Robin Hood T-Shirt

Robin Hood has been one of the most enduring heroes of popular culture ever since his deeds were first celebrated in medieval English ballads. The steady flow of books and films about this 'noble outlaw' in recent years demonstrates the legend's continuing appeal throughout the world and its astonishing amenability to fresh interpretation.

Wynkyn de Worde

Above is a copy of the first page of the Wynkyn de Worde edition of ‘a lytell geste of Robyn hode and his meyne.’ (Cambridge University Library Ms. Sel.5.18). The date of this edition is difficult to put more precisely than between 1492 and 1534.

Wynkyn de Worde (Jan van Wynken) d.1534/5 was William Caxton’s journeyman who arrived in England about 1481. After Caxton’s death in 1491 de Worde took over his former master’s print shop in Westminster and in about 1500 moved his presses into ‘flete street at the sygne of the sone.’ Fleet Street later became known as the ‘spiritual home of British journalism.’

During his career de Worde published over 400 books in 800 editions, on subjects like religion, poetry, husbandry and household practice. But he also printed children’s books, Christmas carols, ballads and romantic novels for a mass audience, including this surviving edition of ‘A Gest of Robyn Hode’.

To read more about ‘A Gest of Robyn Hode’ please click on the Robin Hood Ballads and Robin Hood History labels.

News Flashes About Robin Hood

A very rare item. A promotional headed paper for Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood (1952).
Part of the publicity campaign for the live-action film.

Richard Todd and Archie Duncan

Joan Rice

I have recently received an email from Maria Steyn, a close friend of Joan Rice. Maria very kindly supplied information on the life of Joan when I began this web site over a year ago. They spent a great deal of time together in Maidenhead during the 1970’s. But by the late 1980’s Maria lost contact with Joan and her husband Ken McKenzie, due to Joan’s ill health.

Maria was very pleased to read the recent information supplied by Joan’s niece on this web site in January and is keen to get in touch with her, or anybody else who knew Joan and her family. We both appreciate that information like this, is of a very personal nature. So if you would like to contact Maria, please leave an email address at : disneysrobin@googlemail.com and I will pass on her email address to you.

Martitia Hunt

The tall, elegant, velvet voiced Martitia Hunt (1900-1969) was the perfect choice to play the part of Queen Eleanor in Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood (1952). To read the biography of this wonderfully talented actress, please click on the ‘label’ Martita Hunt in the right-hand column or below.

The Play of ‘Robin Hod and the Shryff off Notyngham’

This fragment of a genuine medieval Robin Hood play is written on the upper half of a half sheet of paper (8’’x10’’) containing household accounts from East Anglia dated May 1475-August 1475 and is kept at Trinity College, Cambridge, MS.R.2. 64 (fragment)

This verse play of twenty-one lines is possibly founded on the ballad of ‘Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne,’ although in this document, Robin’s opponent is not mentioned. But included for the first time in the outlaw gang, is ‘ffrere Tuck’. The manuscript was once part of the collection of ‘Paston Papers’ and therefore could be the very play mentioned in 1473 in a letter by Sir John Paston, where he described a re-absconding servant hired to play Robin Hood and Saint George, who had ‘goon into Bernysdale.’

The speakers are not identified in the fragmentary text, so any re-construction is conjectural.

Knight: Syr sheryffe, for thy sake,
Robyn Hode wull I take.

Sheriff: I wyll the gyffe golde and fee;
This be-hest thou holde me. [If you keep this pledge with me]

(The Sheriff leaves and Robin Hood is challenged by the bounty-hunting knight)

Knight: Robyn Hode, ffayre and fre,
Under this lynde shote we.

Robin: With the shot y wyll
Alle thy lustes to full-fyll.

(Robin and the knight fight)

Knight: Have at the pryke! [I shoot at the target]

Robin: And I cleve the styke. [And I cleave the wand]

(Robin wins)

Knight: Let us caste [throw] the stone.

Robin: I graunte well, be Seynt John!

(Robin wins again)

Knight: Let us caste the exaltre.

(They toss a wooden axle)

Robin: Have a foot before the!
Syr Knyght, ye have a falle.

(They wrestle and Robin wins)

Knight: And I the, Robyn, qwyte; [I shall quit you Robin]
Owte on the! I blow myn horne.

