Robyn Hode

Let’s start at the very beginning. Robin Hood’s roots in myth and legend were established as early as the 1200s, when English judiciary documents listed the names 'Robinhood', 'Robehod' and 'Hobbehod' in their records.

Far from being the alums of specific individuals, it is believed that the moniker was used in reference to anybody considered an outlaw or a fugitive (much like our common use of the name ‘Gary’ for young car-tinkering aficionados).

The term survived to as late as the 16th century, when anti-government plotter Guy Fawkes was condemned as a Robin Hood by the Earl of Salisbury, Robert Cecil.

Conflicting and contradictory reports cause confusion about the various instances in which a Robin Hood hero first appeared.

But it is generally agreed that the first concrete allusion to the character came about in the 15th century, when narrative ballads set in Nottinghamshire rhymed “Robyn hode in scherewode stod”.

Geographic technicalities not-with-standing – various incarnations of the legend have location Mr Hood in South Yorkshire, while positing that he was born in Loxley in Sheffield – it is generally accepted that he was a loveable rogue with good intentions.

Just ask Russell Crowe, who considers himself something of an expert on all matters Hood.

“Having read some 20-30 books on the subject, some of them highly intellectual and some of them purely fantasy and entertainment, there is a period of 300 years in which this legend seems to have been created,” he says.

“Between 868AD - when there is the ballad of Robin the Beheader, which is a man who lives in the forest and robs people and chops off their heads, and sometimes their hands - all the way through to the romanticised version of Robin Hood, it’s a thousand years of storytelling.

“I think it’s the oldest fictional tale in the English language, and on top of that you have another hundred years of cinema history, you know?”

Early accounts of the hero began with Piers Plowman’s 14th century poem, which referenced the narrative ballads.

But it was the 15th century ballads themselves – and notably a manuscript entitled Robin Hood And The Monk, now housed in Cambridge University and dating back to 1450 – that established many of the hallmarks of the legend.

Here, Hood’s expertise as an archer, his Marianism (his study of Jesus’ mother) and his animosity towards the Sheriff of Nottinham were all prevalent.

Says Crowe: “Certain things that we come to think of as being absolute in terms of Robin Hood, certain names like Loxley or whatever, then you find out that only came in recently in 1890 with a book and that was never there before.

“But this thing has been a myth, a legend, a parlour game, a political tool long before it ever became a Kevin Costner movie.”

Next: Nottingham