Home to varied wildlife and many ancient gnarled oaks, the most famous is the Major Oak, in whose branches Robin and his men were said to hide. Part of it is a public park, and another portion was named a Natural Nature Reserve. It was a “shire wood.” Now reduced to 1,045 acres from 100,000, the famous woodland is well managed by the Forestry Commission.
Sherwood Forest, a royal hunting preserve, once reached all the way to Yorkshire. Sir Walter Scott said of the famous woodland, “In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the River Don, there extended in ancient time a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster.” So, I’m off to the Robin Hood Festival, held appropriately in the Sherwood Forest Country Park, where make-believe jesters, knights and rat-catchers play sackbuts and sell foam rubber broadswords. Fulk Fitz Warin, a disinherited Shropshire baron, fought against King John, then reconciled with him, even as did (in some versions) Robin. Disinherited by his father and King Edward the Confessor, he fought against the king, but may have reconciled with him later.Īnother was Eustace the Monk, who abandoned the monastery to avenge his father’s death and lived as a forest outlaw until he took to piracy. One was Hereward the Wake, who led the English resistance to the Norman conquerors. When you add Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, Richard Greene, Sean Connery, Russell Crowe and a Disney cartoon fox, the whole becomes a merry mess.īefore there were several men whose rousing good stories presaged his and with whom his legends have become entangled. Shakespeare mentioned him, Keats composed an ode to him, Tennyson put him on the stage, Mel Brooks made a funny sitcom about him.
Read more: Does the Queen have secret hand signals? Robin Hood in literature It’s easy to believe that the sheriff was Robin’s perennial enemy, since the sheriff was the tax collector. His earliest legends make no reference to his sharing his spoils with the needy, except that he seems to have given an old lady shoes and hose.
0 kommentar(er)
