MAJOR OAK OF SHERWOOD FOREST
Robin Hood Legend in Nottingham
Robin Hood, the legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire in the midlands of England has made his way into all sorts of legends, entertainment stories and social consciousness, without a doubt one of the most famous of historical characters who may or may not have ever existed. His story has been told in books, poems and movies, from Errol Flynn’s iconic portrayal in the 1940s Warner Brothers film, sword dueling with Basil Rathbone, (more familiar as Sherlock Holmes), to the comic Mel Brooks version of “Men in Tights”, a recent TV science fiction incarnation which had him fighting a dragon, to the big budget extravaganza with Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott giving the medieval hero the “Gladiator” treatment in a revision of history (see Nottingham Castle Legends).
The new film version of “Robin Hood”, mostly focused on events before the merry men part of the legend, was shot partly in the Nottingham area had its premier in the environs of Sherwood Forest where the spirit of Robin Hood exists in statues and one legendary tree, known as the Major Oak. Large sections of the once vast forest called Sherwood which spread north from the city of Nottingham have long since fallen to the woodsman’s ax, though an English public park remains protecting a grove of the vernal woods surrounding a massive gnarled oak tree, over 1,000 years old and so bent with age, its branches must be supported by steel spars where, as the story is told, Robin Hood hid in a cavity from his pursuers. The Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve Park has a public center with activities for kids revolving around nature and the heroic legend, with the primary features being a Robin Hood exhibit, a restaurant and nature trails. The Major Oak tree is a 15 minute walk deep into the thick protecting woods, past many other aged oaks which seem as likely candidates. The major oak is guarded by a wooden fence, with a picnic area cleared before it, for contemplating its bent and craggy branches while gnawing on a purloined chicken leg. Entrance to the park, open from April to October, is free with a nominal charge for parking in busy summer seasons.
Who was the real Robin Hood? What we know most familiarly of Robin Hood is as a minor Saxon English lord, hiding in the woods with his band of outlaws, his land and title taken by the Normans, done injustice by the Sheriff of Nottingham, under the tyranny of Prince John attempting to usurp his brother’s throne while Richard the Lionheart was being held for ransom on his return from the third Crusade (see Varazdin Castle), comes to us from the anonymous tales of middle-ages troubadours and later fictionalizations. The story of a wronged man seeking redress of social injustice by taking from the rich to give to the poor, fighting for rights of the downtrodden is a powerful idea which has resonated and inspired over the ages. Yet, like many grand characters from a dark and lost history, the historical person of the legend seems most likely a combination of figures - a real outlaw who hid out in the forest hunted by Reginald de Grey (see Ruthin Castle Wales), a Sheriff of Nottingham who was paid 100 marks in 1272 to "rid the counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire of robbers who molest religious and other persons and spoil them of their sport", and perhaps a nobleman named Robert or Robin Hode of Loxley, from a hundred years later in Yorkshire, pardoned by Richard II in 1382 for his conflict with Sir John of Gisburne. A number of other sources for the legend are subject to debate, the longest suggested to be an earlier Earl of Huntingdon whose grave at Kirklees Priory in West Yorkshire bears a marker to such effect. Robin Hood is claimed by both Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, though the edge in the PR war over ownership of England’s most famous romantic hero belongs to Nottingham and the onetime Royal Hunting Forest of Sherwood, where game would have been plenty for England's greatest archer and a great tree still stands.
The Sherwood
Forest National Reserve is about a half hour drive from Nottingham
with the entrance just
at the edge of the the village of Edwinstowe, a suburb
of Mansfield. There are several small hotels and bed & breakfasts in
the area as well as camping parks. On a Robin Hood tour, a visit to the Sherwood
Forest park might be combined with other area historic attractions, Rufford
Abbey,
a
county
park also with free entry, Newstead Abbey, home of England’s
other most famous of notorious romantic figures, Lord Byron (see Bryon’s
Newstead Abbey) and in Nottingham itself, where the Sheriff
of Nottingham would have controlled the surrounding land, the once nearly
invincible Nottingham
Castle is mostly gone, replaced with a 17th Century manor house and museum,
you'll find more Robin Hood statues and lore. Below is the tunnel which led
to the downfall of England’s other great would be usurper, Roger de
Mortimer, known as Mortimer’s Hole (see Traitor's
Gate to Mortimer's Hole). © Bargain
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