight films.

Allegedly, Joan Fontaine, de Havilland's sister, was approached by George Cukor to audition for Gone with the Wind. He had just directed her in No More Ladies. She was excited until she learned he wanted her for the part of Melanie and not Scarlett. She reportedly turned him down flatly by saying, “Why don’t you ask my sister!” Olivia de Havilland went on to play Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

In 1941, de Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States.^[9]

De Havilland was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles assigned to her. She felt she had proven herself capable of playing more than the demure ingénues and damsels in distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role. When her Warner Bros. contract expired, the studio informed her that six months had been added to it for times she had been on suspension; the law then allowed for studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role and the period of suspension to be added to the contract period. In theory, this allowed a studio to maintain indefinite control over an uncooperative contractee.^{[citation needed]}

Most accepted this situation, while a few tried to change the system. Bette Davis had mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the 1930s. De Havilland mounted a lawsuit in the 1940s, supported by the Screen Actors Guild and was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to the performers. The California Court of Appeal's decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings in Hollywood^[10] and the statute on which it is based is still known as the De Havilland Law. Her victory won her the respect and admiration of her peers, among them her own sister Joan Fontaine who later commented, "Hollywood owes Olivia a great deal".^[11] The studio, however, vowed never to hire her again. The ruling interpreted the already existing California Labor Code Section 2855.^[12] That code section imposes a 7-year limit on contracts for service unless the employee agrees to an extension beyond that term.

In Gone With the Wind (1939)

De Havilland in 1940

Following the release of Devotion, a Hollywood biography of the Brontë sisters filmed in 1943 but withheld from release during the suspension and litigation, de Havilland signed a three picture deal with Paramount Pictures. The quality and variety of her roles began to improve. James Agee, in his review for The Dark Mirror (1946), noted the change, and stated that although she had always been "one of the prettiest women in movies", her recent performances had proven her acting ability. He commented that she did not possess "any remarkable talent, but her playing is thoughtful, quiet, detailed, and well sustained, and since it is founded, as some more talented playing is not, in an unusually healthful-seeming and likable temperament, it is an undivided pleasure to see."^[13] She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award–nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness, an 'historically important Hollywood exposé of the grim conditions in state mental hospitals' ^[14] and de Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamor and that confronted such controversial subject matter. She won the New York Film Critics Award for both The Snake Pit and The Heiress.

During this era, de Haviland was also notable as a staunch liberal, campaigning for Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman.^[15][16] In 1946, determined to protect liberalism from infiltration by communists, she provoked a highly-publicized row: concerned about reports of Stalinist atrocities, de Havilland removed pro-Communist material from speeches prepared for her by the Independent Citizens' Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, a group later identified as a communist front organization.^[17] De Havilland became concerned that the liberal membership of the Independent Citizens' Committee was being manipulated by a small group of communists in leadership positions and that their pro-Soviet statements were damaging the election chances of the Democrats in the 1946 mid-term elections. She organized a fight to regain control of the committee and, upon their failure she resigned, triggering a wave of resignations from other Hollywood figures, including her own star-recruit to the reform camp, Ronald Reagan.^[18] Ironically, given her role in galvanizing Hollywood resistance to Soviet influence, de Havilland was denounced that same year (along with Danny Kaye, Frederic March, and Edward G. Robinson) as a "swimming-pool pink" by Time magazine^[19] and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1958 due to her vocal liberal activism in this period.^[20]

De Havilland appeared sporadically in films after the 1950s and attributed this partly to the growing permissiveness of Hollywood films of the period. She declined the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, allegedly citing the unsavory nature of some elements of the script and saying there were certain lines she could not allow herself to speak. De Havilland denied this in a 2006 interview, saying she had recently given birth to her son when offered the role, which had been a life altering experience, and was unable to relate to the material.^[16] The role went to her Gone with the Wind co-star, Vivien Leigh, who won her second Academy Award for her role.^[21]

Of her few film appearances in the 1960s chiefly notable are Lady in a Cage (1964), as a crippled widow trapped in a lift and terrorised by intruders, Robert Aldrich's Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and Sam Peckinpah's TV film of Katherine Anne Porter's novella Noon Wine (1966). In 1965, she was the first woman to preside over a Cannes jury. De Havilland continued acting on film until the late 1970s, afterward continuing her career on television until the late 1980s, highlighted by her winning a Golden Globe and earning a Emmy Award nomination for her performance as the Dowager Empress Maria in the 1986 miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.

In 2008, de Havilland was awarded the United States National Medal of Arts.^[22]

Personal life[link]

Relationships[link]

De Havilland and Errol Flynn were known as one of Hollywood's most exciting on-screen couples, appearing in eight films together, but contrary to salacious rumours, were never linked romantically. The eight films in which they co-starred are Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood and Four's a Crowd (1938), Dodge City and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940) and They Died with Their Boots On (1941).

De Havilland stated, "He never guessed I had a crush on him. And it didn't get better either. In fact, I read in something that he wrote that he was in love with me when we made The Charge of the Light Brigade the next year, in 1936. I was amazed to read that, for it never occurred to me that he was smitten with me, too, even though we did all those pictures together."^{[citation needed]} However, in an interview cited on Turner Classic Movies^[23] de Havilland claims she knew the crush was reciprocal and further states that Flynn proposed, though de Havilland turned down the proposal as Flynn was at the time still married to actress Lili Damita.

Marriages[link]

De Havilland married novelist Marcus Goodrich in 1946 and they divorced in 1953. Their son, Benjamin (born in 1949) became a mathematician and died in 1991 after a long battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma. She was married to French journalist and Paris Match editor Pierre Galante between 1955 until 1979. Their daughter, Giselle (Gisèle in French), who later became a journalist, was born in July 1956 when de Havilland was 40.^[24] After the divorce, de Havilland and Galante remained on good terms, and she nursed him through his final illness (lung cancer) in Paris, which was the stated reason for her absence from the 70th anniversary of the Oscars in 1998.

Later years[link]

De Havilland was good friends with Bette Davis with whom she starred in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), It's Love I'm After (1937), and In This Our Life (1942). She remained a close friend of actress Gloria Stuart until Stuart's death in 2010, at the age of 100. In April 2008, she attended the Los Angeles funeral of Charlton Heston. In 2008, she was a surprise guest at the Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis.

