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Was There A Real Robin Hood? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
0:16
Speaker 1: We're just horsing around saying who's ah, who's are Actually
0:23
Speaker 1: I think people might like a little recree of what
0:25
Speaker 1: just happened. Let's hear it. Jerry said, I need to
0:29
Speaker 1: check levels. We didn't really say anything, and she went,
0:31
Speaker 1: all right, you ready? And you said we didn't say
0:33
Speaker 1: anything for levels. She said, I don't need you to
0:36
Speaker 1: say anything. She's like, in fact, I needed to stop talking. Yeah,
0:41
Speaker 1: And then I had to wait until she said start talking.
0:43
Speaker 1: She mouthed, start talking, monkey, goodness me, is that where
0:47
Speaker 1: we are? How's it going? It's good. I just want
0:52
Speaker 1: to before we really get started, check on the point something.
0:54
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you know this or not. Boy,
0:56
Speaker 1: you have a paper clip holding your glasses together. At first,
1:01
Speaker 1: I was like, is he just storing the paper clip?
1:03
Speaker 1: And I thought, no, he's not storing a paper clip
1:05
Speaker 1: and keep that tucked in his cheek. If he were
1:07
Speaker 1: just storing it like everything else the story, it's on
1:10
Speaker 1: the arm of your glasses where your glasses meet the
1:12
Speaker 1: body you see there goes through. It's the it's acting
1:17
Speaker 1: as the screw because the thing, the screw, came out
1:21
Speaker 1: and I need my glasses on in order to put
1:24
Speaker 1: the screw in the glasses. It's quite a conundrum. Were
1:27
Speaker 1: you raised in Oklahoma in the depression? You know why?
1:31
Speaker 1: Because you can get other glasses. Dude, that's how busy
1:34
Speaker 1: I am. I can't go by the glasses store. I
1:36
Speaker 1: don't need new ones. I just need someone with tiny
1:38
Speaker 1: fingers and good vision from Oklahoma could probably help you
1:43
Speaker 1: to put the screw. Ironically, Uh, and this is this
1:47
Speaker 1: works so well. I stuck this the paper clip in there,
1:50
Speaker 1: bent it around and I kind of like it. It
1:53
Speaker 1: is it's handsome. It's a handsome. Look. I think you're
1:55
Speaker 1: gonna start there. Well, I like it. Boy, Um, thanks
2:00
Speaker 1: for playing lunch. So we're talking today. The reason I
2:04
Speaker 1: said Who's Ah? Who's Ah? Is because we're talking Robin Hood?
2:09
Speaker 1: Is that from Robin Hood? No, it's actually from the
2:12
Speaker 1: movie Role Models, the Paul Rudd movie. I like that movie.
2:15
Speaker 1: It's good and I saw it the other day again,
2:17
Speaker 1: good dumb fun. Yeah, I love it. You know he
2:21
Speaker 1: like wrote that Rudd. Yeah he's great. I like Stifflers. Yeah,
2:27
Speaker 1: he's his little buddy in the movie or whatever they
2:30
Speaker 1: call him. Ronnie. Yeah he was Ronnie. Yeah, he's amazing.
2:36
Speaker 1: I expect great, great things from that kid, at least
2:39
Speaker 1: I hope so. Well. Anyway, I was watching Roll Miles
2:41
Speaker 1: the other day and one of the Lark guys comes
2:44
Speaker 1: up and goes, who's ah, And I was like, I
2:47
Speaker 1: always thought it was huzzah. Strickland always says it's dressed
2:52
Speaker 1: up like the King of the Renaissance Festival. Yeah, those
2:55
Speaker 1: Larpe those Larpe scenes were funny too write. But the
2:57
Speaker 1: guy comes up and says, who's ah. So I was like,
3:00
Speaker 1: I can't wait to incorporate that somehow. Robin Hood, here
3:04
Speaker 1: we go, Prince of Thieves. Yeah. And the reason why
3:07
Speaker 1: that would work is because the LARPers were set in
3:09
Speaker 1: the medieval era, and everyone knows Robin Hood set in
3:13
Speaker 1: the medieval era. But actually that's totally incorrect. Yeah, most
3:18
Speaker 1: of the time when you see Robin Hood had set
3:20
Speaker 1: in the Tudor era in England, almost almost invariably in
3:28
Speaker 1: Sherwood Forest, which is a wooded area and about the
3:32
Speaker 1: right smack dab in the center of England. Um, and
3:36
Speaker 1: the everybody running around is acting like it's the fourteen hundreds,
3:41
Speaker 1: maybe the fift hundreds. And that's all well and good.
3:45
Speaker 1: If you're making a Disney version of it, reality just
3:48
Speaker 1: goes right out the window. Right, it's Disney. It's a cartoon,
3:50
Speaker 1: for goodness sake. Everybody lighten up. But it's entirely possible.
