The Merry Men

And where would Robin Hood be without his faithful band of outlaws? Historians who go looking for a real Robin Hood have also looked for historical Little Johns, Friar Tucks and others.

Little John is nearly as important as Robin Hood in the early tales. There are several historical candidates for Robin's chief lieutenant.

The best known comes from Hathersage in Derbyshire. Little John's supposed longbow was once on display there, and the outlaw has a grave in a Hathersage churchyard. In the grave was a bone which would belong to a very tall man. On the longbow is the name "Naylor", said to be Little John's last name, Holt thinks it may have been put there by Colonel Naylor in 1715. The association with Hathersage goes back to the 1600s. While certainly good for the tourist trade, there is no definite proof that the bow or grave belonged to a historical Little John.

The ballad "Robin Hood and Little John" says that the outlaw's true name is John Little. And John Bellamy in Robin Hood: A Historical Inquiry has found many candidates with this name.

They include John Litel, sheriff of London on and off between 1354-1367. Others were less law abiding. A criminal John le Litel was part of band of raiders who made off with 138 pounds in 1318. In June 1323, a Littel John was part of a group who made off with deer in Yorkshire.

Bellamy's prime candidate is actually named Little John, a sailor in command of a royal ship in the 1320's. This one lived at the same time as his main Robin Hood candidate, but there's no evidence that they knew each other or that this John was an outlaw.

John Matthews, on the other hand, seeks a mythological origin for Little John and the other Merry Men. He suggests that Little John may have been a forest spirit.

Friar Tuck

Most Robin Hood stories these days are set in the era of Richard I. There were no friars in England back then. It doesn't help that the early ballads are set in later times, because Tuck's not in them either. But he does pop up as Frere Tuk in a relatively early fragment of Robin Hood drama, circa 1475, but he was not the fat, jolly friar we know today. Perhaps that's because this Tuck might have been inspired by a real person.

Twice in 1417, royal writs demand the arrest of an outlaw who led a band which robbed, murdered and committed other acts of general mayhem. One report says he "assumed the name of Frere Tuk newly so called in the common parlance." As Holt explains "the men who drafted the writs of 1417 had apparently never heard the name Friar Tuck before." A letter in 1429 says Tuck is still at large, and mentions his real identity — Robert Stafford, chaplain of Lindfield, Sussex.

This chaplain may have employed an alias from a pre-existing legend, but it's quite possible that he was the first to use the name of Tuck.

And what of the jolly friar of legend? It was a stock character in the May Games and morris dances, a sometimes partner of Maid Marian. As Dobson and Taylor put it, an "altogether more jovial and buffoon-like character." They suggest that perhaps the stories of a real outlaw were combined with the friar of the May Games to make the outlaw we know and love.

Will Scarlet

The outlaw currently known as Will Scarlet was known by a lot of names in the early stories — Scatheloke, Scarlock, Scadlock, and Scarlett. John Bellamy has found a few real ones.

A William Scarlet was one of many who received a pardon in 1318. And two years earlier, there's a record of a William Schakelock, soldier in the Berwick town garrison in 1316. Both these, and they may be the same person, Scarlets fit nicely with the time period of the 1320's Robin Hood, Bellamy's choice for the outlaw leader.

He dismisses the most interesting Will Scarlet as being too early for his favourite Robin Hood. In 1286-7, William Schirelock (or Shyreloke) was a "novice of St. Mary's Abbey, York, who was allowed to depart because of a crime imputed to him." This Scarlet was at the same Abbey which played a major role in the early tale known as the Gest.

Interesting, but like most "real" candidates for Robin and his band, there aren't enough details to conclude these men were definitely inspirations for the legendary character.

Just as Robin Hood borrowed elements from other outlaw legends, Will Scarlet's 17th century "origin" tale (composed long after Scarlet's first appearance in the Robin Hood legend) winks at other legends too. In the ballad Robin Hood Nezvly Revived, also known by the more descriptive title, Robin Hood and Will Scarlet, Will says that his name is "Young Gamwell". Gamwell, to be named Scarlet at the ballad's end, says that he was outlawed for killing his father's steward. Will is a nephew, or cousin, of Robin Hood. And the hero of different outlaw romance, Gamelyn, could be considered a relative of the Robin Hood legend. Gamelyn was disinherited and outlawed for, among other things, killing his father and brother's porter. Will Scarlet has borrowed from the Gamelyn story, and perhaps another outlaw tale called Robin and Gandelyn.

Maid Marian

Like Tuck, Marian isn't in the early ballads and probably joined as a character in the May Games. In those traditional celebrations, she was sometimes portrayed a very "free" woman, often played by a man in drag. She probably comes from the medieval French pastoral romance of the shepherd and shepherdess Robin and Marion. When Robin Hood plays started being performed at the celebrations she was a part of, it was only natural for her to join Robin Hood's legend as his true love. I don't know if there's any truth behind the early French stories of a Marion.

But in his Elizabethan "Huntingdon" plays, Anthony Munday makes Marian an alias employed by Matilda Fitzwalter (or Fitzwater). A popular romance at the time was the legend of King John pursuing Matilda (or Maud), daughter of Robert Fitzwalter. Fitzwalter was accused of plotting to assassinate King John and was outlawed in 1212. When he fled to France, it seems that Fitzwalter justified his actions by saying the king was after his daughter and plotted to kill his son-in-law. King John was lecherous, but some historians don't believe Fitzwalter's version of events. Fitzwalter led the Baronial rebellion against John in 1215.