Sibling rivalry[link]

Of the two sisters, de Havilland was the first to become an actress; when Fontaine tried to follow her lead, their mother, who allegedly favored de Havilland, refused to let her use the family name. Subsequently, Fontaine was forced to invent a name, taking first Joan Burfield, and later Joan Fontaine. Biographer Charles Higham records that the sisters have always had an uneasy relationship, starting in early childhood when de Havilland would rip up the clothes Fontaine had to wear as hand-me-downs, forcing Fontaine to sew them back together. A large part of the resentment between the sisters allegedly stemmed from Fontaine's perception that de Havilland was their mother's favorite child.^[25]

Both de Havilland and Fontaine were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Fontaine won that year for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion over de Havilland's performance in Hold Back the Dawn. Charles Higham states that Fontaine "felt guilty about winning given her lack of obsessive career drive...". Higham has described the events of the awards ceremony, stating that as Fontaine stepped forward to collect her award, she pointedly rejected de Havilland's attempts at congratulating her and that de Havilland was both offended and embarrassed by her behavior. Several years later, de Havilland remembered the slight and exacted her own revenge by brushing past Fontaine, who was waiting with her hand extended, because de Havilland allegedly took offense at a comment Fontaine had made about de Havilland's husband. De Havilland's relationship with Fontaine continued to deteriorate after the two incidents. Charles Higham has stated that this was the near final straw for what became a lifelong feud, but the sisters did not completely stop speaking to each other until 1975. According to Fontaine, de Havilland did not invite her to a memorial service for their mother, who had recently died. De Havilland claims she informed Fontaine, but Fontaine brushed her off, claiming she was too busy to attend.

Charles Higham records that Fontaine has an estranged relationship with her own daughters as well, possibly because she discovered that they were secretly maintaining a relationship with de Havilland.^[25] Both sisters have refused to comment publicly about their feud and dysfunctional family relationships, though in an interview with John Kobal, Fontaine stated categorically that the so-called rivalry was a pure hoax, cooked up by the studio publicity hounds.^{[citation needed]}

In a 1979 interview, Fontaine says the reason she stopped speaking with her sister was because Olivia wanted their mother (who was suffering from cancer) operated on at the age of 88. Joan also says that when their mother died, Olivia didn't even bother to phone to find out where she could be reached (Fontaine was on tour). Instead, Olivia sent a telegram, but it was mailed to Joan two weeks later at her next stop.^[26]

De Havilland today[link]

Receiving National Medal of Arts from President Bush in 2008

A resident of Paris since the 1950s, de Havilland rarely makes public appearances. According to John Lichfield in a 14 July 2009 interview published in the Independent, she was working on an autobiography and had hoped to have a first draft by September 2009.^[27] The book has not yet appeared.

She appeared as a presenter at the 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003, earning a minute-long standing ovation on her entrance. In June 2006, she made appearances at tributes for her 90th birthday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Los Angeles County Art Museum.

In 2004, Turner Classic Movies put together a retrospective piece called Melanie Remembers in which de Havilland was interviewed for the 65th anniversary of Gone with the Wind's original release. The film's last surviving principal cast member, de Havilland remembered every detail of her casting as well as filming. The 40-minute documentary can be seen on the Gone with the Wind four-disc special collector's edition.

Four of de Havilland's Gone with the Wind co-stars are alive as of April 2012: Alicia Rhett (born February 1, 1915), who played Ashley Wilkes's sister India Wilkes, is the oldest surviving cast member. Also surviving are Mary Anderson (born April 3, 1920), who played Maybelle Meriweather; Ann Rutherford (born November 2, 1920), who played Scarlett O'Hara's younger sister, Carreen O'Hara; and Mickey Kuhn (born September 21, 1932), who played Beau Wilkes.

On 17 November 2008, at the age of 92, de Havilland received the National Medal of Arts.

De Havilland narrated the 2009 documentary, I Remember Better When I Paint.^[28] The film is about the importance of art in the treatment of Alzheimer’s.^[29] On 22 March 2011, she presented the film at a special screening in Paris. ^[30]

On 9 September 2010, at the age of 94, Olivia de Havilland was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, a decoration awarded by the President of the French Republic.^[31]

In February 2011, Olivia de Havilland appeared in France at the César Award. The president of the ceremony, Jodie Foster, introduced her and de Havilland received a standing ovation.^[32]

Memoirs[link]

In 1960, de Havilland published her first memoir called Every Frenchman Has One. Her second memoir Now Is the Time is awaiting publication.

Filmography[link]

Features[link]

Short subjects[link]

Television work[link]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• de Havilland, Olivia. Every Frenchman Has One. Random House, 1962, 202 pages. Comic observations on life in Paris; little actual biographical information.
• Fontaine, Joan. No Bed of Roses. Morrow, 1978, 319 pages. Fontaine's autobiography, containing much detail about growing up with her sister.
• Higham, Charles. Sisters: The Story of Olivia De Haviland and Joan Fontaine. Coward McCann, May 1984, 257 pages.
• Lamparski, Richard. Manhattan Diary. BearManor Media, 2006 ISBN 1-59393-054-2
• Shipman, David, The Great Movie Stars, The Golden Years, Bonanza Books, New York, 1970. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 78-133803
• Thomas, Tony. The Films of Olivia de Havilland. Citadel Press, 1983, 255 pages. Foreword by Bette Davis.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Olivia de Havilland

• Olivia de Havilland
• Olivia de Havilland at the Internet Movie Database
• Olivia de Havilland at the TCM Movie Database
• Olivia de Havilland at the Internet Broadway Database
• Screen Actors Guild
• Photographs and bibliography

Amanda McBroom (born August 9, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter actress and cabaret performer. Notable among the songs she has written is "The Rose", which Bette Midler sang in the film of the same name, and which has been covered by many other recording artists. McBroom is also known for her collaborations as lyricist with songwriter Michele Brourman, including some of the songs in the The Land Before Time film series, Balto II: Wolf Quest, and the musical Dangerous Beauty based on the film of the same name, which was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse in February 2011.

McBroom starred in the New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and European productions of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, and made her Broadway debut in the Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields musical Seesaw.^[1]

As an actress, McBroom has had guest-starring or recurring roles on such television series as Starsky and Hutch, Star Trek: The Next Generation ("The Measure of a Man"), Hart to Hart, Taxi, Charlie's Angels, Remington Steele, Hawaii Five-O, Magnum, P.I., M*A*S*H, Lou Grant, Love, American Style and Gunsmoke to her credit. She has also worked as a voice actress for children's cartoon shows, including Wildfire, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, Challenge of the GoBots, The Smurfs, Super Friends and The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show and Scrappy Too!