3:55
Speaker 1: And there it's a good one. And there are historians
3:58
Speaker 1: who believe that there was a real Robin Hood, and
4:03
Speaker 1: they have spent a lot of time and effort trying
4:05
Speaker 1: to track down exactly who it might be, exactly when
4:09
Speaker 1: he might have lived. And my money, a lot of
4:12
Speaker 1: historians place it right around the beginning of the twelve
4:18
Speaker 1: hundred thirteenth century in England, long before the tutors were
4:22
Speaker 1: ever even a twinkle in anybody's loins. Uh. Here's my
4:27
Speaker 1: bet is that Robin Hood is a an amalgam amalgam
4:33
Speaker 1: of a few dudes that, uh, the writers of history
4:40
Speaker 1: have filled in some blanks and then the writers of
4:42
Speaker 1: literature just like ran with it. Yeah, that's that's my
4:46
Speaker 1: take on it as well, is that it's a few
4:48
Speaker 1: people served as role models for it role models on
4:52
Speaker 1: a new planet, Paul RhoD Is everywhere. But there are
4:56
Speaker 1: some people who still think that there was no such
4:59
Speaker 1: person at all, or maybe even persons might have been
5:02
Speaker 1: wholly created. Sure, but then on the opposite side, there
5:05
Speaker 1: are some people and there are few and far between.
5:08
Speaker 1: From what I can tell, we believe there was a
5:10
Speaker 1: single person named Robin Hood who did most of this
5:14
Speaker 1: stuff and was the basis for these legends that they're
5:17
Speaker 1: called people who want to sell books. So there's right,
5:20
Speaker 1: there's like they're like Robin Hood case closed stamp. There's
5:26
Speaker 1: like a whole spectrum that you can just walk right
5:29
Speaker 1: up and say, I believe this, and you're as right
5:32
Speaker 1: as anybody on the Robin Hood train. Yeah. So if
5:35
Speaker 1: we go back in time, um, you know, I think
5:39
Speaker 1: everyone knows that early historians had a lot of blanks, uh,
5:43
Speaker 1: and they weren't the most reliable narrators because they would
5:46
Speaker 1: just fill them in with stuff they made up. Yeah,
5:49
Speaker 1: because I think they didn't. I don't know if they
5:51
Speaker 1: realized that early on. I'm speculating here that they were
5:55
Speaker 1: really historians, yeah, that they're like recording history. I think
5:58
Speaker 1: it was more like, hey, this is a good story,
6:02
Speaker 1: and I don't know in five hundred years people are
6:05
Speaker 1: going to be taking this as is written history. They're
6:09
Speaker 1: spinning yarn in this case. I don't think that's correct.
6:13
Speaker 1: I think that they were They considered themselves actual historians
6:17
Speaker 1: who were getting to the bottom of history, but they
6:19
Speaker 1: had a worldview, and specifically with robin Hood, it was
6:23
Speaker 1: I think fifteenth century or sixteenth century Scottish historians who
6:28
Speaker 1: were the ones who really kind of gave us the
6:30
Speaker 1: image of robin Hood that was drunk, the robbing from
6:33
Speaker 1: the rich to give to the poor, the chivalry, um,
6:37
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff. Anti establishment. Yeah, that actually
6:41
Speaker 1: was part of it before they had to kind of
6:43
Speaker 1: figure out how to make that one work because it
6:45
Speaker 1: didn't make sense to them at the time. But they
6:47
Speaker 1: basically said, here, we've got these ballads that were written
6:51
Speaker 1: in the hundred's the fourteenth century, and um, we think
6:56
Speaker 1: they're historical, so we're gonna try to put this in context.
7:00
Speaker 1: And the stuff we don't understand, we're just gonna make up,
7:02
Speaker 1: but we're gonna pass it off as real. So there's
7:05
Speaker 1: this if you it's one of those great things like
7:07
Speaker 1: with fairy tales. We know all these Fasure Tales, and
7:10
Speaker 1: you remember we did those those episodes on it. Those
7:12
Speaker 1: are good, but if you strip away the stuff that's
7:14
Speaker 1: been added over the years and get to the bare bones,
7:16
Speaker 1: it's way darker. It's just child abuse. A lot different yeah,
7:19
Speaker 1: and a lot different, um than than what we know
7:22
Speaker 1: and love, as you know, for in this case the
7:25
Speaker 1: robin Hood legend. Right, So if you want to look
7:27
Speaker 1: at literature, like you mentioned these ballads, the actual canon
7:31
Speaker 1: for robin Hood, the very first mentioned is uh one
7:36
Speaker 1: called Piers Plowman p I E. R s like Piers
7:40
Speaker 1: Morgan exactly from William Langland about thirteen seventy seven. Uh,
7:48
Speaker 1: And then there were a host of other ballads, um,
7:51
Speaker 1: and this is all what it was, this Middle English,
7:55
Speaker 1: I think. So is that what you call it? I
7:56
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe even old with like wise for for
8:00
Speaker 1: vowels and things like that like Cannonbury Tales stuff. I
8:02
Speaker 1: really don't know if that's Middle or Old English. Anyway,
8:05
Speaker 1: it's barely legible. It is a little and that is
8:09
Speaker 1: spelled l y T y l L, which is great
8:12
Speaker 1: a little just of robin Hood. That was was that
8:18
Speaker 1: like Sean Connery and maybe dope, Uh, just of robin Hood.
8:24
Speaker 1: That's straight up says Robin Hood. And then a few
8:27
Speaker 1: more robin Hood in the Monk, Robin Hood in the
8:30
Speaker 1: Potter robin Hood, and Guy of Gisborne, and Robin Hood
8:35
Speaker 1: in the Temple of Doom. That one was super dark.
8:39
Speaker 1: It was very dark. The author had just broken up
8:41
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend, and I think that's what brought us
8:43
Speaker 1: the PG. Thirteen rating. It was not mistaken. Um. So
8:50
Speaker 1: whether or not you believe this stuff basically has to
8:53
Speaker 1: do with whether or not these early songs you think
8:57
Speaker 1: are just songs or a matter of history historical record. Yeah,
9:02
Speaker 1: And like that's how before people commonly wrote stuff down.