Robin: Hit ware better be un-borne: [better not to have been born]
Lat us fight at outtraunce. [let us fight to the uttermost]
He that fleth, God gyfe hym myschaunce!

(Robin kills the knight)

Robin: Now I have the maystry here,
Off I smyte this sory swyre. (Robin cuts off the knight’s head)
This knyghtys clothis wolle I were,
And in my hode his hede woll bere. (Robin disguises himself as the knight)

We are now with two unknown members of Robin’s band of outlaws, probably Little John and Will Scarlet . Outlaw 1 seems to meet Outlaw 2 as he approaches a conflict in the forest between Robin’s men and the Sheriff.

Outlaw 1: Welle mete, felowe myn,
What herst thou of gode Robyn?

Outlaw 2: Robyn Hode and his menye
With the sheryffe takyn be.

Outlaw 1: Sette on foote with gode wyll
And the sheryffe wull we kyll.

(The two outlaws watch the fight going on in the distance)

Outlaw 2: Be-holde wele Frere Tuke*
Howe he dothe his bowe pluke!

*First known mention of Friar Tuck amongst Robin Hood’s outlaw band

(The Sheriff enters with Friar Tuck and the other outlaws as prisoners: he addresses Little John and Scarlet)

Sheriff: Yeld yow, syrs, to the sheryffe,
Or ells shall your bowes clyffe. [be cut]

(Outlaws 1 and 2 surrender to the Sheriff)

Outlaw 1: Now we be bownden alle in same:
Frere Tuke, this is no game.

Sheriff: Come thou forth, thou fals outlawe,
Thou shall be hangyde and y-drawe. [hung and drawn]

Friar Tuck: Now, allas, what shall we doo?
We moste to the prysone goo.

Sheriff: Opyn the gatis faste anon,
And late theis thevys ynne gon. [and let these thieves go inside]

Whistle My Love 45rpm

How about this 'pop pickers!' Elton Hayes singing Whistle My Love on the Decca label at 45rpm. Did you have this in your record collection? What was on the B side?

The Boys' And Girls' Cinema Clubs Annual

Regular contributor Neil Vessey has reminded me of an article about Walt Disney’s 'Story of Robin Hood' in ‘The Boys’ And Girls’ Cinema Clubs Annual’ of 1952. For six shillings this was the fifth edition of an annual for youngsters up and down the country who were members of Saturday Morning Clubs such as Grandiers, ABC Minors, Odeon, Empire Rangers and Gaumont Children’s Cinema Club. This was during an era when twenty five million people went to the ‘pictures’ every week!

It was printed by Juvenile Productions Ltd. of London and was packed full of various articles on the latest stream of movies being released for mainly the younger audiences of the time. Films such as Abbot and Costello in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ Roy Rogers and Trigger in ‘The Golden Stallion’ and Disney’s ‘Lambert the Sheepish Lion.’

But also included were sections on new Hollywood blockbusters of that year, including ‘Ivanhoe’ with Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Taylor, ‘The Crimson Pirate’ starring Burt Lancaster and ‘The African Queen’ with Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Along with all this are some fascinating behind-the-scenes pieces on how the movies were being made at the time and how The Children’s Film Foundation was formed in 1951.

Pages 8-11 outline Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood with eight stills from the movie including four in colour. But what is interesting, is the inside note from the editor-Robert Moss- on two youngsters who visited Denham Studios during the making of Robin Hood:

"Early one bright summer morning I called for Peter Green, a member of the Odeon Children's Cinema Club, at his home in South Norwood, London, and took him across London to the flat where ABC Minor Lavinia Baily lives. Then the three of us went on to Denham Film Studios, in Buckinghamshire, where we were introduced to Richard Todd, the star of Walt Disney's Robin Hood, and to lovely Joan Rice, the Maid Marian of the film, and other members of the cast.

We spent interesting hours on the set watching scenes in the film being shot and discovering some of the secrets of film making: then Richard Todd, resting between shots, called Peter and Lavinia over and told them the story of the film. Whilst he was doing this, we took a photograph of the three of them - and this is the lovely coloured photograph, you see on the front of this annual.

Wasn’t that exciting? You can guess how thrilled Peter and Lavinia were. Later on, we lunched with members of the cast, who were still in costume, so Peter and Lavinia can really claim to have feasted, not only with Robin Hood and his merry men, but with Prince John, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and all! "