Personal life[link]

McBroom is the daughter of actor David Bruce, and went to high school in Mercedes, Texas, where she participated in many drama extracurricular activities.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

• McBroom's home-page
• Amanda McBroom at the Internet Movie Database
• Amanda McBroom on the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Amanda McBroom at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

This article about a United States singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Sean Flynn may refer to:

• Sean Flynn (film actor), actor and photojournalist, son of Errol Flynn
• Sean Flynn (actor), actor and grandson of Errol Flynn
• Sean Flynn (footballer), English footballer
• "Sean Flynn" (song), a song by The Clash about the photojournalist

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Robin Hood statue in Nottingham

Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor",^[1] assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men".^[2] Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes.^[3] The origin of the legend is claimed by some to have stemmed from actual outlaws, or from ballads or tales of outlaws.^[4]

Robin Hood became a popular folk figure in the medieval period continuing through to modern literature, films and television. In the earliest sources, Robin Hood is a yeoman, but he was often later portrayed as an aristocrat wrongfully dispossessed of his lands and made into an outlaw by an unscrupulous sheriff.^[5]

History[link]

In popular culture, Robin Hood and his band of "merry men" are usually portrayed as living in Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire, where much of the action in the early ballads takes place.^[6] So does the very first recorded Robin Hood rhyme, four lines from the early 15th century, beginning: "Robyn hode in scherewode stod."^[7] However, the overall picture from the surviving early ballads and other early references^[7] suggest that Robin Hood may have been based in the Barnsdale area of what is now South Yorkshire (which borders Nottinghamshire).

Other traditions point to a variety of locations as Robin's "true" home both inside Yorkshire and elsewhere, with the abundance of places named for Robin causing further confusion.^[8][9] A tradition dating back at least to the end of the 16th century gives his birthplace as Loxley, Sheffield in South Yorkshire, while the site of Robin Hood's Well in Skellow, South Yorkshire, has been associated with Robin Hood since at least 1422. Records show a man named Robin Hood lived in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in the 13th and 14th centuries.^[10] His grave has been claimed to be at Kirklees Priory near Mirfield in West Yorkshire, as implied by the 18th-century version of Robin Hood's Death, and there is a headstone there of dubious authenticity.^[11]

The first clear reference to "rhymes of Robin Hood" is from the late 14th-century poem Piers Plowman, but the earliest surviving copies of the narrative ballads that tell his story date to the 15th century, or the first decade of the 16th century. In these early accounts, Robin Hood's partisanship of the lower classes, his Marianism and associated special regard for women, his outstanding skill as an archer, his anti-clericalism, and his particular animosity towards the Sheriff of Nottingham are already clear.^[12] Little John, Much the Miller's Son and Will Scarlet (as Will "Scarlok" or "Scathelocke") all appear, although not yet Maid Marian or Friar Tuck. It is not certain what should be made of these latter two absences as it is known that Friar Tuck, for one, has been part of the legend since at least the later 15th century.^[13]

In popular culture, Robin Hood is typically seen as a contemporary and supporter of the late 12th-century king Richard the Lionheart, Robin being driven to outlawry during the misrule of Richard's brother John while Richard was away at the Third Crusade. This view first gained currency in the 16th century.^[14] It is not supported by the earliest ballads. The early compilation, A Gest of Robyn Hode, names the king as "Edward", and while it does show Robin Hood as accepting the King's pardon he later repudiates it and returns to the greenwood.

The oldest surviving ballad, Robin Hood and the Monk, gives even less support to the picture of Robin Hood as a partisan of the true king. The setting of the early ballads is usually attributed by scholars to either the 13th century or the 14th, although it is recognised they are not necessarily historically consistent.^[15]

The early ballads are also quite clear on Robin Hood's social status: he is a yeoman. While the precise meaning of this term changed over time, including free retainers of an aristocrat and small landholders, it always referred to commoners. The essence of it in the present context was "neither a knight nor a peasant or 'husbonde' but something in between".^[16] We know that artisans (such as millers) were among those regarded as "yeomen" in the 14th century.^[17] From the 16th century on, there were attempts to elevate Robin Hood to the nobility and in two extremely influential plays Anthony Munday presented him at the very end of the 16th century as the Earl of Huntingdon, as he is still commonly presented in modern times.^[18]

As well as ballads, the legend was also transmitted by "Robin Hood games" or plays that were an important part of the late medieval and early modern May Day festivities. The first record of a Robin Hood game was in 1426 in Exeter, but the reference does not indicate how old or widespread this custom was at the time. The Robin Hood games are known to have flourished in the later 15th and 16th centuries.^[19] It is commonly stated as fact that Maid Marian and a jolly friar (at least partly identifiable with Friar Tuck) entered the legend through the May Games.^[20]

The early ballads link Robin Hood to identifiable real places and many are convinced that he was a real person, more or less accurately portrayed. A number of theories as to the identity of "the real Robin Hood" have their supporters. Some of these theories posit that "Robin Hood" or "Robert Hood" or the like was his actual name; others suggest that this may have been merely a nickname disguising a medieval bandit perhaps known to history under another name.^[21] One historian claims Robin Hood was a pseudonym by which the ancient Lords of Wellow, Nottinghamshire, were once known.^[22] It is interesting that the village has such a strong connection with maypole celebrations, considering Robin Hood's links with the same thing.

At the same time it is possible that Robin Hood has always been a fictional character; the folklorist Francis James Child declared "Robin Hood is absolutely a creation of the ballad-muse" and this view has been neither proven or disproven.^[23] Another view is that Robin Hood's origins must be sought in folklore or mythology;^[24] Despite the frequent Christian references in the early ballads, Robin Hood has been claimed for the pagan witch-cult supposed by Margaret Murray to have existed in medieval Europe.^[25]

Early references[link]

The oldest references to Robin Hood are not historical records, or even ballads recounting his exploits, but hints and allusions found in various works. From 1228 onwards, the names 'Robinhood', 'Robehod' or 'Robbehod' occur in the rolls of several English Justices. The majority of these references date from the late 13th century. Between 1261 and 1300, there are at least eight references to 'Rabunhod' in various regions across England, from Berkshire in the south to York in the north.^[26]

In a petition presented to Parliament in 1439, the name is used to describe an itinerant felon. The petition cites one Piers Venables of Aston, Derbyshire, "who having no liflode, ne sufficeante of goodes, gadered and assembled unto him many misdoers, beynge of his clothynge, and, in manere of insurrection, wente into the wodes in that countrie, like as it hadde be Robyn Hude and his meyne."^[27] The name was still used to describe sedition and treachery in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his associates were branded "Robin Hoods" by Robert Cecil.