9:06
Speaker 1: Like at this time when this stuff was being written,
9:08
Speaker 1: the people who are writing it were monks. Those are
9:10
Speaker 1: the only people educated enough to write. UM. But people
9:15
Speaker 1: still pass stories down and they did it through oral histories.
9:18
Speaker 1: So it's entirely possible that these early ballads were meant
9:22
Speaker 1: to We're created to um commemorate a person or people
9:28
Speaker 1: or events or something like that, and then just over
9:31
Speaker 1: time we lost weight a minute. Are these fiction or nonfiction?
9:34
Speaker 1: But you're right, like that's the divide when it comes
9:37
Speaker 1: to approaching UM. Robin Hood from an historical advantage, like
9:42
Speaker 1: are these just totally fiction or are they meant to
9:45
Speaker 1: commemorate something that actually happened. Yeah, and it's easy through
9:49
Speaker 1: today's lens to dismiss these things as songs. But back then,
9:52
Speaker 1: like you're saying, it's like, what better way to remember
9:56
Speaker 1: history than to set it to Uh? Come on, Eileen?
10:01
Speaker 1: Why that man? Why did you just do that? That's
10:03
Speaker 1: a great song. It was the first thousand times I
10:06
Speaker 1: heard it. Oh, you don't like anywhere, you know. That's
10:08
Speaker 1: one of the problems is it's like it's like they
10:11
Speaker 1: just made ten songs in the eighties and that's all
10:13
Speaker 1: you ever hear. There were so many more songs Burning
10:16
Speaker 1: down the house. It was once a great song as well.
10:19
Speaker 1: I'm going to see David burndon Knight. Oh cool. So
10:26
Speaker 1: you won't listen to come On, Aileen, but you'll regurgitate
10:29
Speaker 1: the what's up Budweiser guys from the nineties, I've heard
10:33
Speaker 1: that less frequently. Um, what connection did I hear recently
10:37
Speaker 1: from the guy who directed those I think he's directing
10:39
Speaker 1: movies now or something. The guy who directed those commercials.
10:43
Speaker 1: They're like, you may like, you've never heard of this
10:45
Speaker 1: movie director. But you ever, right, remember these guys Like
10:49
Speaker 1: that was the gist of it. I'm surprised those ads
10:51
Speaker 1: never got like a full movie themselves. It was that
10:56
Speaker 1: that definitely that era, Oh for sure. Remember the Caveman
10:59
Speaker 1: from the Guy co Eds. They had their own TV
11:02
Speaker 1: show for yeah, like for like three episodes see that. Yeah,
11:06
Speaker 1: this totally could have been a TV show. Call it.
11:09
Speaker 1: What's up? Guys? Right, what's happening? Was taken? All right?
11:16
Speaker 1: So where were we we were talking about the talking heads.
11:21
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the forest. Well, the reason we're talking
11:25
Speaker 1: about the forest is because while a character may or
11:29
Speaker 1: may not have existed, the stuff in the ballads definitely
11:33
Speaker 1: bears a strong resemblance actual historical events. Yeah right, Yeah,
11:38
Speaker 1: the forest is significant here because at the time in
11:41
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, um how much it had a percentage
11:44
Speaker 1: of two thirds of the land in England were was
11:48
Speaker 1: forest land And it was sort of a It was
11:52
Speaker 1: a place where the king, it was a place where
11:56
Speaker 1: people could go hide out. So that's where it gets
11:58
Speaker 1: this sort of outlaw uh lore is it was a
12:01
Speaker 1: legit place for outlaws to go do their business, right,
12:04
Speaker 1: but it was also an outlaw hide out because just
12:09
Speaker 1: by hanging out in the forest, you were by definition
12:12
Speaker 1: and outlaw because of those forest laws that were super
12:15
Speaker 1: unpopular among people. You know, forest law means what. I
12:19
Speaker 1: don't know what. I'll tell you what days, what happens
12:22
Speaker 1: in the forest days in the forest, Yeah, unless unless
12:25
Speaker 1: somebody comes out and blabs about what goes on in
12:27
Speaker 1: the forest. Do you remember, like being a kid though,
12:31
Speaker 1: hanging out in the forest, in the woods, like playing.
12:33
Speaker 1: I grew up in on two acres in the woods,
12:35
Speaker 1: so I was always in the woods its own place.
12:39
Speaker 1: So you can imagine like your whole country is like that,
12:42
Speaker 1: and like that's how you're living. You're just an outlaw
12:45
Speaker 1: with your buddies hanging out, having a camp fire every night,
12:49
Speaker 1: eating roast pig that you find wandering around. Yeah, but
12:54
Speaker 1: it was weird because the king could like that was
12:57
Speaker 1: his land where he could go have you know, go
13:00
Speaker 1: hunting and have his his dudes hunting. But it was
13:04
Speaker 1: also lawless in a place to hide. It was weird.
