Hunting a ghost through Sherwood Forest: On the elusive trail of the real Robin Hood

Today, Nottingham is a thoroughly modern town with a few medieval remains -- and a statue 'remembering' Robin. (Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

For the past 30 years, Ade Andrews has learned the secret of time travel: stepping into Sherwood Forest and finding himself in the Middle Ages.

The mythical home of Robin Hood hit the headlines last week with the death of the Major Oak — a 1,000-year-old tree in the forest, said to be where the legendary hero used to hide out with his Merry Men.

While this physical link to a legend has perished, the global obsession with the man who stole from the rich and gave to the poor remains as alive as ever. From medieval ballads to movies, the world remains captivated by this elusive figure — another big screen portrayal, this time by Hugh Jackman in “The Death of Robin Hood,” was released in the U.S. on June 19. Today, Robin Hood is more than folklore — he is a pilgrimage destination, drawing travelers, history buffs and film fanatics to the English greenwood.

But who was the real Robin Hood? Was he the romanticized, honourable rogue popularized by modern media, or a brutal, unprovoked medieval gangster?

The death of the Major Oak marks a symbolic turning point for a legend that has evolved from a disreputable 13^th-century bandit into a multi-billion-dollar global pop-culture phenomenon — and a massive tourism driver for England.

From its 92-foot canopy, the tree lived through modern British history: from the Norman conquest to the English Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, and even Brexit.

And it did so in an environment that seemed barely changed since its medieval heyday: 400 huge centuries-old oaks still stand proudly, cocooned by sycamores, silver birches, ash trees and heathland. Today’s Sherwood Forest may be a fraction of its original size — it has been reduced from 100,000 to the current 800 acres — but what remains is its original core, says Andrews. Stepping inside plunges you into another world.

“It’s a magical landscape,” says Andrews “It feels like a completely different place. In the city, you’re in the 21st century, in a concrete jungle. In Sherwood Forest, as soon as you step from the visitor centre onto the greenwood path between the oaks, you step back in time.

“You don’t need to imagine. Your mind is receptive to the experience of being in the past.”

Andrews has been wandering Sherwood Forest for more than three decades, including a six-year stint as a heritage ranger, before graduating to becoming Robin Hood himself. A historian and actor, he dresses up as the world’s most famous outlaw to take visitors around Nottingham city centre and out to what he calls the “magical and medieval world” of Sherwood Forest, around 25 miles, or an hour’s drive, north of the city.

While the modern city of Nottingham bears little resemblance to the medieval town namechecked in the legends — although it does still have a ceremonial Sheriff — the forest is where the past comes to life.

Set out from the modern visitor centre, and you’ll peel back 10 centuries in the 20 minutes it takes you to reach the Major Oak.

“You got a sense its life force was receding, it was on its way out,” says Andrews, who became a faithful friend to the tree over the decades. “But that’s part of life, isn’t it? Even in death it’s still giving life to the forest, and its story is still unfolding.”

The tree’s story is indelibly linked to that of Robin Hood. The outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor has, over the centuries, launched a thousand legends.

The lure of the bad boy

The name “Robin Hood” first entered the public consciousness in late medieval England, says Allen W. Wright, who set up the Robin Hood website Bold Outlaw in 1997.

In “Piers Plowman,” a poem from the 1370s, a character mentions that he doesn’t know the Lord’s Prayer — but he does know some poems about Robin Hood. It’s a handy literary device to out this guy as a bad seed: not just irreligious, but also a fan of bandits. The Robin Hood alluded to here is certainly not the force for good that Andrews — who inhabits the character in Nottingham today — believes him to be.

“He has a disreputable reputation from the first literary reference,” says Wright, of Robin. But does that mean he was real?

There are a few traces of a possible Robin in real life — and they emerge before that first literary cameo, suggesting that perhaps that Piers Plowman reference wasn’t pure fiction. In 1262, a “William Robehod” was tried for larceny in Reading, a city west of London and around 120 miles south of Nottingham.

More people with “Robynhod” as a surname are mentioned in the 1200s — a rare surname, according to historian David Crook, which potentially suggests a historical link. “It points to knowledge of the legend 100 years before we get a clear reference in stories or rhymes,” says Wright of these early references.

He appears in historical texts as well as fictional ballads. In a 1420 text that dates him to the 1280s, Robin gets a mention as an outlaw who lived with Little John in Barnsdale, in the northern English region of Yorkshire and around 60 miles north of Nottingham. Forty years later, he’s described in another history book, the “Scotichronicon,”as a “famous cut-throat” who lived in 1266.So far, so unattractive.

