A traditional moment in the story of Robin Hood as interpreted by Warner Brothers and Walt Disney and cleverly edited together by CinemaMusic55. Enjoy!
Erroll Flynn and Richard Todd
A traditional moment in the story of Robin Hood as interpreted by Warner Brothers and Walt Disney and cleverly edited together by CinemaMusic55. Enjoy!
Blossoms On Every Bough
After one of the longest and hardest winters I can remember, spring has finally arrived here in Merrie England. It was lovely to be able to get out in the garden yesterday, feel the sun on my back and begin planting again ready for the summer. The smell of the blossom, the blue sky and the birds singing cheerfully in the trees makes everyone feel so much better.
How it must have felt for our poor medieval ancestors, emerging from their wooden hovels after managing to survive starvation and disease through a British winter is hard for modern man to comprehend. Everyone, from kings to lowly commoners in those days took part in a variety of celebrations of the dawning spring, when the earth threw off the shackles of winter and new life appeared amidst the May blossom. This was joyously reflected in the village summer games up and down the country and influenced many of our surviving Robin Hood ballads. So, along with some pictures I took last spring, I thought I would take another look at those beautiful opening stanzas and try to recapture some of that spirit.
In somer, when the shawes be sheyne,
And leves be large and long,
Hit is full mery in feyre foreste
To here the foulys song.
To se the dere draw to the dale,
To se the dere draw to the dale,
And leve the hillies hee,
And shadow hem in the leves grene,
Under the grene wode tre.
Hit befell on Whitsontide,
Hit befell on Whitsontide,
Erly in a May mornyng,
The sun up feyre can shyne,
And the briddis mery can syng.
(Robin Hood and the Monk)
In schomer, when the leves spryng,
The bloscems on every bowe,
So merey doyt the berdys syng
Yn wodys merey now.
(Robin Hood and the Potter)
When shawes beene sheene and shradds full fayre,
And leeves both large and long,
Itt is merry, walking in the fayre forrest,
To heare the small birds songe.
The woodweele* sang, and wold not cease,
The woodweele* sang, and wold not cease,
Sitting upon the spraye,
Soe lowed, he wakeneth Robin Hood,
In the greenwood where he lay.
(Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne)
*Possibly the Golden Oriole noted for its singing voice.
A Box of Gems
So I would like to say sorry to those of you who have tried to contact me this week. My computer was infested with nasties and I was almost completely out of action. Luckily my daughter's boyfriend has got me back up and running.
Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining and this week Maria has really cheered me up. She has sent me a collection of stills that are owned by her friend Thys in the Netherlands.
Maria described Thys’s collection as a box of gems-and she is right. The picture of Richard Todd as Robin Hood (above) is my particular favorite and I will be posting more of them very soon.
So a special thanks to Thys for allowing us to see some of his gems!
Greenwood Gone by Wren Song
Regular readers of this blog will know Adele Treskillard. She has many ‘strings to her bow’ and is a member of our merrie band of Whistling Arrows. Not only is Adele a talented author, a traditional harpist and a vocalist in many Celtic languages, she is also currently researching the legend of Robin Hood through the ancient traditions of the ballads and performing them with Wren Song.
Adele formed Wren Song together with her sister Ness, her brother Leighton and her father Robert. They regularly perform traditional Scottish, Irish and Manx music, combined with Gaelic stories and legends accompanied by harp, tin whistle, fiddle, bagpipe and mandolin.
You might recognise the cover of their newly released album ‘Greenwood Gone,’ it was one of the many pictures I took of Burnham Beeches during my visit last year. Adele thought the picture would be perfect for the concept of the album.
Adele said, “It almost looks like a doorway! So the concept would be that Robin & Little John are to the 'greenwood gone' to hunt the wren, or that there is a path that leads to the greenwood, through which others can go. Or that we speak of the "Greenwood Gone" by, in terms of, the ancient legend of Robin Hood ... or that the Greenwood has gone. So there would be multiple interpretations.”
On her blog, Adele translated the 5th track on the album, the beautiful Scottish song ‘Iain Ghlinn Cuaich’ from Gaelic into English:
"Oh! Iain of Glen Cuaich, it is not often that one encounters you’re like,
That ringletted head of hair tight curled to the roots.
It was your beautiful handsome appearance that left me love-sick,
And there is no fault to be noted about you from head to toe.
I can’t begin to express a third of your worth,
Better to catch a glimpse of your face,
Than the new grown dew laden forest in sun.
The desire of my eyes is to catch close sight of you,
My love deserves a crowned heiress under him.
Iain, Iain, my love, why did you turn your back on me?
Without a thought for the love we once had?
I never gave my respect to any other man under the sun but you,
And neither will I, until my body is under the ground…."
The wonderfully evocative tracks on Wren Song's new album Greenwood Gone are:
1. Mountain Dew
2. Be Thou My Vision
3. Mo Thruaigh Léir
4. Coisich A Rùin
5. Iain Ghlinn Cuaich
6. Sí Do Mhaimeó í
7. I Hunt The Wren
8. Casadh an tSúgáin
9. Stitches and Britches
10. Shaunnie o’ Braidalaw
11. Robin Y Righ
12. Scotland The Brave
More details of Wren Song’s new album ‘Greenwood Gone' can be found at http://www.wrensong.org/Greenwood_Gone/Album.htm
I am sure we will be hearing a lot more from Adele and Wren Song in the future!
Joan Rice's First Orchids
The back of the picture explains that Richard is giving Joan her ‘first orchids’.
Was it an old theatrical tradition for the leading man to give his leading lady orchids when they sign their contracts? Perhaps my readers could let me know.
Tales of Robin Hood (1951)
The year before Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood opened in London; Hal Roach Jnr’s Tales of Robin Hood was released in the USA through Lippert Pictures Inc. Film production began on 17th August 1951 at the Hal Roach studios and it was released in the USA on 21st December of that same year. (IMDb dates differ).
I must confess I have never seen this version (so if you know where I can get a copy, please let me know!) but it has been described by some as low-budget and more like a television episode! This could be due to the fact that it was rumoured to have been considered originally as a pilot for a TV series, but the series never materialized, so it was released to theatres.
Some scenes were shot on the set that had been created for the 1950 Sierra Pictures film Joan of Arc, directed by Victor Fleming and starring Ingrid Bergman.
Cast
Robert Clarke - Robin Hood
Mary Hatcher - Maid Marian
Paul Cavanagh - Sir Guy [de Clermont]
Wade Crosby - Little John
Whit Bissell - Will Stutely
Ben Welden - Friar Tuck
Robert Bice - Will Scarlet
Keith Richards - Sir Alan
Bruce Lester - Alan A. Dale
Tiny Stowe - Sheriff of Nottingham
Lester Matthews - Sir [Hugh] Fitzwalter
John Vosper - Earl of Chester
Norman Bishop - Much
Margia Dean - Betty
Lorin Raker - Landlord
George Slocum - Captain of the guards
John Doucette - Wilfred
John Harmon - Robber
Matt McHugh - Guard
David Stollery - Robin as a boy
____________________
CREW
• James Tinling - Director
• Hal Roach, Jr. - Producer
• George Robinson - Cinematographer
• Leon Klatzkin - Composer (Music Score)
• McClure Capps - Art Director
• Richard C. Currier - Editor
• Author: LeRoy H. Zehren
Richard the Lionheart
Few kings are remembered by their epithet and not their number. Since I was young, Richard the Lionheart has always fascinated me. He was played by Patrick Barr (1908-1985) in Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood and TV’s Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-1960), but before Barr there is a whole host of actors that have played Coeur de Lion stretching right back to the days of the Tudor stage, the golden days of cinema and up to modern television. These include: Arthur Hollingworth, Wallace Beery, Ian Hunter, George Sanders, Norman Wooland, Patrick Holt, Dermot Walsh, Peter Ustinov (Voice), Robert Hardy, Sean Connery, John Rhys Davies, and Steve Waddington.
Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199) remains a king of colourful legend and mythology like King Arthur, and continues to be ensconced with the stories of Robin Hood. He has been described by some historians as the greatest king of England in the Middle Ages, his brother John-the worst. No other English or British monarch comes close to him in terms of his impact on the wider world. The Muslims (Saracens) knew him as him Melek-Ric or Malek al-Inkitar-King of the English.Winston Churchill described him as:
“Worthy, by the consent of all men, to sit with King Arthur and Roland and other heroes of martial romance at some Eternal Round Table, which we trust, The Creator of the Universe in His comprehension will not have forgotten to provide."
But what was this powerful king’s character really like? Richard was born on 8th September 1157 at Oxford, but the next twelve years of Richard’s life is shrouded in mystery. Ralph of Diceto implies that this son was special to his mother Eleanor from birth, recalling one of the ancient prophecies of Merlin, which in the twelfth century were widely believed to apply to Henry II and his feuding family: ‘The eagle of the broken covenant shall rejoice in her third nesting.’ Eleanor was the eagle, the broken covenant - the dissolution of her marriage to Louis and the third nesting was the birth of her third son, Richard. Richard was certainly Eleanor’s favourite and he shared his mother’s love of show and sophistication. Her documents always describe him as her ‘very dear son, while her younger son, John-his father’s favourite-only managed a ‘dear son’ at best.
Richard was the third son of King Henry II (1133-1189) and his glamorous, strong-minded consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) without doubt one of the most extraordinary women of her age and the mother in the archetypal dysfunctional family-the so-called ‘Devil’s Brood.’ The new prince would be known in his own lifetime as Richard the Lionhearted. Gerald of Wales commented that his father ‘Henry was a shield but Richard was a hammer.’ Like his father he understood the world of devastated castles and of sore legs from being constantly in the saddle. Also like Henry, Richard was never interested in tournaments, only the screams and excitement of real warfare. He soon proved his generalship while still a teenager in the bitter struggles to bring the uncontrollable vassals of Aquitaine to heel. He was second in line to inherit his parents’ joint empire, including not just England and Normandy but duchies and other ancient fiefdoms stretching right down to the Spanish peninsula.
Coeur de Lion was capable of writing verse in French and the language of southern France-Provencal. He could speak Latin well enough to crack a Latin joke at the expense of the less learned Archbishop of Canterbury. Like Eleanor, Richard enjoyed music and could while away the hours in his German prison writing songs. He is often described as a Renaissance man before the Renaissance. When the clerks of the royal chapel were singing in choir, he would often walk among them urging them, with voice and hand, to sing with great gusto.
But Richard seems to have inherited his sense of humour from his father, who was known to chuckle a great deal. William of Newburgh rather critically said that the Lionheart ‘turned everything into a joke and made his listeners laugh uncontrollably’. Although the full quota of the infamous Plantagenet temper also flowed through his veins.
John Gillingham, emeritus professor of medieval history at the London School of Economics explains,’ Richard of course, enjoyed war, and no war could bring greater prestige to the warrior than the war against the Saracens, the war in the Holy Land, the centre of the Christian world. On this battle ground no act of bravery, no chivalrous deed, would go unnoticed. But it would be a mistake to think that Richard was indifferent to religion and to the attractions of a plenary indulgence..........on two occasions were recorded by Roger of Howden when Richard went through a religious and emotional crisis.’
Arab historian Baha ad-Din wrote that Richard was, 'a man of great courage and spirit. He had fought great battles and showed a burning passion for war. His kingdom and standing were inferior to those of the French king, but his wealth, reputation and valour were greater.’ He was undoubtedly a leader men could follow, just as his severity made him a king to be feared. When Prince John’s castellan of Mont St Michel heard that King Richard had returned to England after his captivity, he dropped dead from fright.
19th century image of Richard I leaving for the Holy Land
‘He was tall, of elegant build; the colour of his hair was between red and gold; his limbs were supple and straight. He had quite long arms which were particularly suited to drawing a sword and wielding it to great effect. His long legs matched the rest of his body.’
Richard was slightly overweight in his later years, frequently sick and suffered from a continual shaking in his hands from some kind of malarial fever that nothing seemed to control. Gerald of Wales wrote: ‘While thus almost continually trembling, he remained intrepid in his determination to make the whole world tremble before him.’
He had a lifelong habit of chivalric gestures. His favourite weapon on the battlefield was the long reaching mace and is stated to have said, "I am born of a rank which recognizes no superior but God". But the Lionheart was also said to be fond of quoting the Angevin family legend "From the Devil we sprang and to the Devil we shall go."
In modern times Richard’s personality has received a complete mix of opinions from historians and scholars. Recent media interpretations of the Lionheart have not been all that flattering to him either, compared to the glorious king in shining armour that returns to rescue downtrodden England from the clutches of his evil brother and reward Robin Hood in the golden days of cinema.
Today Richard I is portrayed as the absent King who was willing to sell London, couldn’t speakEnglish, taxed the country to its knees to pay for his ransom and crusade and was probably...........homosexual.
I had a small discussion with someone on a forum a while ago about this modern view of Richard:
STEVE: “Richard was a great warrior and he captured the imagination for this reason, but he was a poor king for England. His ransom of 150,000 marks was a ruinous amount, especially following so closely on the money that the country had been obliged to pay for his Crusade.