13:08
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on in the forest, right. So
13:10
Speaker 1: the reason why you were just by definition and outlaw
13:13
Speaker 1: if you were hanging out in the forces, because the
13:14
Speaker 1: king had these forest laws that said all this forest,
13:17
Speaker 1: this is mine, this is for my hunting, my friends hunting,
13:21
Speaker 1: and that's it. If you're hanging out in the forest,
13:23
Speaker 1: you're breaking the law. And it was like a big law,
13:26
Speaker 1: and like there were serious punishments for so just being
13:29
Speaker 1: in the forest made you an outlaw. But even more
13:32
Speaker 1: than that, the people who went and lived in the
13:34
Speaker 1: forest weren't like on the run necessarily from the King
13:38
Speaker 1: and the King's officials. They were like at war with
13:41
Speaker 1: the King and the king's officials. This is a time
13:43
Speaker 1: where like just some schmoke like you or me could
13:47
Speaker 1: like wage war directly with the King of England and
13:50
Speaker 1: gave him to come fight us, basically, And that's kind
13:53
Speaker 1: of what happened. And that's why the forest was a
13:55
Speaker 1: backdrop for um all of the robin Hood legends from
13:59
Speaker 1: the beginning of the ballads up to the Um the
14:02
Speaker 1: robin Hood men and Tights, they were all set in
14:06
Speaker 1: the forest. And because this happened, the forest laws were
14:09
Speaker 1: passed and everyone was really upset about it. So, whether
14:12
Speaker 1: it's a metaphor or whether they're saying, like the king
14:15
Speaker 1: did this and we need to commemorate it, or they
14:17
Speaker 1: were just you know, building a foundation for why this
14:20
Speaker 1: action was taking place. The forest like plays a huge role. Yeah,
14:24
Speaker 1: and there's there's a new Robin Hood movie coming out.
14:27
Speaker 1: You know. It's crazy, Like it seems like every couple
14:31
Speaker 1: of years this this just won't die. They're gonna do
14:34
Speaker 1: a new version of it. And there's a new one
14:36
Speaker 1: with the kid from Kidn't Play with kids from Kidn't Play.
14:40
Speaker 1: He's awesome. He does that like jump through is remember
14:44
Speaker 1: held his foot and then jump through the used to that. No,
14:47
Speaker 1: I never could, Yeah, I would just fall flat on
14:50
Speaker 1: my face. Young Chuck was a little more fleet of foot. Uh.
14:54
Speaker 1: It's got the kid from the Kingsman, you know that guy.
14:58
Speaker 1: He plays Robin Hood and Jamie Uh, Jamie Fox is
15:04
Speaker 1: a little John I guess, but it's you know, of
15:06
Speaker 1: course this one he's he's shooting like literally like five
15:10
Speaker 1: arrows at once and they all managed to go in
15:12
Speaker 1: different directions somehow. Oh is it a comedy? No, No,
15:16
Speaker 1: it's real Okay, Like there's guys coming at him from
15:18
Speaker 1: different and so he'll put like three arrows and shoot
15:21
Speaker 1: them at the same time. Yet they'll all like spread
15:24
Speaker 1: out like a machine gun fire or something. Shotgun and
15:27
Speaker 1: for some weird reason, he's going he yeah, every every shot.
15:31
Speaker 1: And then I was looking at movies today just while
15:34
Speaker 1: we're on that, and I totally forgot there was a
15:37
Speaker 1: Russell Crowe version that I didn't even see. I think
15:40
Speaker 1: that was just Robin Hood, right, Robin Hood from like
15:43
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten Scott, Yeah, No, that's not the one.
15:48
Speaker 1: There's one that like historians are like, this is about
15:51
Speaker 1: as close to accurate as we've gotten. Well, I looked
15:54
Speaker 1: up on the Russell crow and then I think the
15:56
Speaker 1: deal is that one is a prequel of sorts because
16:00
Speaker 1: it's it's like the Wars before he became you know,
16:05
Speaker 1: Robin Hood, uh that you know, robson and gives to
16:10
Speaker 1: the poor. I would go check that one out. The
16:12
Speaker 1: one that I was thinking of was from It was
16:14
Speaker 1: directed by John Irvin Um starring Patrick Bergen, remember him,
16:19
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and Uma Thurman. That's the one. The historians
16:23
Speaker 1: are like, this this really the best out of all
16:26
Speaker 1: of them. As I like that movie when it came out,
16:32
Speaker 1: I'll admit it. I saw JFK on the plane to
16:35
Speaker 1: Australia and I gotta tell you, as it came up,
16:38
Speaker 1: a Costner fan with that one guy is a great actor.
16:41
Speaker 1: You fell in love all over again. Yeah, well, I
16:44
Speaker 1: specifically avoid a draft day so I could leave the
16:47
Speaker 1: door open to be a fan again. Yeah yeah, that's funny.
16:50
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I'll remember was that preview for draft day.
16:54
Speaker 1: That's all I saw, too. But I just remember that
16:56
Speaker 1: they built up in that previews it's about the NFL drafts,
17:00
Speaker 1: something so big, Like I can't believe that happened. It's
17:02
Speaker 1: gonna I was like, what did they like kill somebody
17:05
Speaker 1: in the draft room? Now they drafted calling Kaepernick Kaepernick,
17:09
Speaker 1: that's so you Kaepernick. Whatever, Let's take a break. I
17:15
Speaker 1: feel like we're off the rails and we're lost in
17:17
Speaker 1: the forest. Yeah, and we'll come back right utter this
17:20
Speaker 1: watch why Ska. But you should know that hyk you
17:34
Speaker 1: should know y ska that you should know knows. But
17:43
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, by the way, I want to say, I
17:46
Speaker 1: admire calling Kaepernick or Kaepernick, and I meant no disrespect
17:50
Speaker 1: by saying his name. You're right, that is just so me.
