# Robin Hood

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-hood/278827>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [December 8, 2004, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-hood/278827 "2004-12-08T22:28:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-hood/278827/1 "2004-12-08T22:28:07Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Hugh S. in [Was there really a Robin Hood?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_143)  
> In order to hold a Black Mass, one needs a defrocked priest (Friar Tuck) and a virgin (Maid Marian, we assume)

Also assuming Marian [even existed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid_Marian). Her absence from the Medieval legends led Professor Stephen Knight (English Lit. - Cardiff University) to believe that Robin was originally portrayed as being more interested in the company of his Merry Men.

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**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-hood/278827/2 "2004-12-09T00:52:18Z")

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I remember reading the Saga of Gisli, an Icelandic tale that had some similarities to Robin Hood and predated it.

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**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-hood/278827/3 "2004-12-09T20:05:49Z")

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I liked Worf as Will Scarlet.  
Not having a chick squeeze doesn’t have to mean he didn’t like girls. Maybe he frequented hookers. Or just “took” women from time to time.

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**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-hood/278827/4 "2004-12-09T21:05:39Z")

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Carola Oman’s retelling of the legends places RH in the time of Edward II. Errol Flynn it is not, but quite good as I recall. All the Guy of Gisbourne stuff is placed in an aside of the end.

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**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-hood/278827/5 "2004-12-10T20:06:41Z")

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Wikipedia points out that Robin’s been around for a long, long time:

> [@](#):
>
> The stories relating to Robin Hood are apocryphal, verging on the mythological. His first appearance in a manuscript is in William Langland’s Piers Plowman (1377) in which Sloth, the lazy priest boasts “I ken (i.e. ‘know’) 'rimes of Robin Hood.” Three years later the Scottish chronicler John Fordun writes that, in ballads, “Robin Hood delights above all others”.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin\_Hood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood)