Book: Robin Hood And The Witches by Michael Magee
Robin Hood is the King Arthur of the people. The “bitter cry” of the oppressed was echoed in the Old English Chronicle of the days of Stephen and, ignored by court historians and writers of romance, centuries had to elapse before it could find adequate expression in the alliterative lines of Piers Plowman, and in the preaching of the “mad priest of Kent”—one of the earliest among Englishmen, whose words are known to us, to declare for the common and inalienable rights of man.In the civil struggles of the barons’ wars, and in the years that followed, the poetry of the people rose to the surface. The Robin Hood ballads expressed the free life of the outlaw in the greenwood, compared with the effective slavery of the villein, and to the cry of the down-trodden at the callous luxury of the rich. The real condition of the poor is rarely reflected in the Literature of a nation. The unfree in feudal times were voiceless, and the labouring free of later times have been little better. Peasants do not make literature of their wrongs, as a rule. The plowman in the eleventh century dialogue of Alfric had truthfully said:
“I work hard. … Be it never so stark winter I dare not linger at home for awe of my lord. … I have a boy driving the oxen with a goad-iron, who is hoarse with cold and shouting. … Mighty hard work it is, for I am not free.”
Robin's main attraction was that he was free! He was not beholden to feudal lord or the corrupt Church, both manifestations of the wicked world. His only duty was to the king, who stood for the high spiritual God of the heavens. Such myths were heretical in their content and implications…
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Michael Magee - Robin Hood And The Witches