17:53
Speaker 1: Of course I knew you're kneeling right now. In fact,
17:56
Speaker 1: I know that you knew, but I just wanted to
17:58
Speaker 1: sure you know um all right, so they're in the forest.
18:03
Speaker 1: The forest makes historical sense, like we pointed out, that's
18:06
Speaker 1: where outlaws did their bidding. Um. And now we should
18:11
Speaker 1: talk about the king because it's sort of not all
18:16
Speaker 1: over the map. But there's a few a few people
18:19
Speaker 1: that some historians believe could have been the King of note. Yeah,
18:23
Speaker 1: but what's what's weird is if you read those original
18:26
Speaker 1: ballads that are spelled all crazy, they mentioned the king once.
18:30
Speaker 1: Out of all of them, there's just one mention of
18:32
Speaker 1: the king, and they they refer to him as Edward
18:35
Speaker 1: are comely King, Yeah, which I think is Edward three. Right,
18:39
Speaker 1: that's what some historians say, Uh, if you take the
18:43
Speaker 1: ballads that face value and that they were written contemporaneously
18:46
Speaker 1: to Robin Hood's exploits, right, But a lot of people,
18:50
Speaker 1: and even in the popular um culture, the kings that
18:54
Speaker 1: are most associated with the Robin Hood legend are Richard
18:58
Speaker 1: the Lion Heart and his brother, the sniveling villain, King John.
19:02
Speaker 1: He's always sniveling and weney in the mo and so
19:04
Speaker 1: in the in the robin Hood legends, Robin Hood frequently
19:08
Speaker 1: helped Richard the Lionheart regain his throne from King John.
19:12
Speaker 1: Who had scheme to get it away from him. King
19:14
Speaker 1: John's the villain. King King really Robin Hood's the hero,
19:18
Speaker 1: but King Richard's like the backup hero. Um. But they
19:22
Speaker 1: they think that it's possible, and some of the best
19:26
Speaker 1: candidates for who Robin Hoo was based on. Actually we're
19:29
Speaker 1: running around and interacting with the real life King John,
19:33
Speaker 1: if not also King Richard too. Yeah, but that doesn't
19:38
Speaker 1: make sense time wise, right, because unless they just took
19:41
Speaker 1: a while to get around to writing these stories, because
19:44
Speaker 1: they were around a hundred years before the first Robin
19:47
Speaker 1: Hood ballad started appearing, right, which, in my opinion, lends
19:51
Speaker 1: credence to the idea that the ballads are folklore based
19:55
Speaker 1: on actual events, because that time span is just about
20:00
Speaker 1: not enough for things to be kind of changed and
20:02
Speaker 1: compressed and added to and um for a folklore to develop.
20:07
Speaker 1: Like think about if you're describing like an outlaw, Like
20:10
Speaker 1: if you or I like wrote something about Billy the
20:12
Speaker 1: Kid based on stuff we'd heard, what will we come
20:16
Speaker 1: up with? It'd be close, but it wouldn't be like accurate,
20:20
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, that's a good point. Uh. Richard though,
20:23
Speaker 1: had a pretty interesting story um when he died and
20:27
Speaker 1: this is something that is not lower but is uh
20:31
Speaker 1: is close to recorded fact as we can get. He
20:33
Speaker 1: was walking around the perimeter of a chateau in France,
20:38
Speaker 1: um where he that was just there was a battle
20:40
Speaker 1: going on, basically didn't have I get the feeling that
20:43
Speaker 1: it was sort of winding down. So he may have
20:45
Speaker 1: d chainmailed and was like just airing out his armpits
20:49
Speaker 1: or something. And he was shot with a crossbow in
20:54
Speaker 1: the shoulder. Ordinarily might not have been a big deal,
20:57
Speaker 1: but it turned gangrenous. Uh. And some people say as
21:02
Speaker 1: he was dying, he said, bring me the man who
21:04
Speaker 1: shot me, and they bring the man and he like
21:07
Speaker 1: forgave him and said spare this man. I may die,
21:09
Speaker 1: but do not do anything to him. But that's not
21:12
Speaker 1: how it turned out, is it. It's not. The guy's
21:15
Speaker 1: named Peter Basil. And after the king died, Uh, everybody
21:19
Speaker 1: turned to Peter Basil and it was like, you're know
21:21
Speaker 1: you're dead, right, He's like, I probably figured it's yeah.
21:24
Speaker 1: It's like I was really hoping that wasn't the case.
21:26
Speaker 1: But but didn't. Didn't you hear him? He just said right, mother,
21:31
Speaker 1: But they flayed him alive, which meant peeling the skin
21:33
Speaker 1: off of his head while he was alive, and then
21:36
Speaker 1: after he endured a lot of agony, they hanged him
21:40
Speaker 1: without the skin because I'm sure they peeled it off
21:42
Speaker 1: of his neck as well. Imagine how bad a hanging
21:44
Speaker 1: would be. But then without your skin on your neck,
21:49
Speaker 1: adding insult to injuries what it is? Yeah, So it
21:52
Speaker 1: was custom at the time that you bury um the
21:55
Speaker 1: king in different places, which sounds really horrific now, but
22:00
Speaker 1: he was. He was cut up in buried different places,
22:02
Speaker 1: heart in Normandy, his entrails and shallows and apparently the
22:08
Speaker 1: rest of his remains in anjou. Right. So that was
22:13
Speaker 1: a good brother. Yeah, that was Richard the lion Heart.
