Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding Through the Glen

Facebook reminded me this morning that it was four years ago when I posted this Free Range cartoon about Robin Hood. My hero.

I have written about Robin Hood before. I don't care. I'm going to do it again.

I think I first became aware of him when I saw (on TV?) that old film with Errol Flynn, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). I loved it immediately, And, almost immediately I became Robin Hood. It was a role I would not surrender willingly--in fact, I'm still not sure that I have surrendered it. (Link to some video of that movie.)

Later in boyhood I loved that TV series with Richard Greene (aptly named), The Adventures of Robin Hood, which ran from 1955-59 (the years I was in sixth grade through the end of my freshman year at Hiram High School). The title of this post comes from the song that ended the show. (Link to footage with song. Zip through the video to get to the song. Also, entire episodes are available on YouTube.) I must say, I never before (or after) heard from a flying arrow the noise that emanates from R. Hood's arrow in the opening of each show.

Years later, I was surprised/shocked to learn that Greene had played a role in another film I loved, Stanley and Livingstone (1939), another obsession I will not get into (right now).

When we moved to Hiram, Ohio (a very small town with a wonderful college, where my father would teach) in the summer of 1956, Sherwood Forest was everywhere. I ran around, doing my best to look as if I were wearing Lincoln green, shooting arrows at trees and animals that I always missed. My parents began to worry--and told me as much--that I was not ever going to grow up. (They were right.)

One day, I was teasing my little brother cruelly (I'll admit it now) in the living room. He picked up my bow and arrow and let fly. Fortunately, like me, he had poor aim. Unfortunately, he hit the TV set. Fortunately, he hit only the wooden frame around the screen. Fortunately, we could sort of glue back on the little piece that chipped off. Unfortunately, Dad noticed, right away.

As the years went on, I stopped playing RH out in the trees and streets, stopped wearing the costume that (I'll now admit) in no way resembled what R. Hood wore.

But I never lost the passion for the story--saw all the movies, often multiple times, including the fairly recent one with Taron Egerton as R. Hood and Jamie Foxx as Little John. Quite a lot of liberties they took with the story, but, hey, it's all fiction, right? (Link to some video.)

Oh, those days when I dressed as Hood for Halloween! When I ran around the woods of Hiram with my (imaginary) Merry Men, battling the (imaginary) forces of the Sheriff of Nottingham!

And I have to say, that when I was in the actual Nottingham in the spring of 1999, I was there to visit Newstead Abbey, the former home of Lord Byron (I was deep into my obsession with Mary Shelley and those who knew her), but when I got off that train--I felt something I honest-to-God felt something, and when I walked through the woods approaching Byron's place, I could have sworn I heard a voice, "Great to see you here at last."

And this I swear is true: A man and a woman on horseback approached me ... passed me ... who else could it be? Although I saw no bows and arrows ...