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Who was Robin Hood? His name has become part of our culture, with well-known phrases such as “robbing the rich to give to the poor.” Sometimes criminals are called “Robin Hoods” if they give away any part of their ill-gotten gains. His companions such as Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, and Little John have also become part of our literary heritage. However, Robin Hood’s story is really only known from a handful of medieval ballads (poems set to song).
His life is set in the time in England when King Richard the Lionhearted was away at the Crusades and his evil brother, Prince John, ruled in his place as regent. There were oppressive taxes across England, making the poor poorer and producing many outlaws. Robin Hood, a master archer, led an outlaw band based in Sherwood Forest and fought the Sheriff of Nottingham in many adventures. The fight against the cruelty of Prince John ended with the return of King Richard, the true king. Robin lived happily ever after with his love, Maid Marian.
There have been many adaptations of these ballads into novels, with each author having a bit of a different “take” on the stories. One book, Robin and His Merry Men: Ballads of Robin Hood by Ian Serraillier, is different in that Mr. Serraillier went back to the original ballads and retold them in more modern verse. Reading this book will take you one step closer to the original Robin Hood material. Ian Serraillier (1912 to 1994) was a British novelist and poet. His novels were mainly for young people and often were retellings of classic mythology or legends. Robin and His Merry Men: Ballads of Robin Hood was illustrated by Victor Ambrus (1935 to 2021), who was born in Budapest and emigrated to America after the Hungarian Revolution in the 1950s. He illustrated the famous Flambards trilogy by K.M. Peyton, among others, and wrote and illustrated many of his own books.
Walker McSpadden (1874 to 1960) was an author who is best known for his books about Robin Hood, especially the one reviewed here, Robin Hood, which was published around 1900. His was a more traditional re-telling of the Robin Hood stories in a novel format. If you couldn’t tell from the above text, I love stories about Robin Hood. Reading a picture book about him was one of my earliest and fondest reading memories. McSpadden’s retelling of Robin Hood will definitely not disappoint. McSpadden’s novel was illustrated by Louis Slobodkin (1903 to 1975), a famous American illustrator and author who was a self-taught artist and sculptor. He illustrated the beloved Moffatt series by Eleanor Estes and her book The Hundred Dresses and won the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in Many Moons by James Thurber.
A friend of mine once told me that he thought the story of Robin Hood was really the story of the church: the true king is not present, the people are oppressed by an evil would-be usurper, but all will be set right when the true king returns. Sound familiar? How about the title of the third book in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings? The Return of the King! Sounds like someone else also used this analogy in their story…and Tolkien was British…