22:16
Speaker 1: So he wasn't like deposed by his brother John. Um,
22:21
Speaker 1: he actually died. He he was king for two years
22:25
Speaker 1: after their father. Um what was his name, Henry, I
22:30
Speaker 1: believe Henry the second? Yeah, Henry the second? Right? Yeah, Okay,
22:34
Speaker 1: So um, after Henry the Second died, Richard took over
22:37
Speaker 1: for two years. Then he dies and then John uh
22:40
Speaker 1: ascends to the throne terror and John was like he's
22:44
Speaker 1: known among historians is the worst king England's ever had. Yeah,
22:48
Speaker 1: he was like you said he was paranoid, he was
22:52
Speaker 1: had no scruples, he was humorless. Um, he was just
22:57
Speaker 1: not a good guy. They point out in this article
22:59
Speaker 1: you sent he was the opposite of Robin Hood and
23:01
Speaker 1: that he took from the rich and the poor and
23:04
Speaker 1: just gave it to himself. I actually wrote that, did
23:06
Speaker 1: you write that? Very well done, thank you, Thank you everybody.
23:10
Speaker 1: It sounded like a Josh Clark line. And in the movies,
23:13
Speaker 1: like John's always just sort of a just that he's
23:16
Speaker 1: sort of a whiny baby. He is, but he's also
23:18
Speaker 1: very powerful and very evil and deadly, yes and vindictive,
23:22
Speaker 1: right yeah, so um, this is in real life. That's
23:25
Speaker 1: how he's remembered and described. He was very well known
23:28
Speaker 1: for being a heavy taxer. He would take your state
23:31
Speaker 1: and he would use these funds to like enrich himself
23:33
Speaker 1: basically like you're saying, Um, But he was the the
23:38
Speaker 1: noble or he was the king that the nobles rebelled
23:42
Speaker 1: against and forced to sign the Magna Carta. That was John.
23:46
Speaker 1: That means that he was such a bad king that
23:49
Speaker 1: his own people rose up and took London hostage and
23:53
Speaker 1: forced him to negotiate with them, and he signed this
23:56
Speaker 1: document that forms the basis of civil and individual liberties
24:01
Speaker 1: in the Western world. You know, the Magnet cart As
24:04
Speaker 1: signed in twelve fifteen, So John was forced to sign that,
24:07
Speaker 1: and this rebellion is kind of um part of the
24:10
Speaker 1: robin Hood legend as well. Yeah, he wasn't cool, no,
24:15
Speaker 1: but just everything going on around him was cool. And
24:18
Speaker 1: I think that the point of John, and the reason
24:22
Speaker 1: why I think that that that he was part of
24:24
Speaker 1: the basis of the robin Hood legend historically, is that
24:27
Speaker 1: prior to John, when his father was king, there was
24:31
Speaker 1: a respect for the rule of law and things were
24:35
Speaker 1: just kind of run well, like the king didn't act
24:39
Speaker 1: above the law. Well, King John was very much not
24:42
Speaker 1: like that. He was above the law and acted like
24:44
Speaker 1: it and flaunted it. So when his father was around,
24:47
Speaker 1: the idea of an outlaw and al law was a villain.
24:50
Speaker 1: By the time John took over, um or after John
24:54
Speaker 1: took over, that had reversed. The outlaw was in opposition
24:58
Speaker 1: to the king. The law was what was corrupt, and
25:01
Speaker 1: so John's reign kind of gave this fertile ground for
25:04
Speaker 1: a legend like robin Hood, an outlaw hero to develop,
25:08
Speaker 1: possibly for the first time in Western culture. Yeah, it
25:11
Speaker 1: was prime time for something like this to take hold.
25:14
Speaker 1: So as far as who Robin Hood may have been, um,
25:18
Speaker 1: historians have tossed a lot of people into the into
25:20
Speaker 1: the pot over the years, uh, and most of them
25:24
Speaker 1: have some variation of that name. Um, there was a
25:29
Speaker 1: Robin with a y hod h o d um. A
25:33
Speaker 1: Robert Hood or robertis not bad. That was Gilbert Robin Hood? Sure,
25:41
Speaker 1: why not with a y n um. So all these
25:44
Speaker 1: historians are like, oh, it's got to be these three guys, right, yeah,
25:47
Speaker 1: Robin Hood with a you. But here's what some other
25:51
Speaker 1: folks have finally said, is you know what I think
25:54
Speaker 1: That name is not a name, but it is a
25:56
Speaker 1: term uh for an outlaw. So it was created and
26:02
Speaker 1: there's a little bit to back that up. Yeah, there
26:04
Speaker 1: really is. They Actually this is like as clever as
26:07
Speaker 1: an historian can get pretty good stuff, clever and lucky. Um.
26:11
Speaker 1: Some historians I didn't find out who it was or when,
26:14
Speaker 1: but they came upon a um, I guess, like a
26:20
Speaker 1: civic proclamation about prior, which is a church official being
26:25
Speaker 1: pardoned for seizing somebody's assets and the person and he
26:30
Speaker 1: sees him without a warrant, which is what he was
26:32
Speaker 1: being pardoned for. But the person whose assets he sees
26:35
Speaker 1: was an outlaw named William rober Hood. Okay, a Robin
26:41
Speaker 1: Hood right r O B E H O D. So
26:44
Speaker 1: they were like, okay, this is a robin Hood right here.
