Robin's Birth 
There are many differences about the birth and life of Robin Hood in the tales. One manuscript says that he was born in 1160. Another man dates his birth at 1225; yet another manuscript states that he was born between 1285 and 1295 and that he took part in the Earl of Lancaster's rebellion against Edward II in 1322. The Robert Hood who is mentioned in Court Rolls in 1316 could have been taken to the woods to escape the King's revenge. (The Lyttle Gest refers to Robin meeting Edward the King, but doesn't mention which Edward it is.) 

Ballads mention that Robin Hood was born in Locksly town, Nottinghamshire. One manuscript says he was born in Lockesley Nottinghashire, but there is no town named this on record. There is a Loxley, Staffordshire need Needwood Forest. It has been suggested that Robin Hood was the son of William Fitzooth who held land in Loxley, and this is where the birthplace came from. 

Robin's Character 
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 traveler, and so robbing the rich and giving to the poor was a way of bringing the common people on his side. 

Robin uses a longbow as his weapon (his bow was made of the English "ewe" tree). 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. 

Another tradition involving archery relates that Robin and Little John went to visit Abbot Richard at the Whitby Abbey at Whitby Lathes. Each shot an arrow from the top of the monastery to show his skill. Robin shot across the north side and Little John the south. The distance was a mile and a half. The Abbot had two stone pillars set up on the spots, and the fields on the north and south sides were called Robin Hood's Close and Little John's Close, respectively, which are actually found in deeds from the 1700s. 

Robin's Death 
The downfall of Robyn Hode (or 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. 

Another twist on the story is that a monk who was brought to help Robin actually murdered him. The monk was Roger of Doncaster (according to the Sloane MS), who wanted revenge on Robin "for some injury." In this MS, the Prioress had him buried in an unmarked grave near the road by a place called the Three Nuns Inn.  Legend says he was 87 years old, which would have made his aunt very elderly! 

This version of the story says that before Robin died, he shot two arrows out the window. The first landed in the River Calder and was carried away. The second landed in the lawn by the house, and his grave is there today. Near that grave are two others, one of a child and one of Elizabeth Stainton, who may have been the aunt. The validity of the epitaph on the grave has been questioned; it was illegible on the stone in the 18th century, but a paper was found that had the words of the grave recorded, and the stone now does not rest over a real grave. In any case, the bones of Robin are said to rest in that area. 

Robin's Beginnings 
There are disagreements as to the first real mention of Robin Hood in printed matter. One source is Piers Plowman by William Langland, from around 1378. In it, a drunken priest cannot repeat the Lord's prayer but he knows "rhymes of Robin Hood," which brings to light the popularity of the ballads at that time. Others argue that the first genuine appearance of Robyn Hod in printed form occurs in A Lytell Jeste of Robyn Hode, a poem telling the story of an outlaw and his adventures. This ballad was written down by a man named Wynken de Worde in 1489 and is preserved today at the public library in Cambridge, England. 

This poem dates from the late 15th century (printed by Worde at end of the 15th but was actually from the 14th), and it was widely read in its printed language of Olde English at that time. The tale takes place in Barnsdale Forest in Yorkshire.  Robyn and his band of men resided in this forest, robbing passers-by on Watling Street near the River Went, a street leading straight to London in the South—a street full of rich travelers.  One of these travelers was a knight named Richard, who Robyn and his men captured and prepared to rob. But when they heard of the knight's woes, they helped him take revenge on the monks who had wronged him and they restored the knight to his rightful place. 

Other early mentions of Robin Hood occur in a manuscript collection of 1450 called Robin Hood and the Monk. Robin Hood and the Potter is part of a collection of romances and morals written around 1503. A Gest of Robyn Hode was from a press around 1510 or so. It is suggested that this is a group of collected stories, as the parts do not reflect the characters in a completely uniform way and some of the sections are less well put-together than others. Two other tales are from a manuscript found by Thomas Percy and used in his Reliques of Ancient British Poetry published in 1765: Robin Hoode his Death, which is closely related to the end of Gest, and Robin Hood and the Guy of Gisborne. These are called the Percy Folios. 

The Progression of the Story: May Games 
As the stories of Robyn Hode grew, there were characters added, and the character of Robyn changed. In the 15th century, Robin Hood was brought into May Games through plays that people acted out. The earliest text is the match to the Guy of Gisborne. Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar and Robin Hood and the Potter were plays written for the May Games. Some people believe that Robin is only a legend that came from these celebrations ... or perhaps the plays just added stories to his life. 

The May Day games were an ancient ceremony enacted all across England to celebrate nature and the joy welcoming the season of plenty and freedom from winter. There were Robin Hood games along with the May Day festivities. In 1506, the May feast was referred to as "the sporte of Robart Hode" in the accounts of the town of Croscombe. The same town records record a Robin Hood play being enacted in 1483. In the May Games, Robin was a troublemaker, so much so that the 1555 Scottish parliament prohibited celebrations where there was Robin Hood, Little John, the friar, or the May Queen enacted, with a 5-year imprisonment as the penalty. 