To me he is no hero because while he was capable of isolated noble gestures he also committed many ignoble acts. His massacre of Turkish prisoners, being just one example of his worst. He also committed atrocities against his subjects in Europe and his European enemies. The misfortune of his capture and ransom was brought on by his own actions. He alienated himself from Leopold of Austria by casting his standard from the walls of Acre because Leopold was not a King.
He was also believed to have played a part in arranging the assassination of Leopold's cousin. In many ways he was like a talented sportsman of modern times, idolised because of the success he has achieved in his sport, but who has set a bad example in his private life. Having said that, Richard's success was all for nothing. The Crusade failed and his continental gains were soon lost.
Clement: I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Firstly, surely we should judge Richard through the eyes of someone in the twelfth century, not a modern sportsman, but a medieval monarch. By the standards of the time Richard was right to spend his reign fighting for the Angevin Empire and for Jerusalem. The Holy Cross, a most sacred relic had been captured, and the flourishing Holy Christian City was invaded. For a Christian Prince it was right and expected that he should attempt to appease the wrath of God and re-capture the Holy City from the infidel.
Within months, the campaign to raise an army to recapture it was in full swing right across Europe, not just in England. It was his father who has set up the 'Saladin Tithe' to help pay for the Crusade. Yes the beheading of the Muslim garrison of Acre was, barbarous and horrific. But once again we have to look through the eyes of a Christina King of the twelfth century. The lives of the unbelievers were of no account. They were, in any case doomed to hell. In the words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 'the Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified.'
Yes the ransom was a phenomenal amount. But one reason why England was better able to afford the ransom was for the first time in history it was beginning to suffer the first signs of serious inflation. Although they didn't realise it at the time, removing a quarter of the nation's money from circulation provided just the deflationary shock that needed to calm the inflation that was beginning to eat its way into everyday life. Also taxation for Richard's ransom had a profound effect on English government. It marked the beginning of a shift from feudal payments to the very start of taxing income.”
Steve: ‘I suppose we have to put aside the truth about Richard in the context of Robin Hood and see him as the Richard of legend. My own knowledge of King Richard originally came from Robin Hood and other fictions and consequently I saw him as a great hero. When I learned about the historical facts of his life and the nature of the man I was disappointed with him. He fell far short of the mythic hero we had been presented with.”
How do we judge a medieval king? Looking through the eyes of our ancestors is something very difficult to do, particularly from our own centrally heated, double glazed, hi-tech world. For example, what about this question regarding Richard’s sexuality? Historians have debated this since the eighteenth century, fuelled by the accounts of his stay in Paris when he used to share a bed with Philip Augustus himself.
But this in itself is evidence of nothing very much-people regularly shared beds in the twelfth century. If you were to stay in a medieval hall at this time it was not unusual to find several beds accommodating two or three or even more men. Women were also expected to share the same quarters.
Effigie of Richard I in Fontevrault Abbey
The historian John Gillingham, one of the best authorities on the life of Richard I, described the act of Richard and Philip sleeping together as "an accepted political act, nothing sexual about it; ... a bit like a modern-day photo opportunity." Henry II and William Marshall also did likewise and the heterosexual credentials of Henry are unimpeachable.
In the aftermath of the terror attacks on the United States, President George W Bush described the ‘War on Terror’ as a ‘Crusade.’ This was regarded as an unfortunate choice of words by political commentators and did very little to reduce tensions with the countries in the Middle East, who regard Westerners as aggressive invaders. Bush was quickly condemned. And it is in these highly sensitive times that Richard I of England has become low profile and regarded little more than a particularly violent king who spent nearly all his reign abroad, leaving Robin Hood to rescue his kingdom from his evil brother.
But, historical evidence shows us that Richard was without doubt one of the greatest statesmen and warriors of the medieval age, hence his status in myth and legend. Yes, he was absent from England for most of his reign, but England was only a small part of his domains. Most modern scholars now have to agree that in the short period he was in England he performed wonders of diplomacy and statesmanship. His relations with the Celtic fringes; Ireland, Scotland and Wales remained largely trouble free and the efficiency of the English administration was remarkable. It is also sometimes forgotten that Richard ‘the absent king’ also managed to place a financial and administrative genius and at the head of his Exchequer and government, when he delegated Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury as his right arm. Walter became one of the most outstanding government ministers in English history.
Three Robin Hood Jigsaw Puzzles
It really is great to have a number of regular blog readers (our merry band of Whistling Arrows) who not only are fans of Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood (1952), but also collect memorabilia from the film. So when Neil had a tidy-up recently, he re-discovered and sent me images of three 58 year old jigsaw puzzles depicting scenes from our favourite film, that will certainly make us all go Lincoln green with envy!
A year ago I posted a picture of one of these exquisitely painted puzzles showing Richard Todd as Robin Hood firing his bow. I thought at the time that the style of the artist is very similar to the artwork on the original film poster of 1952. Perhaps we will never know for sure, but in the meantime we can just admire these three excellent examples of Disneyana, courtesy of Neil.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the original artwork!
To see more memorabilia from Walt Disney's 'Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men,' please click on the Label 'Memorabilia' below.
The Number 1 Robin Hood Website
One of the initial searches I did on my first visit to the World Wide Web, all those years ago, was to key in the name ‘Robin Hood,’ to see what came up. The top site that appeared on my screen was Allen Wright’s ‘Robin Hood Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood.’ Since that first visit I have lost count of how many times I have read his various features and interviews or entered the forum to discuss various aspects of the legend on his web site. Today Allen’s multi award winning web site remains the number one place to visit for students and everyone else interested in finding out about the world’s most popular outlaw. It is THE Robin Hood web site.
As someone still fascinated by the history behind the legend and now with a blog of my own, I have often thought about contacting Allen. So it was quite a surprise to find myself inadvertently talking to him via Word Press a few weeks ago. I was also taken aback when he said that he thought my blog was ‘fantastic’ and would link it to his site!
So grasping the opportunity I asked Allen when he first began his website and he very kindly sent me this detailed history of its origins:
"The official beginning of my site was in Feb. 1997 back on Geocities. I created it back in the day when personal sites were the equivalent of Facebook pages - just a "hey, look at me" page and it was supposed to have only a couple links to Robin Hood. But I think Ben Turner's site (which I had visited before) was down at the time, and I don't know if Rochester's site was online yet. It certainly seemed to me at the time that there were no sites covering the Robin Hood legend as a whole. Most of the ones were dedicated to Robin of Sherwood or even the Rochester site primarily focused on the ballads. It felt wrong to me, because there were dozens of detailed sites covering the whole scope of the Arthurian legend and I felt Robin Hood deserved the same.
If Ben's site hadn't crashed in early 1997, I might never have felt the need to create mine.
It was called "Robin Hood - Famed Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood" for about six months and for a while was one page with a few half-finished articles and some links.
There was a time when I thought I'd put the whole site - the growth of the legend, the real Robin Hoods, the links (which were what the site was back in the beginning) all on one page. I must have been insane. By late 1997, it was closer to what it eventually became and I had renamed it to "Bold Outlaw".
The earliest Internet Archive I can find at the moment is from Jan. 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19990117024612/http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4198/rhood.html
It reveals the past in all its garish glory. Yellow on green leaves - what was I thinking? Thankfully, my friend Alison Carter redesigned the look for me in early 2000.
And then I moved it to the http://www.boldoutlaw.com/ URL in 2004, and I tweaked it a bit to have its present look.
I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't know about Robin Hood. Certainly as a child, there were some versions I absolutely loved. I must have been about six or seven when I saw a Robin Hood panto. Pantos aren't quite as common in Canada as the UK, but from what little I can remember, I think it conformed to the standard panto. Dames, audience participation ("Duck!" "What, no I told you it's Tuck! Friar Tuck!" "Duck!") and the like. Also, there were two children's books, the Rocket Robin Hood cartoon and a movie which was likely the Errol Flynn film (although the Flynn movie doesn't quite match my jumbled memories). What's not to love about Robin? He's a witty, dynamic trickster hero with a strong streak of social justice.
In high school, I thought about how the legend had always appealed to me and did my big "independent study" on it. That's when I first read J.C. Holt, Dobson & Taylor, etc. and really got a sense of how legends grew and changed over time. I don't think Robin Hood's unique in its development over time. But usually we aren't taught about development. We're taught myths and legends (for example, the Greek myths) as if the version on hand is the only one. And it was a real eye-opener to realize that things weren't that simple. At the same time, I started watching my first episodes of Robin of Sherwood. They featured elements like the Earl of Huntingdon and Adam Bell which I had just researched for that school project. It was really that combination of research and finding Robin of Sherwood just at the right moment that turned a fondly-remembered childhood favourite into the lifelong interest it is now.”
(Allen W Wright)
I would like to say a big thank you to Allen for placing a link on his web site to my blog. It really is a thrill and a great honour. His excellent website can be found at http://www.boldoutlaw.com/ Also, a very special thank you goes out to my regular contributors, who help make my blog what it is.
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