26:47
Speaker 1: They managed to find the years um court record before
26:51
Speaker 1: for the same area, but that there was only one
26:54
Speaker 1: prior in the area, and that that noted that the
26:57
Speaker 1: prior had seized the assets of a guy in named
27:00
Speaker 1: Robert Son or no Williams Son William Son of Robert Lefever.
27:05
Speaker 1: So what they figured out was that the clerk in
27:09
Speaker 1: the pardnering proclamation wrote down that the guy was a robohad,
27:14
Speaker 1: which meant a fugitive, an outlaw, And um, they say, okay,
27:19
Speaker 1: this is proof positive that as late as twelve sixty two,
27:22
Speaker 1: no later than twelve sixty two, the idea of using
27:25
Speaker 1: the term robin Hood or some variation of that as
27:29
Speaker 1: a term for an outlaw a generic term for an outlaw,
27:32
Speaker 1: was so widespread that a clerk could write that down
27:35
Speaker 1: denote somebody as a robohad and people would know what
27:39
Speaker 1: they were talking about, which means that that legend of
27:41
Speaker 1: Robin Hood had to have been around prior to this
27:45
Speaker 1: and in circulation for long enough that it had spread. Yeah,
27:49
Speaker 1: So in effect, Williams son of Robert Lefever is the
27:52
Speaker 1: same person as William Robohad and this dude in twelve
27:57
Speaker 1: sixty two. Uh, this clerk just took it upon himself
28:00
Speaker 1: to give him that name, and no one thought he
28:02
Speaker 1: was crazy, right. It almost like he had written down
28:05
Speaker 1: William the bank robber or William the bandit rather than
28:10
Speaker 1: writing his last name, which frankly didn't have a last name.
28:13
Speaker 1: He was son of Robert Lefever because they didn't have
28:15
Speaker 1: last names very much back then. So it was very
28:18
Speaker 1: much like the clerk wrote William the outlaw Bandit. But
28:23
Speaker 1: what what he used Robohad or Robin Hood instead of
28:26
Speaker 1: outlaw Bandit's just somewhere over the ages we lost that
28:31
Speaker 1: knowledge that Robohod or Robin Hood meant that and wasn't
28:35
Speaker 1: an actual person. So there's this other guy, folk fits Warren.
28:40
Speaker 1: I love this guy. He is a bad dude. He
28:44
Speaker 1: was a bad dude and he was a real guy.
28:46
Speaker 1: And it turns out there was actually a personal link
28:49
Speaker 1: to King John. They were pals a little folk Fitz
28:52
Speaker 1: Warren and young John, who I bet young John was
28:55
Speaker 1: a not fun to be around. He's probably not a
28:58
Speaker 1: fun playmate mine. Uh. And here's one story. They were
29:03
Speaker 1: playing chess one day, John got mad, broke his chessboard
29:07
Speaker 1: over folks head. Uh. Folk kicked him in the stomach
29:10
Speaker 1: and John almost said, little John, but that would be
29:13
Speaker 1: a mistake. Little John was a character which, by the way,
29:17
Speaker 1: I don't think we mentioned Little John was referenced in
29:19
Speaker 1: all those old ballads. See he's been around kind of
29:21
Speaker 1: since the beginning, and they think they found that's right. So, uh,
29:25
Speaker 1: this John, as he was younger, went crying to daddy
29:29
Speaker 1: and said he kicked me in the stomach, expecting to
29:31
Speaker 1: get some sort of backup. And apparently that would have
29:35
Speaker 1: been Henry the second. Um. I don't know if he
29:38
Speaker 1: beat him, but he was beaten for complaining about being
29:40
Speaker 1: kicked in the stomach. Yeah, so no wonder John grew
29:45
Speaker 1: up to be a jerk. His dad did never have
29:48
Speaker 1: his back. It sounds like, yeah, that's part of it,
29:50
Speaker 1: I'm sure. So flash forward a bit. Uh, folks father
29:55
Speaker 1: passes away, he inherits his ancestral holding at Whittington. John
30:02
Speaker 1: comes to power and says, I remember when you kicked
30:04
Speaker 1: me in the stomach, What a little bastard. I am
30:08
Speaker 1: going to take your holdings, take your family estate basically,
30:14
Speaker 1: and then give it to your enemy, Old Moriy fits Roger. Yeah, sorry,
30:20
Speaker 1: Maury's there's a name as an s at the end.
30:22
Speaker 1: These names are great. So Folk ends up murdering Morey's. Uh,
30:28
Speaker 1: it might even be Morris Morris maybe yeah, probably today
30:31
Speaker 1: it would be Morris fitz Roger's. Uh. Folk kills Morris
30:40
Speaker 1: flees and basically wages a robin Hood like war against
30:46
Speaker 1: John and his men for about three years, so this
30:50
Speaker 1: could be him. Yeah, it could be because not just
30:53
Speaker 1: the fact that he was battling um King John and
30:57
Speaker 1: and fled to the forest where he used as his
31:00
Speaker 1: base of operations. But there are a few other things
31:03
Speaker 1: that came up. Like one thing that's part of the
31:06
Speaker 1: legends but actually isn't part of the earliest ballads is
31:09
Speaker 1: that um that robin Hood was a fallen nobleman, somebody
31:14
Speaker 1: of noble birth who either lost or renounced their title
31:18
Speaker 1: and became an outlaw and then regained it. That's the
31:21
Speaker 1: story of Folk fits Warren. Like he he lost his land,
31:26
Speaker 1: he lost his title to this other guy and then
31:29
Speaker 1: finally got it back when he was pardoned in twelve
31:32
Speaker 1: oh three. Right, pretty good candidate. That was one. There's
31:35
Speaker 1: another one, um where folk Um was was known to
31:41
Speaker 1: while he was a forest bandit. He would hijack like
31:46
Speaker 1: the King's people who were carrying the King's money problem
31:50
Speaker 1: and Um he would say what do you have on you?