And yet — call it the lure of the bad boy — by the second half of the 1400s, ballads started appearing throughout England that romanticized Robin Hood. By now, he was still an outlaw but he was no longer a cut-throat. In fact, he was a yeoman — somewhere between a peasant and a nobleman.

In “A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode,” a ballad written in Middle English around 1450 (also known as “A Gest of Robyn Hode), his storyline was laid out, including the origins of his outlawdom (shooting some of the king’s servants during an archery contest), the introduction of his Merry Men, and his death at the hands of a scheming nun. The ballad asks that he may rest in peace, “for he was a good outlaw.”

“This was populist entertainment,” says Wright.

The legend took off from here. From the late 15th century, Robin Hood became a popular figure to dress up as at village fairs and festivals. Robin Hood ballads became a fixture of spring and May Day festivities, says Tom Hahn, emeritus professor in English literature at the University of Rochester, and a founder of the International Association of Robin Hood Studies. His university is also the home of the Robin Hood Project, a database of ancient Robin Hood texts.

In the 1500s, one appalled bishop wrote that he had found a church door locked on a feast day in one of his parishes, because the inhabitants were all off celebrating “Robin Hood’s day.” In 1510, even King Henry VIII dressed up as Robin Hood to surprise his wife. It was a sign that the legend was moving into the upper classes. Robin was suddenly the subject of plays — but even though he became entertainment for literate folk, his appeal remained broad.

“By the later 17th century you get collections put together very cheaply and sold for a small price — a whole array of ballads often starting with him [becoming an] outlaw and ending with his death,” says Hahn. “It continues through the 18th and 19th century.”

With so many references over so long a time span, surely this points toward someone who really existed?

“Nobody’s quite sure if Robin Hood is real … unless they have a book to sell,” says Wright, who thinks the figure “maybe” has roots in a real person.

A medieval gangster

If there was a real Robin Hood, however, he may have lived far from Sherwood Forest. Wright’s best guess as to who the real Robin might have been — “the best shot in the gloaming” as he puts it — is one “Roberd Hood,” a 1220s outlaw from Yorkshire. He makes a cameo in the records as an “outlaw” across several years, says Wright, and since this is before the ballads started, it can’t be someone copying Robin’s name. “It’s still very circumstantial,” he says of Roberd Hood’s claim to fame. “But it’s better than the other candidates.”

As for how the story was transposed around 70 miles south to Nottingham, Wright says that a 13th-century sheriff of York had previously been the deputy sheriff of Nottingham, which could explain some confusion.

More importantly, the early versions of the legend suggest that Robin indeed started farther north — Barnsdale, to be precise, an area of South Yorkshire which also had a forest — and then migrated south to Nottingham.

If Roberd Hood is our guy, he doesn’t sound particularly nice. Hahn says the legends contained “an emphasis on violence — sometimes unprovoked.”

But as anyone who’s watched a Hollywood movie will know, not all baddies are viewed the same.

“It’s a bit like the Westerns starting in 19th century America. There’s a definite sense of being an outlaw in a lawless [society],” says Hahn. Over time, the legend was softened — perhaps due to a growing cynicism of ordinary folk. By the time Henry VIII was dressing up, there was the idea of Robin as a hero “in the same way that Western [stars] or gangsters can be heroes,” says Wright.

“It helps that the people he’s against are more crooked than him — the sheriff doesn’t keep his word, but the outlaw does. The legend thrives on the irony that he’s still more honourable than the people supposed to be good.”

In the same way, romance was never on the cards for Robin initially. “It was a real ‘guys with guys’ story from the earliest times,” says Hahn. But as Robin and his Merry Men morphed from cut-throats to lovable rogues, space was made for a love interest: Maid Marian, who appeared around the 18th century.

Making Robin great again

While Robin was always an English folk hero, it was, says Hahn, an American who turned Robin Hood into the global figure he is today. In 1883, U.S. author and illustrator Howard Pyle published “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire.”

This was no cheap ballad; it was a lavish book published by Scribner’s, in which Pyle had remixed the content of the poems into a family-friendly novel. The book met with “immediate success,” says Hahn, who adds that it “Americanized” the legend. It also sanitized it: “It made Robin Hood into a nice guy.”

Pyle’s book was followed in 1922 by a silent movie, in which the role of Robin was played by Douglas Fairbanks (who humbly titled the film, “Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood”). It was the first motion picture in history to receive a Hollywood premiere.

From there, the movie industry took the legend and ran. In 1938, Errol Flynn donned his famous tights. In 1976, Sean Connery played an aging Robin Hood to Audrey Hepburn’s Maid Marian in “Robin and Marian.” In 1991, Kevin Costner played Robin, while Bryan Adams’ theme song “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” set the world alight. It spent 16 consecutive weeks at number one on the U.K.’s singles chart, a feat that has yet to be equalled.