The first allusion to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales occurs in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre."^[28]

The first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Chronicle, written in about 1420. The following lines occur with little contextualisation under the year 1283:

Lytil Jhon and Robyne Hude

Wayth-men ware commendyd gude

In Yngil-wode and Barnysdale

Thai oysyd all this tyme thare trawale.

The next notice is a statement in the Scotichronicon, composed by John of Fordun between 1377 and 1384, and revised by Walter Bower in about 1440. Among Bower's many interpolations is a passage that directly refers to Robin. It is inserted after Fordun's account of the defeat of Simon de Montfort and the punishment of his adherents. Robin is represented as a fighter for de Montfort's cause.^[29] This was in fact true of the historical outlaw of Sherwood Forest Roger Godberd, whose points of similarity to the Robin Hood of the ballads have often been noted.^[30][31]

Bower writes:

Then [c. 1266] arose the famous murderer, Robert Hood, as well as Little John, together with their accomplices from among the disinherited, whom the foolish populace are so inordinately fond of celebrating both in tragedies and comedies, and about whom they are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing above all other ballads.

The word translated here as "murderer" is the Latin siccarius, from the Latin for "knife". Bower goes on to tell a story about Robin Hood in which he refuses to flee from his enemies while hearing Mass in the greenwood, and then gains a surprise victory over them, apparently as a reward for his piety.^[32]

Another reference, discovered by Julian Luxford in 2009, appears in the margin of the "Polychronicon" in the Eton College library. Written around the year 1460 by a monk in Latin, it says:

Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies.^[33]

William Shakespeare makes reference to Robin Hood in his late 16th-century play The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of his earliest. In it, the character Valentine is banished from Milan and driven out through the forest where he is approached by outlaws who, upon meeting him, desire him as their leader. They comment, "By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for our wild faction!"^[34] Robin Hood is also mentioned in As You Like It. When asked about the exiled Duke Senior, the character of Charles says that 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."

References to Robin as Earl of Huntington[link]

Another reference is provided by Thomas Gale, Dean of York (c. 1635–1702),^[35] but this comes nearly four hundred years after the events it describes:

[Robin Hood's] death is stated by Ritson to have taken place on the 18th of November, 1247, about the 87th year of his age; but according to the following inscription found among the papers of the Dean of York...the death occurred a month later. In this inscription, which bears evidence of high antiquity, Robin Hood is described as Earl of Huntington - his claim to which title has been as hotly contested as any disputed peerage upon record.

Hear undernead dis laitl stean

Lais Robert Earl of Huntingun

Near arcir der as hie sa geud

An pipl kauld im Robin Heud

Sic utlaws as hi an is men

Vil England nivr si agen.

Obiit 24 Kal Dekembris 1247

This inscription also appears on a grave in the grounds of Kirklees Priory near Kirklees Hall (see below).

Robert is largely fictional by this time. The Gale note is inaccurate. The medieval texts do not refer to him directly, but mediate their allusions through a body of accounts and reports: for Langland, Robin exists principally in "rimes", for Bower, "comedies and tragedies", while for Wyntoun he is "commendyd gude". Even in a legal context, where one would expect to find verifiable references to Robert, he is primarily a symbol, a generalised outlaw-figure rather than an individual. Consequently, in the medieval period itself, Robin Hood already belongs more to literature than to history. In fact, in an anonymous song called Woman of c. 1412, he is treated in precisely this manner - as a joke, a figure that the audience will instantly recognise as imaginary:

He that made this songe full good,

Came of the northe and the sothern blode,

And somewhat kyne to Robert Hoad.^[36][37]

Sources[link]

"Robin shoots with Sir Guy" by Louis Rhead

There is at present little scholarly support for the view that tales of Robin Hood have stemmed from mythology or folklore, from fairies or other mythological origins, any such associations being regarded as later development.^[38] The mythological theory does go back to at least to 1584, when Reginald Scot identified Robin Hood with the Germanic goblin "Hudgin" or Hodekin and associated him with Robin Goodfellow.^[39] Maurice Keen^[40] provides a brief summary and useful critique of the once-popular view that Robin Hood had mythological origins, while (unlike some)^[41] refraining from utterly and finally dismissing it.^[42] While Robin Hood and his men often show great skill in archery, swordplay and disguise, they are no more exaggerated than those characters in other ballads, such as Kinmont Willie, which were based on historical events.^[43]

Robin Hood's role in the traditional May Day games could suggest pagan connections, but that role has not been traced earlier than the early 15th century. However, it is uncontroversial that a Robin and Marion figured in 13th-century French "pastourelles" (of which Jeu de Robin et Marion c. 1280 is a literary version) and presided over the French May festivities, "this Robin and Marion tended to preside, in the intervals of the attempted seduction of the latter by a series of knights, over a variety of rustic pastimes."^[44]

In the Jeu de Robin and Marion, Robin and his companions have to rescue Marion from the clutches of a "lustful knight".^[45] Dobson and Taylor in their survey of the legend, in which they reject the mythological theory, nevertheless regard it as "highly probable" that this French Robin's name and functions travelled to the English May Games where they fused with the Robin Hood legend.^[44]

The origin of the legend is claimed by some to have stemmed from actual outlaws, or from tales of outlaws, such as Hereward the Wake, Eustace the Monk, Fulk FitzWarin^[4] and William Wallace.^[46] Hereward appears in a ballad much like Robin Hood and the Potter, and as the Hereward ballad is older, it appears to be the source. The ballad Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee runs parallel to Robin Hood and the Monk, but it is not clear whether either one is the source for the other, or whether they merely show that such tales were told of outlaws.^[47]

Some early Robin Hood stories appear to be unique, such as the story wherein Robin gives a knight, generally called Richard at the Lee, money to pay off his mortgage to an abbot, but this may merely indicate that no parallels have survived.^[48]

There are a number of theories that attempt to identify a historical Robin Hood. A difficulty with any such historical search is that "Robert" was in medieval England a very common given name, and "Robin" (or Robyn), especially in the 13th century, was its very common diminutive.^[49] The surname "Hood" (or Hude or Hode etc.), referring ultimately to the head-covering, was also fairly common. Unsurprisingly, therefore, there are a number of people called "Robert Hood" or "Robin Hood" to be found in medieval records. Some of them are on record for having fallen afoul of the law, but this is not necessarily significant to the legend.^[50]

The early ballads give a number of possible historical clues: notably, the Gest names the reigning king as "Edward", but the ballads cannot be assumed to be reliable in such details.^[51] For whatever it may be worth, however, King Edward I took the throne in 1272, and an Edward remained on the throne until the death of Edward III in 1377.