Munday also wrote a 1615 pageant for the Lord Mayor's Day in London. Here, Fitzwater became Fitz-Ailwin and made Marian the daughter of London's first Lord Mayor (who lived in Richard I's day).

The name Matilda is interesting. That's the name of the wife of Robert Hood who lived in Wakefield in the 1310's (possibly the same man as the Robyn Hood of the next decade). Also, the name of the real Earl David of Huntingdon's wife was Maud or Matilda.

2. Choose adjectives and words that can describe the following characters of the film:

Robin of Locksley

Azeem

Duncan

Marian

Guy of Gisborne

Will Scarlett

John Little

Friar Tuck

Wolf

Write out of the film words and phrases with the help of which other personages of the film characterize them throughout the whole film.

3. Watch Episode 1 (the first 11 minutes of the film), answer the questions and do the tasks:

1) Find some information about King Richard’s Crusades and the situation in his country when he was in the Holy Land.

2) Translate the following words and word combinations into Russian and learn them.

infidel

vow

potentate

May God speed you!

3) Describe the coast Robin and Azeem landed in. Why is Great Britain often called “the fog Albion”?

4) Complete the sentences with the words and reproduce the conversation.

- Why did you cut me free, Christian?

- Whatever blood is in your … (1) … no man deserves to die in there. Farewell, friend. God speed your way.

- Our way lies together with the speed of Allah.

- What?

- You have saved my life, Christian. I will stay with you until I have saved yours, that is my … (2).

- Thanks, but I go to England. I relieve you of your … (3).

- Only Allah can do that.

- What if I say “no”?

- You have no … (4). I am Azeem Edin Bashir Al Bakir. You may call me Azeem.

- Robin of Locksley.

4. Watch Episode 2 (the next 5 minutes of the film), answer the questions and do the tasks:

1) Translate the following words and word combinations into Russian and learn them.

mistletoe

resolve

to attack downwind

2) What traditions in England do you know associated with the mistletoe? Tell about them.

3) Complete the sentences with the words and reproduce the conversation.

- Why must you walk in back of me?

- In your country, am I not the … (1)?

- Ha-ha-ha.

- It seems safer to appear as your … (2) rather than your equal.

- For an infidel, you have uncommon clarity of thinking, but you tell me nothing of yourself. For instance, your name is Azeem – what does it mean?

- It means “great one”.

- Great one, really? Did you give yourself this name? … It’s a joke. Azeem, the great one, I am home. Whoo! Look. … (3). Many a maid’s lost her … (4) to me thanks to this plant.

- In my country, we talk to our women. We do not … (5) them with plants.

- What do you know of women?

- Where I come from, Christian, there are women of such beauty, that they can … (6) a man’s mind so, that he would be willing to die for them.

- Wait. Is that why you were to be … (7)? Because of a woman? That’s it, isn’t it? That’s it!

- It is close to … (8).

- You painted old dog. Who was she? The mullah’s daughter? Huh? Another man’s wife? What’s her name?

- Is there no sun in this … (9) country? Which way is the east?

- Her name.

- East.

- Her name.

- Jasmina.

- That way.

- You are sure?

- I would know … (10). I’m five miles from home. Was she worth it?

- Worth dying for.

5. Watch Episode 3 (the next 5 minutes of the film), answer the questions and do the tasks:

1) Translate the following words and word combinations into Russian and learn them.

to attack downwind

a game bird

to redeem the vow

to unleash the hounds

to run through

to poach a deer

a scum

to outnumber

to whine like a mule

2) Why did the soldiers pursue the boy?

3) Why didn’t Azeem help Robin?

6. Watch Episode 4 (the next 6 minutes of the film), answer the questions and do the tasks:

1) Translate the following words and word combinations into Russian and learn them.

a prodigal son

a whelp

to best smb

potency

to haunt

to forfeit

quest

to flee

to be avenged

2) What happened to Robin’s father?

3) What did Robin decide to do?

7. Watch Episode 4 (the next 12 minutes of the film), answer the questions and do the tasks:

1) Translate the following words and word combinations into Russian and learn them.

a bully

to convey condolences

rambling

to accuse smb of smth

lame

to be haunted

to squeal

a wind chime

2) Who are Moors? Who are Saracens?

8. Watch the film up to the end, answer the questions and do the tasks:

1) Translate the following words and word combinations into Russian and learn them.

mead

outlaw

sword

to give alms to the poor

to brag

nobility

leper

2)Comment on the following phrases from the film. Try to guess who uttered them:

• “Good will overcome.”

• “The hospitality in this country is as warm as the weather.”

• “The one free man defending his home is more powerful than 10 hired soldiers.”

• “The one true weapon is courage.”

• “If you truly believe in your hearts that you're free then we can win.”

• “Milady, a woman of your beauty has no need of such decorations.”

• “The Lord reveals himself in mysterious ways.”

• “Nobility is not a birthright. It's defined by one's actions.”

• “Men speak conveniently of love, when it serves their purpose.”

• “There are no perfect men in this world. There are only perfect intentions.”

3) What was firstly the price on Robin Hood’s head? Why wouldn’t be any use of raising the price?

4) Why had there been misunderstanding between Robin and his father?

5) Why did the sheriff have to be married?

6) Find some information about Kevin Costner. What can you say about his acting the main role in the film?

7) Be ready to discuss the contents of the film and share your opinion.

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