In 2010 it was the turn of Russell Crowe, directed by Ridley Scott. Meanwhile, Hollywood’s finest women including Naomie Harris, Cate Blanchett, Uma Thurman and, in the 2026 film, Jodie Comer, have acted alongside the Robins. And who can forget the 1973 Disney version, featuring the late, great Peter Ustinov as the voice of both Kings John and Richard, plus Robin as a fox voiced by Brian Bedford?

Today, Robin has permeated modern culture. Type in “Robin Hood” on IMDB and you’ll find literally dozens of movies about the lovable rogue who stole from the rich to give to the poor.Even some supporters of Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, presented him as a Robin Hood character.

It’s no surprise. “The film industry has made Robin Hood an international pop culture subject,” says Hahn.

The different iterations of Robin also teach us about our own cultures, he says. Until the 20th century, Robin was a subject for men. But then, women started writing Robin Hood novels. It’s not just the Maid Marian romance or the idea of a cross-dressing Marian holding her own with the boys, he says; that idea we have of fraternal bonding between the Merry Men? Hahn says that’s a factor of the female authors, “presenting new looks of female bonding.”

In Sherwood Forest

While Robin’s reality may be in question, there’s no shortage of Robin-themed places to see in Nottingham.

Twenty miles north of the city, Sherwood Forest has one of the largest concentrations of “ancient oaks”— the term given to trees once they reach 400 years old — in Western Europe. Forget outlaws sheltering in the trunks; each can house thousands of species of insects, fungi, birds and mammals, and act as “miniature cities,” according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds charity, which manages the site as a nature reserve.

The Major Oak will be left in situ to gradually break down in a years-long process. “It’ll take a few decades to degrade which will be remarkable — watching the ‘king of kings’ dwindle away,” says Andrews. “The smaller branches will break off as climate change brings heavier rains. The bigger branches will remain longer. As it degrades, it’ll be a living piece of art in the landscape with a massive story to tell.”

While the Major Oak has succumbed to the passing of the years, its 400-odd compatriots are still going strong — and are just as atmospheric, says Andrews. One, the Parliament Oak, is also thought to be around 1,000 years old, and gets its name from its use as an impromptu site for parliament gatherings in the 13th century.

You might also spy Andrews on one of his tours. He’s hard to miss. Dressed in battered leather trousers, a jerkin and a bycocket hat, brandishing a sword and longbow and giving the occasional blast of his horn, he thinks of himself as a modern-day troubadour keeping those medieval ballads of Robin Hood alive. He calls himself a “manifestation of Robin Hood,” bringing a message of charity and goodwill to today’s turbulent times.

Andrews’ tours of Nottingham tell the story of the city through the legends of Robin Hood. It takes some telling. Although Nottingham has a long history, in Andrews’ words, it’s a “modern city” with some questionable 1960s development. Finding Robin here means looking beyond the modern urban layout.

His tours take in St. Mary’s Church — today surrounded by Victorian warehouses but a location visited by Robin, according to the medieval ballad “Robin Hood and the Monk.”

He shows visitors the National Justice Museum, housed in a late 18th-century building built on a site that was founded by the Normans when they first colonized England, and Nottingham Castle — actually a 17th-century palace, though it is built on the site of “one of the mightiest castles in the land in medieval England.”

And since conjuring up medieval Nottingham can be taxing, Andrews ends the tour at what’s said to be England’s oldest pub, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which has been brewing pints since 1189. By blending Nottingham’s history with the legend, he says, “people are surprised by the beauty of the city.”

Andrews — who calls Robin a “figure for good”— sees Robin through a spiritual lens. He believes that the character was “willed into being by people in early medieval England,” and he thinks that Robin’s story is still doing good today. His tours, he says, help visitors “find the spirit of Robin Hood in ourselves. The magic of Robin really lies in the inner psyche.”

People from all over the world trek to Nottingham to follow in Robin’s footsteps, but there are other sites for Robin Hood pilgrims, too. For a start, you can visit Barnsdale, where you’ll find “Robin Hood’s well” as well as other Yorkshire places mentioned in the ballads, like Sayles Plantation, Wentbridge and Doncaster.

But you don’t even have to go to England. Wherever you are in the world, Robin Hood is omnipresent.

“You can’t really get through life without encountering Robin Hood someplace,” says Hahn, who equates the legend to “The Simpsons” as an English-language “cultural landmark.”

For Andrews, this cultural landmark is a force for good.

“Robin Hood was the first superhero,” he says. “And the world needs heroes.”

By Julia Buckley, CNN