On the other hand, what appears to be the first known example of "Robin Hood" as stock name for an outlaw dates to 1262 in Berkshire, where the surname "Robehod" was applied to a man apparently because he had been outlawed.^[52] This could suggest two main possibilities: either that an early form of the Robin Hood legend was already well established in the mid 13th century; or alternatively that the name "Robin Hood" preceded the outlaw hero that we know; so that the "Robin Hood" of legend was so called because that was seen as an appropriate name for an outlaw.

It has long been suggested, notably by John Maddicott, that "Robin Hood" was a stock alias used by thieves.^[53] The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica remarks that 'hood' was a common dialectical form of 'wood'; and that the outlaw's name has been given as "Robin Wood".^[24] There are indeed a number of references to Robin Hood as Robin Wood, or Whood, or Whod, from the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest recorded example, in connection with May games in Somerset, dates from 1518.^[54]

One well-known theory of origin was proposed by Joseph Hunter in 1852. Hunter identified the outlaw with a "Robyn Hode" recorded as employed by Edward II in 1323 during the king's progress through Lancashire. This Robyn Hode was identified with (one or more people called) Robert Hood living in Wakefield before and after that time. Comparing the available records with especially the Gest and also other ballads, Hunter developed a fairly detailed theory according to which Robin Hood was an adherent of the rebel Earl of Lancaster, defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322.

According to this theory, Robin Hood was pardoned and employed by the king in 1323. (The Gest does relate that Robin Hood was pardoned by "King Edward" and taken into his service.) The theory supplies Robin Hood with a wife, Matilda, thought to be the origin of Maid Marian, and Hunter also conjectured that the author of the Gest may have been the religious poet Richard Rolle (1290–1349), who lived in the village of Hampole in Barnsdale.^[55]

This theory has long been recognised to have serious problems, one of the most serious being that "Robin Hood" and similar names were already used as nicknames for outlaws in the 13th century. Another is that there is no direct evidence that Hunter's Hood had ever been an outlaw or any kind of criminal or rebel at all; the theory is built on conjecture and coincidence of detail.^[56] Finally, recent research has shown that Hunter's Robyn Hood had been employed by the king at an earlier stage, thus casting doubt on this Robyn Hood's supposed earlier career as outlaw and rebel.^[57]

Another theory identifies him with the historical outlaw Roger Godberd, who was a die-hard supporter of Simon de Montfort, which would place Robin Hood around the 1260s.^[21] There are certainly parallels between Godberd's career and that of Robin Hood as he appears in the Gest. John Maddicott has called Godberd "that prototype Robin Hood".^[58] Some problems with this theory are that there is no evidence that Godberd was ever known as Robin Hood and no sign in the early Robin Hood ballads of the specific concerns of de Montfort's revolt.^[56]

Another well-known theory, first proposed by the historian L. V. D. Owen in 1936 and more recently floated by J.C. Holt and others, is that the original Robin Hood might be identified with an outlawed Robert Hood, or Hod, or Hobbehod, all apparently the same man, referred to in nine successive Yorkshire Pipe Rolls between 1226 and 1234.^[59][60] There is no evidence however that this Robert Hood, although an outlaw, was also a bandit.^[61]

Ballads and tales[link]

The earliest surviving text of a Robin Hood ballad is "Robin Hood and the Monk".^[62] This is preserved in Cambridge University manuscript Ff.5.48. It was written shortly after 1450.^[63] It contains many of the elements still associated with the legend, from the Nottingham setting to the bitter enmity between Robin and the local sheriff.

Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood; the sword he is depicted with was common in the oldest ballads

The first printed version is A Gest of Robyn Hode (c. 1475), a collection of separate stories which attempts to unite the episodes into a single continuous narrative.^[64] After this comes "Robin Hood and the Potter",^[65] contained in a manuscript of c. 1503. "The Potter" is markedly different in tone from "The Monk": whereas the earlier tale is "a thriller"^[26] the latter is more comic, its plot involving trickery and cunning rather than straightforward force. The difference between the two texts recalls Bower's claim that Robin-tales may be both 'comedies and tragedies'.

Other early texts are dramatic pieces such as the fragmentary Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham^[66] (c. 1472). These are particularly noteworthy as they show Robin's integration into May Day rituals towards the end of the Middle Ages; Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham, among other points of interest, contains the earliest reference to Friar Tuck.

The plots of neither "the Monk" nor "the Potter" are included in the Gest; and neither is the plot of "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne" which is probably at least as old as those two ballads although preserved in a more recent copy. Each of these three ballads survived in a single copy, so it is unclear how much of the medieval legend has survived, and what has survived may not be typical of the medieval legend. It has been argued that the fact that the surviving ballads were preserved in written form in itself makes it unlikely they were typical; in particular stories with an interest for the gentry were by this view more likely to be preserved.^[67] The story of Robin's aid to the "poor knight" that takes up much of the Gest may be an example.

The character of Robin in these first texts is rougher edged than in his later incarnations. In "Robin Hood and the Monk", for example, he is shown as quick tempered and violent, assaulting Little John for defeating him in an archery contest; in the same ballad Much the Miller's Son casually kills a "little page" in the course of rescuing Robin Hood from prison.^[6] No extant ballad actually shows Robin Hood "giving to the poor", although in a "A Gest of Robyn Hode" Robin does make a large loan to an unfortunate knight which he does not in the end require to be repaid;^[68] and later in the same ballad Robin Hood states his intention of giving money to the next traveller to come down the road if he happens to be poor.

Of my good he shall haue some,

Yf he be a por man.^[69]

As it happens the next traveller is not poor, but it seems in context that Robin Hood is stating a general policy. From the beginning Robin Hood is on the side of the poor; the Gest quotes Robin Hood as instructing his men that when they rob:

loke ye do no husbonde harme

That tilleth with his ploughe.

No more ye shall no gode yeman

That walketh by gren-wode shawe;

Ne no knyght ne no squyer

That wol be a gode felawe.^[70]

And in its final lines the Gest sums up:

he was a good outlawe,

And dyde pore men moch god.

