Robin Hood Research Paper

Robin Hood Truth or Myth?

For hundreds of years, people from all over the world have been captivated by the legend of Robin Hood. Every child knows about the famous outlaw and his band of merry men who lived in the Sherwood Forest. Scholars, however, are not sure if Robin Hood was a real person. They believe that if a real Robin did exist, he was only a fraction of what the stories make him out to be. Robin’s legend has evolved drastically throughout the centuries, and the real Robin Hood could have been one of many people.

Although the story itself has changed much, the original first version of Robin Hood was simple. He was a yeoman, or a forester, who killed the king’s deer and was outlawed. He formed a group of bandits

“The most promising of the early real Robin Hoods was discovered by L.V.D. Owen in 1936” (Wright). His name in the Yorkshire records was ‘Robert Hod, fugitive’. Although very little is known about this outlaw, the records do give a price for his head – 32 shillings and 6 pence in the old English currency. Another possible Robin Hood in the Yorkshire records is known as ‘Robert of Wetherby, outlaw and evil doer of our land’, who had the price of nearly 100 shillings on his head. “There are too many possibilities. [The outlaw] could have been Robert Hood who was a servant of the Abbot of Cirencester. He could have been a Robin Hood found in the Rockingham jail in 1354, or even the nobleman Robert de Kyme who lived in the late 1200’s. No one will ever really know for sure” (Hall). It’s impossible to decide who the real Robin Hood really was. He could have been none of the men mentioned, or he was “a combination of all these real and legendary outlaws, people who used the alias ‘Robin Hood’, myths, and maybe –just maybe – a real outlaw or two named Robin Hood” (Wright). There are several possibilities as to who the infamous outlaw really was, but no one will really ever know for sure. As Holt concludes, “The answer, then to the question ‘Who was Robin Hood?’, must be ‘There were more than one’”