Facts about Robin Hood
Within Robin Hood's band medieval forms of courtesy rather than modern ideals of equality are generally in evidence.
From the 16th century on, the legend of Robin Hood is often used to promote the hereditary ruling class, romance, and religious piety.
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'.
The oldest references to Robin Hood are not historical records, or even ballads recounting his exploits, but hints and allusions found in various works.
The first mention of a quasi-historical Robin Hood is given in Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Chronicle, written about 1420.
The Robin Hood legend has thus been subject to numerous shifts and mutations throughout its history.
The first allusions to Robin Hood as stealing from the rich and giving to the poor appear in the 16th century.
The continued popularity of the Robin Hood tales is attested by a number of literary references.
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.
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.
Consequently, in the medieval period itself, Robin Hood already belongs more to literature than to history.
After this comes "Robin Hood and the Potter" contained in a manuscript of c.1503.
Guy of Gisbourne also appeared in the legend at this point, as was another outlaw Richard the Divine who was hired by the sheriff to hunt Robin Hood, and who dies at Robin's hand.
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.
The Victorian era generated its own distinct versions of Robin Hood.
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 eighteenth century Robin Hood and Little John.
A number of theories as to the identity of "the real Robin Hood" have their supporters.
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.
To A Friend and Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a play The Foresters, or Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which was presented with incidental music by Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1892.
The traditional tales were often adapted for children, most notably in Howard Pyle's Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.
The continued popularity of the Robin Hood tales is attested by a number of literary references.
Printed versions of the Robin Hood ballads, generally based on the Gest, appear in the early sixteenth century, shortly after the introduction of printing in England.
The idea of Robin Hood as a high-minded Saxon fighting Norman Lords also originates in the 19th century.
The first clinical description was provided by the English physician Michael Underwood in 1789, where he refers to polio as "a debility of the lower extremities".