During the 16th century, poets and playwrights turned Robyn from a man of the people to nobility. Robyn is displaced from his high standing and retreats to the forest to join with a band of outlaws. He aids the people of his country and wins back his place as an earl. He is tailored once again to the period—a chivalrous man who wins the love of his countrymen. It is at this time that Robyn becomes associated with Richard the Lionhearted. 

Also in the 16th century, Marian and Robin were brought together in the May games, as Marian had already been a popular character as queen of the May games, derived from a French pastoral play Robin et Marion from the late 1200s. Robin and Marian had been practically separate until this time (Marian actually first appeared as Robin's companion in the 1500 The Ship of Fools ballad), so Marion could have been added as Robin's love interest from that theater character. Storytellers combined a robust character, high spirit, and ladylike qualities to create a perfect match for Robyn, Earl of Huntingdon. 

The plays at the May games laid the groundwork for Robin Hood's appearance in theater. Plays by Anthony Munday from 1598 portray Robin Hood as Robert Earl of Huntington during the Richard I reign. Marian was Mathilda, the daughter of Robert fitz Walter. Munday was the first known writer to portray Robin Hood as a noble. There is no proof that Robin as a person of nobility started in plays, but this is most likely, given the fact that the plays were presented most often at court and would have been tempered to suit the audience. 

The idea of a woman in Robin's life was part of a 1601 Robin Hood play called The Death of Robert, Earle of Huntingdon, otherwise called Robin Hood of merrie Sherwood; with the lamentable tragedy of chaste Matilda, his faire maide Marion, poysoned at Dunmowe by king John. In the play, Marion lives in the woods and shares his leadership, not married to him but called Maid Marion to show her innocent life until Robin's outlaw life ends and they can marry. When he dies, she returns to Little Dunmow Priory and is poisoned by the king. 

Other tales tell that Robin married a woman named Matilda or Maud, daughter of Robert, Earl Fitzwater, taking the name Maid Marion when she went with him to the forest and eventually  being buried in Little Dunmow Church. In factual history, a Robert Hood who was mentioned in the 1316 Court Rolls had a wife named Matilda, but she was not a Fitzwater. Perhaps this is where the name Marion, or Matilda, came from for the legends? 

In 1605 it was written in one tale that Marion was called Maud the Fair and was loved by King John, whose love she refused. The story says that the king had her poisoned for her refusal, and but there  is no mention of Robin in this story. No matter what the story, it is clear that times had changes, and the story had to change with the times. Audiences wanted romance and nobility, and that's what they got. 

Later Tradition 
Into the 17th century, printers came to look out for a larger market to sell their small books, as more and more common people were becoming literate. The tales presented Robin Hood as an outlaw taking from the clergy, fighting against the sheriff of Nottingham, performing in archery contests, sometimes taking on a disguise as an old person. These were tales that common people could relate to, stories borrowed from the Gest and older works. 

Other tales were imaginative with new stories: Robin Hood married Clorinda, queen of the shepherds; RH and his men slay the prince of Aragon in London; Robin goes to sea and acquires treasure from a Frenchman despite his weak seafaring skill. 

Although the tale was alive through the 18th century, there was nothing new to add. Edward the King was Richard the Lion-heart or even Henry VIII, and Robin Hood was cemented in the habit of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. The places that were popularized in the ballads were becoming tourist spots in England. Nottingham and its country atmosphere was more widely known and printed in the ballads with Robin Hood, taking the place over Barnsdale. 

The 19th century saw Keats, Scott, and others talking of Robin Hood in literature. In 1840, we see the first deliberate children's story of Robin Hood: Robin Hood and Little John by Pierce Egan. One of the most famous 19th-century tales of Robin Hood is The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. His illustrations are next to none, and the overall quality of the story and the line art is outstanding. 

In 1938, Errol Flynn portrayed Robin Hood for Hollywood on the big screen. The timing was such that Robin was fighting against oppression on screen as Europe was being threatened by Hitler. And of course, we all know of the modern tales, such as "The New Adventures of Robin Hood," Men in Tights, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. 
 
How Has The Tale Changed? 
Holt (1989) outlined what the early Robin Hood tales did not contain so that we may see how the story has changed over the years (pp. 36-39). Holt said that "nothing has confused the story of Robin so much as the imposition of modern anachronism on the medieval legend" (p. 36). Although I may disagree with the word confused in this context, I think it is interesting to note the differences in the medieval stories and the later tales: 
 

• The medieval stories lack the famous incidents such as shooting an arrow to mark his grave, an 18th-century tale.
• Robin and his men use swords and bows, not staffs, to fight.
• Maid Marian is absent from the stories. She enters the picture through the 16th-century May Games.
• Edward is the only king mentioned. Richard the Lionhearted comes much later.
• There is no real concern with the oppression of the government at the earlier time.
• There is no mention of Robin taking part in a resistance to the Norman conquerors in the medieval tales.
• Robin's place in life is not a peasant, nobleman, or knight, but a yeoman.
• Robin was not a man struggling against landlords and the rich, and he was not part of a peasant revolt against the social and economic structure oppressing the people of the time.
• There is little robbing from the rich and giving to the poor mentioned in the early tales.