Within Robin Hood's band medieval forms of courtesy rather than modern ideals of equality are generally in evidence. In the early ballads Robin's men usually kneel before him in strict obedience: in A Gest of Robyn Hode the king even observes that "His men are more at his byddynge/Then my men be at myn." Their social status, as yeomen, is shown by their weapons; they use swords rather than quarterstaffs. The only character to use a quarterstaff in the early ballads is the potter, and Robin Hood does not take to a staff until the 18th century Robin Hood and Little John.^[71]

The political and social assumptions underlying the early Robin Hood ballads have long been controversial. It has been influentially argued by J. C. Holt that the Robin Hood legend was cultivated in the households of the gentry, and that it would be mistaken to see in him a figure of peasant revolt. He is not a peasant but a yeoman, and his tales make no mention of the complaints of the peasants, such as oppressive taxes.^[72] He appears not so much as a revolt against societal standards as an embodiment of them, being generous, pious, and courteous, opposed to stingy, worldly, and churlish foes.^[73] Other scholars have by contrast stressed the subversive aspects of the legend, and see in the medieval Robin Hood ballads a plebeian literature hostile to the feudal order.^[74]

"Little John and Robin Hood" by Frank Godwin

Although the term "Merry Men" belongs to a later period, the ballads do name several of Robin's companions.^[75] These include Will Scarlet (or Scathlock), Much the Miller's Son, and Little John - who was called "little" as a joke, as he was quite the opposite.^[76] Even though the band is regularly described as being over a hundred men, usually only three or four are specified. Some appear only once or twice in a ballad: Will Stutely in Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly and Robin Hood and Little John; David of Doncaster in Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow; Gilbert with the White Hand in A Gest of Robyn Hode; and Arthur a Bland in Robin Hood and the Tanner.^[76]

Printed versions of the Robin Hood ballads, generally based on the Gest, appear in the early 16th century, shortly after the introduction of printing in England. Later that century Robin is promoted to the level of nobleman: he is styled Earl of Huntingdon, Robert of Locksley, or Robert Fitz Ooth. In the early ballads, by contrast, he was a member of the yeoman classes, which included common freeholders possessing a small landed estate.^[77]

By the early 15th century at the latest, Robin Hood had become associated with May Day celebrations, with revellers dressing as Robin or as members of his band for the festivities. This was not common throughout England, but in some regions the custom lasted until Elizabethan times, and during the reign of Henry VIII, was briefly popular at court.^[78] Robin was often allocated the role of a May King, presiding over games and processions, but plays were also performed with the characters in the roles,^[79] sometimes performed at church ales, a means by which churches raised funds.^[80]

A complaint of 1492, brought to the Star Chamber, accuses men of acting riotously by coming to a fair as Robin Hood and his men; the accused defended themselves on the grounds that the practice was a long-standing custom to raise money for churches, and they had not acted riotously but peaceably.^[81]

Robin Hood and Maid Marian

It is from the association with the May Games that Robin's romantic attachment to Maid Marian (or Marion) apparently stems. The naming of Marian may have come from the French pastoral play of c. 1280, the Jeu de Robin et Marion, although this play is distinct from the English legends.^[78] Both Robin and Marian were certainly associated with May Day festivities in England (as was Friar Tuck), but these may have been originally two distinct types of performance - Alexander Barclay in his Ship of Fools, writing in c. 1500, refers to "some merry fytte of Maid Marian or else of Robin Hood" - but the characters were brought together.^[75] Marian did not immediately gain the unquestioned role; in Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage, his sweetheart is 'Clorinda the Queen of the Shepherdesses'.^[82] Clorinda survives in some later stories as an alias of Marian.^[76]

In the 16th century, Robin Hood is given a specific historical setting. Up until this point there was little interest in exactly when Robin's adventures took place. The original ballads refer at various points to "King Edward", without stipulating whether this is Edward I, Edward II, or Edward III.^[83] Hood may thus have been active at any point between 1272 and 1377. However, during the 16th century the stories become fixed to the 1190s, the period in which King Richard was absent from his throne, fighting in the crusades.^[84] This date is first proposed by John Mair in his Historia Majoris Britanniæ (1521), and gains popular acceptance by the end of the century.

Giving Robin an aristocratic title and female love interest, and placing him in the historical context of the true king's absence, all represent moves to domesticate his legend and reconcile it to ruling powers. In this, his legend is similar to that of King Arthur, which morphed from a dangerous male-centred story to a more comfortable, chivalrous romance under the troubadours serving Eleanor of Aquitaine. From the 16th century on, the legend of Robin Hood is often used to promote the hereditary ruling class, romance, and religious piety. The "criminal" element is retained to provide dramatic colour, rather than as a real challenge to convention.^[85]

In 1598, Anthony Munday wrote a pair of plays on the Robin Hood legend, The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington (published 1601). The 17th century introduced the minstrel Alan-a-Dale. He first appeared in a 17th century broadside ballad, and unlike many of the characters thus associated, managed to adhere to the legend.^[82] This is also the era in which the character of Robin became fixed as stealing from the rich to give to the poor.^[86]

In the 18th century, the stories began to develop a slightly more farcical vein. From this period there are a number of ballads in which Robin is severely "drubbed" by a succession of professionals including a tanner, a tinker and a ranger.^[84] In fact, the only character who does not get the better of Hood is the luckless Sheriff. Yet even in these ballads Robin is more than a mere simpleton: on the contrary, he often acts with great shrewdness. The tinker, setting out to capture Robin, only manages to fight with him after he has been cheated out of his money and the arrest warrant he is carrying. In Robin Hood's Golden Prize, Robin disguises himself as a friar and cheats two priests out of their cash. Even when Robin is defeated, he usually tricks his foe into letting him sound his horn, summoning the Merry Men to his aid. When his enemies do not fall for this ruse, he persuades them to drink with him instead.

The continued popularity of the Robin Hood tales is attested by a number of literary references. In As You Like It, the exiled duke and his men "live like the old Robin Hood of England", while Ben Jonson produced the (incomplete) masque The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood^[87] as a satire on Puritanism. Somewhat later, the Romantic poet John Keats composed Robin Hood. To A Friend^[88] and Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a play The Foresters, or Robin Hood and Maid Marian,^[89] which was presented with incidental music by Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1892. Later still, T. H. White featured Robin and his band in The Sword in the Stone - anachronistically, since the novel's chief theme is the childhood of King Arthur.^[90]

The title page of Howard Pyle's 1883 novel, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

The Victorian era^[91] generated its own distinct versions of Robin Hood. The traditional tales were often adapted for children, most notably in Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which influenced accounts of Robin Hood through the 20th century.^[1] These versions firmly stamp Robin as a staunch philanthropist, a man who takes from the rich to give to the poor. Nevertheless, the adventures are still more local than national in scope: while King Richard's participation in the Crusades is mentioned in passing, Robin takes no stand against Prince John, and plays no part in raising the ransom to free Richard. These developments are part of the 20th century Robin Hood myth.

