Robin Hood Research Paper

Robin Hood

Robin Hood, leader, and iconic figure of the Merry Men of Sherwood forest, has been the main character for many of the tales and stories, as well as an arguable figure of historical research. Even though Robin Hood is more folklore than proven historical fact, he is one of the longest lasting legends and the truth behind his myth is still unknown to this very day. Robin Hood was one of the biggest and most iconic outlaws of his time. In many stories Robin was said to be born in AD 1160 in Locksley, which is sometimes said to be in Nottinghamshire, and other times in Yorkshire. Most of the stories about Robin Hood the tales are more of a legend, than factual history. The stories about Robin are thought to have been based on a real

Robin Hood is perhaps one of the most doubtful and confused of all the English hero-legends. “Farther on in history the same inarticulate discontents were to enshrine such doubtful characters as Dick Turpin and other highwaymen in national legend, but whatever the true Robin Hood may have been, he was less sordid than these. There is a vigor and gaiety about his traditions which is lacking in those of later thieves, and there is no evidence that he was ever gratuitously cruel, as they sometimes were or at least, any more so than most men were in his day” (72). Tradition says that Robin Hood died at Kirklees Priory in Yorkshire, he was buried in the woods near the priory. In Robin’s old age he was overcome by illness and went in search of the prioress, which was also said to be Robin’s aunt. During the process of being nursed back to health, Robin was stabbed and left to bleed to death. There are stories that Robin’s aunt, the prioress, was the one who stabbed Robin, other legends state the blood-letting was cause by an unknown monk, and he may have done the murder on his own, without the prioress having any knowledge of it (85). No information has been provided to know if Robin was even murdered at all. Robin chose his own resting-place by shooting two arrows out of the window in the priory and giving his friends instructions that he wanted to be buried wherever the arrows had fallen