Robin Hood

The legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest — archer, trickster, and the greenwood's most famous thief. This site gathers everything worth knowing: the medieval ballads in their own words, the hunt for a real Robin, the merry men, Maid Marian, the Sheriff, the outlaw code, and eight centuries of retellings.

Meet the character

The owner's Vizlings app card for this character reads, verbatim:

"The legendary, sharp-shooting outlaw who defends the..."

(The app card text is truncated in the roster as supplied; it is presented here exactly as received, not completed or paraphrased.)

The on-screen host of the stream is the owner's own animated "Robin hood" character from the Vizlings app — the sharp-shooting outlaw of the app card, brought to a candlelit Sherwood clearing on YouTube. The owner's character sheet is a style reference only and is not displayed on this site; the stream page carries the character banner and the full honest labeling.

What this site covers

Robin Hood is the most retold outlaw in English. But the Robin of the medieval ballads — a yeoman in Lincoln green who robs bishops and abbots, befriends a ruined knight, and shoots his way out of Nottingham — is not the Robin of the films. This site tells both stories, and keeps them clearly apart.

• Who Is Robin Hood — the legend at a glance: what the stories say, and what they don't.
• Was He Real? — the honest state of the historical-basis debate. No invented consensus.
• The Early Chronicles — the medieval references: Piers Plowman (c. 1377), Wyntoun, Bower, John Major.
• The Ballads — the Child ballads tradition that carried the legend for 500 years.
• A Gest of Robyn Hode — the great early printed epic, c. 1495.
• The Merry Men — Little John, Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, Alan-a-Dale, and Much.
• Sherwood Forest — a guide to the places the legend claims.
• Maid Marian, Prince John, The Sheriff of Nottingham — the supporting cast, each with their own history.
• The Outlaw Code — "rob from the rich, give to the poor," traced honestly from the medieval ballads to the modern slogan.
• Symbols of the Greenwood — the hood, the green, the bow, the horn.
• Sayings — the ballads in their own words: every quotation verbatim from public-domain texts, with ballad and stanza citations.
• Adaptations — from Scott's Ivanhoe to the silver screen.
• Timeline — from the first mention (c. 1377) to the present.
• Glossary, Sources, Methodology — the reference apparatus.
• Social Pack — shareable quote cards and character moments, downloadable.
• The Stream — the YouTube character channel concept (mockup stream connected).

Start with the ballads

If you read one thing here, read the sayings page: Robin Hood as his own age heard him, in verse that is six hundred years old. Everything else — the films, the TV series, the children's books — is commentary on those rhymes.