The idea of Robin Hood as a high-minded Saxon fighting Norman lords also originates in the 19th century. The most notable contributions to this idea of Robin are Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry's Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre par les Normands (1825) and Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819). In this last work in particular, the modern Robin Hood - "King of Outlaws and prince of good fellows!" as Richard the Lionheart calls him - makes his debut.^[92]

The 20th century grafted still further details on to the original legends. The 1938 film, The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, portrayed Robin as a hero on a national scale, leading the oppressed Saxons in revolt against their Norman overlords while Richard the Lionheart fought in the Crusades; this movie established itself so definitively that many studios resorted to movies about his son (invented for that purpose) rather than compete with the image of this one.^[93]

In the 1973 animated Disney film, Robin Hood, the title character is portrayed as an anthropomorphic fox voiced by Brian Bedford. Years before Robin Hood had even entered production, Disney had considered doing a project on Reynard the Fox. However, due to concerns that Reynard was unsuitable as a hero, animator Ken Anderson lifted many elements from Reynard into Robin Hood, thus making the titular character a fox.^{[citation needed]}

The 1976 British-American film Robin and Marian, starring Sean Connery as Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn as Maid Marian, portrays the figures in later years after Robin has returned from service with Richard the Lionheart in a foreign crusade and Marian has gone into seclusion in a nunnery. This is the first in popular culture to portray King Richard as less than perfect.

Since the 1980s, it has become commonplace to include a Saracen among the Merry Men, a trend which began with the character Nasir in the Robin of Sherwood television series. Later versions of the story have followed suit: the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and 2006 BBC TV series Robin Hood each contain equivalents of Nasir, in the figures of Azeem and Djaq respectively.^[93] The latest movie version released in spring of 2010 is simply entitled Robin Hood and is directed by Ridley Scott, with Robin played by Russell Crowe. The Saracen character was dropped from this version.

The Robin Hood legend has thus been subject to numerous shifts and mutations throughout its history. Robin himself has evolved from a yeoman bandit to a national hero of epic proportions, who not only supports the poor by taking from the rich, but heroically defends the throne of England itself from unworthy and venal claimants.

Connections to existing locations[link]

The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest

In modern versions of the legend, Robin Hood is said to have taken up residence in the verdant Sherwood Forest in the county of Nottinghamshire. For this reason the people of present-day Nottinghamshire have a special affinity with Robin Hood, often claiming him as the symbol of their county. For example, major road signs entering the shire depict Robin Hood with his bow and arrow, welcoming people to 'Robin Hood County'. BBC Radio Nottingham also uses the phrase 'Robin Hood County' on its regular programmes. The Robin Hood Way runs through Nottinghamshire and the county is home to literally thousands of other places, roads, inns and objects bearing Robin's name.^{[citation needed]}

Specific sites linked to Robin Hood include the Major Oak tree, claimed to have been used by him as a hideout,^[94] Robin Hood's Well, located near Newstead Abbey (within the boundaries of Sherwood Forest), and the Church of St. Mary in the village of Edwinstowe, where Robin and Maid Marian are historically thought to have wed.^[95] To reinforce this belief, the University of Nottingham in 2010 has begun the Nottingham Caves Survey with the goal "to increase the tourist potential of these sites". The project "will use a 3D laser scanner to produce a three dimensional record of more than 450 sandstone caves around Nottingham".^[96]

However, the Nottingham setting is a matter of some contention. While the Sheriff of Nottingham and the town itself appear in early ballads, and Sherwood is specifically mentioned in the early ballad Robin Hood and the Monk, certain of the original ballads (even those with Nottingham references) locate Robin on occasion in Barnsdale (the area between Pontefract and Doncaster), approximately fifty miles north of Nottingham, in the county of Yorkshire; furthermore, it has been suggested that the ballads placed in this area are far more geographically specific and accurate.^[97] This is reinforced for some by the alleged similarity of Locksley to the area of Loxley, South Yorkshire, in Sheffield, where in nearby Tideswell, which was the "Kings Larder" in the Royal Forest of the Peak, a record of the appearance of a "Robert de Lockesly" in court is found, dated 1245. As "Robert" and its diminutives were amongst the most common of names at the time, and also since it was usual for men to adopt the name of their hometown ("De Lockesly" means simply, "Of [or from] Lockesly"), the record could just as easily be referring to any man from the area named Robert. Although it cannot be proven whether or not this is the man himself, it is further believed by some that Robin had a brother called Thomas - an assertion with no documentary evidence whatsoever to support it in any of the stories, tales or ballads. If the Robert mentioned above was indeed Robin Hood, and if he did have a brother named Thomas, then consideration of the following reference may lend this theory a modicum of credence:

24) No. 389, f0- 78. Ascension Day, 29 H. III., Nic Meverill, with John Kantia, on the one part, and Henry de Leke. Henry released to Nicholas and John 5 m. rent, which he received from Nicolas and John and Robert de Lockesly for his life from the lands of Gellery, in consideration of receiving from each of them 2M (2 marks). only, the said Henry to live at table with one of them and to receive 2M. annually from the other. T., Sampson de Leke, Magister Peter Meverill, Roger de Lockesly, John de Leke, Robert fil Umfred, Rico de Newland, Richard Meverill. (25) No. 402, p. 80 b. Thomas de Lockesly bound himself that he would not sell his lands at Leke, which Nicolas Meveril had rendered to him, under a penalty of L40 (40 pounds).

A pound was 240 silver pence, and a mark was 160 silver pence (i.e., 13 shillings and fourpence).

It is again, however, equally likely that Nicolas, John, Robert and Thomas were simply members of a family which came from the area.

In Barnsdale Forest, Yorkshire, there is a well known as Robin Hood's Well (by the side of the Great North Road), a Little John's Well (near Hampole) and a Robin Hood's stream (in Highfields Wood at Woodlands). There is something of a modern movement amongst Yorkshire residents to attempt to claim the legend of Robin Hood, to the extent that South Yorkshire's new airport, on the site of the redeveloped RAF Finningley airbase near Doncaster, although ironically in the historic county of Nottinghamshire, has been given the name Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield.

In the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, at 71 Vicar Lane, is a retail clothing store operated by Hugo Boss. This was the previous location of a pub/music venue known as The Duchess of York which was previously known as the Robin Hood. During an interior refurbishment, wallpaper was removed to reveal a wall mural depicting Robin Hood and his Merry Men in the small snug of the pub. The Landlord at the time, Robin Dover, was photographed standing next to the mural which was published in The Yorkshire Evening Post.

There have been further claims made that he is from Swannington in Leicestershire^[98] or Loxley, Warwickshire.

Robin Hood Tree aka Sycamore Gap, Hadrian's Wall, UK. This location was used in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

This debate is hardly surprising of course, given the considerable value that the Robin Hood legend has for local tourism. The Sheriff of Nottingham also had jurisdiction in Derbyshire that was known as the "Shire of the Deer", and this is where the Royal Forest of the Peak is found, which roughly corresponds to today's Peak District National Park. The Royal Forest included Bakewell, Tideswell, Castleton, Ladybower and the Derwent Valley near Loxley. The Sheriff of Nottingham possessed property near Loxley, amongst other places both far and wide including Hazlebadge Hall, Peveril Castle and Haddon Hall. Mercia, to which Nottingham belonged, came to within three miles of Sheffield City Centre. But before the Law of the Normans was the Law of the Danes, The Danelaw had a similar boundary to that of Mercia but had a population of Free Peasantry which were known to have resisted the Norman occupation. Many outlaws could have been created by the refusal to recognise Norman Forest Law.^[99] The supposed grave of Little John can be found in Hathersage, also in the Peak District.

Robin Hood himself was once thought to have been buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory between Brighouse and Mirfield in West Yorkshire, although for the reasons given above this theory has now largely been abandoned. There is an elaborate grave there with the inscription referred to above. The story said that the Prioress was a relative of Robin's. Robin was ill and staying at the Priory where the Prioress was supposedly caring for him. However, she betrayed him, his health worsened, and he eventually died there.

Before he died, he told Little John (or possibly another of his Merry Men) where to bury him. He shot an arrow from the Priory window, and where the arrow landed was to be the site of his grave. The grave with the inscription is within sight of the ruins of the Kirklees Priory, behind the Three Nuns pub in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. The grave can be visited on occasional organised walks, organised by Calderdale Council Tourist Information office.

Further indications of the legend's connection with West Yorkshire (and particularly Calderdale) are noted in the fact that there are pubs called the Robin Hood in both nearby Brighouse and at Cragg Vale; higher up in the Pennines beyond Halifax, where Robin Hood Rocks can also be found. Robin Hood Hill is near Outwood, West Yorkshire, not far from Lofthouse. There is a village in West Yorkshire called Robin Hood, on the A61 between Leeds and Wakefield and close to Rothwell and Lofthouse. Considering these references to Robin Hood, it is not surprising that the people of both South and West Yorkshire lay some claim to Robin Hood, who, if he existed, could easily have roamed between Nottingham, Lincoln, Doncaster and right into West Yorkshire.

A British Army Territorial (reserves) battalion formed in Nottingham in 1859 was known as The Robin Hood Battalion through various reorganisations until the "Robin Hood" name finally disappeared in 1992. With the 1881 Childers reforms that linked regular and reserve units into regimental families, the Robin Hood Battalion became part of The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment).

A Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Salisbury Plain has acquired the name Robin Hood's Ball, although had Robin Hood existed it is doubtful that he would have travelled so far south.

List of traditional ballads[link]

Ballads are the oldest existing form of the Robin Hood legends, although none of them are recorded at the time of the first allusions to him, and many are much later. They share many common features, often opening with praise of the greenwood and relying heavily on disguise as a plot device, but include a wide variation in tone and plot.^[100] The ballads below are sorted into three groups, very roughly according to date of first known free-standing copy. Ballads whose first recorded version appears (usually incomplete) in the Percy Folio may appear in later versions^[101] and may be much older than the mid 17th century when the Folio was compiled. Any ballad may be older than the oldest copy which happens to survive, or descended from a lost older ballad. For example, the plot of Robin Hood's Death, found in the Percy Folio, is summarised in the 15th-century A Gest of Robyn Hode, and it also appears in an 18th-century version.^[102]

Early ballads (i.e., surviving in 15th- or early 16th-century copies)[link]

• A Gest of Robyn Hode
• Robin Hood and the Monk
• Robin Hood and the Potter

Ballads appearing in 17th-century Percy Folio[link]

NB. The first two ballads listed here (the "Death" and "Gisborne"), although preserved in 17th century copies, are generally agreed to preserve the substance of late medieval ballads. The third (the "Curtal Friar") and the fourth (the "Butcher"), also probably have late medieval origins.^[103]

• Robin Hood's Death
• Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
• Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar
• Robin Hood and the Butcher
• Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly
• Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires
• The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
• Robin Hood and Queen Katherine

Other ballads[link]

• A True Tale of Robin Hood
• Robin Hood and the Bishop
• Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
• Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow
• Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon
• Robin Hood and the Ranger
• Robin Hood and the Scotchman
• Robin Hood and the Tanner
• Robin Hood and the Tinker
• Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight
• Robin Hood Newly Revived
• Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage
• Robin Hood's Chase
• Robin Hood's Delight
• Robin Hood's Golden Prize
• Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
• The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood
• The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood
• The Noble Fisherman

Some ballads, such as Erlinton, feature Robin Hood in some variants, where the folk hero appears to be added to a ballad pre-existing him and in which he does not fit very well.^[104] He was added to one variant of Rose Red and the White Lily, apparently on no more connection than that one hero of the other variants is named "Brown Robin."^[105] Francis James Child indeed retitled Child ballad 102; though it was titled The Birth of Robin Hood, its clear lack of connection with the Robin Hood cycle (and connection with other, unrelated ballads) led him to title it Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter in his collection.^[106]

Popular culture[link]

Main characters of the folklore[link]

• Robin Hood (a.k.a., Robin Longstride, Robin of Loxley or Locksley)
• The band of "Merry Men"
  • Little John
  • Friar Tuck
  • Will Scarlett
  • Allan A'Dayle
• Maid Marian
• King Richard the Lionheart
• Prince John
• Sir Guy of Gisbourne
• The Sheriff of Nottingham

See also[link]

• Tadas Blinda
• Eustace Folville
• Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd
• Juraj Jánošík
• Iancu Jianu
• Rummu Jüri
• Ustym Karmaliuk
• Ned Kelly
• Kayamkulam Kochunni
• Nezumi Kozō
• Chucho el Roto
• Schinderhannes
• Robin Hood tax
• Kobus van der Schlossen
• Trysting Tree
• Verysdale
• William de Wendenal
• Redistribution of wealth

References[link]