31:54
Speaker 1: And the ones who told the truth about what they
31:56
Speaker 1: actually had, the amount of currency they had on him,
31:59
Speaker 1: he would let live. Very Robin Hoodie, very like straight
32:03
Speaker 1: out of the legend. But the ones who lied, he would,
32:06
Speaker 1: you know, punish with their lives or whatever. That was
32:08
Speaker 1: super Robin Hoodie. There was also another character trait of
32:12
Speaker 1: Robin Hood was disguised, is using disguises. Yeah, Folk fitz
32:15
Speaker 1: Warren was not above disguising himself. Yeah. There was another guy,
32:19
Speaker 1: historical outlaw name used to the Monk, who also had
32:23
Speaker 1: the disguised thing down, very much like Robin in fact exactly,
32:27
Speaker 1: he would disguise himself as a potter Um. And that
32:30
Speaker 1: even goes to the Disney cartoon. Yeah, these disguises very
32:34
Speaker 1: much a Robin Hood thing. I haven't I don't know,
32:37
Speaker 1: used to the monk doesn't seem as um enticing to me?
32:41
Speaker 1: Is his old fitz Warren no fits fits um or
32:44
Speaker 1: folk is he's my guy too? Speaking of fits, that
32:48
Speaker 1: we should tell everyone that that little tag at the
32:50
Speaker 1: beginning of the name means that you're, uh, you're a
32:53
Speaker 1: bastard child right in illegitimate son. I look that up
32:56
Speaker 1: because it sounded too good to be true. But um,
33:00
Speaker 1: the there was definitely a kid named fitz Roy, which
33:05
Speaker 1: meant illegitimate son of roy of the king, and I
33:08
Speaker 1: can't remember what king or what the guy's first name was,
33:11
Speaker 1: And since then it's kind of become code. But I
33:14
Speaker 1: don't know that that was widespread at the time, that
33:17
Speaker 1: necessarily Folk fitz Warren was an illegitimate son, or that
33:21
Speaker 1: um any of the other Fitzes were. Oh yeah, I
33:24
Speaker 1: wonder today if like Fitzpatrick and Fitzgibbins and like Fitzgerald,
33:29
Speaker 1: fitz Gerald is all or does that all mean illegitimate
33:32
Speaker 1: son of Gerald or Fadrick. I don't know. I don't
33:34
Speaker 1: know it's the truth anymore. Child, very interesting fits. Should
33:39
Speaker 1: we take another break? Yeah, We'll let everybody stew on
33:42
Speaker 1: that one for a little while. We'll be back right
33:45
Speaker 1: after this skamember. That's why he should know, should know.
34:07
Speaker 1: But Josh Clark, alright, so we've covered folk and we
34:16
Speaker 1: covered Eustace fulk by the way, we gotta tell that
34:20
Speaker 1: one story real quick about him. The beginning. Yeah, he
34:24
Speaker 1: found out that another um, another bandit was using his name,
34:29
Speaker 1: Pierce Morgan. What was his name? Pierce? What Pierce to Breuville. Okay,
34:34
Speaker 1: that sounds like the sounds like romance novel names. Um.
34:38
Speaker 1: But he found out Pierce was using his name robbing
34:41
Speaker 1: somewhere else. And he captured Pierce and his men, and
34:45
Speaker 1: he made pierced ties men up and then go around
34:47
Speaker 1: in behead every single one of them with with his
34:49
Speaker 1: own hands, with I guess, with the assumption that he
34:52
Speaker 1: would be let go, I guess, but he didn't. Then
34:54
Speaker 1: he cut off Pierce's hands when he was dead. If
34:57
Speaker 1: this happened, Chuck, can you imagine Gin being in that house,
35:02
Speaker 1: that room where there's like five, six, ten guys. I
35:06
Speaker 1: have no idea how many men there were who were
35:09
Speaker 1: systematically beheaded, and so like, as they're weight, you're waiting
35:12
Speaker 1: in line as the guy next he's getting his head
35:15
Speaker 1: cut off, and your turns next there's heads everywhere. Yeah,
35:18
Speaker 1: how much blood and gore was everywhere? Like, can you
35:20
Speaker 1: imagine like really put yourself into that situation like that
35:24
Speaker 1: may have actually happened. It's so disturbing. Disturbing, Yeah, like
35:30
Speaker 1: losing your head. That's that's I think that's probably like
35:32
Speaker 1: the first mortal fear any humans ever experienced. Like we're
35:38
Speaker 1: we just know on like a primal level, the head
35:40
Speaker 1: is supposed to be attached to the body, and when
35:42
Speaker 1: it's not, there's something bad wrong that's going on. Yeah,
35:46
Speaker 1: like your your death. Didn't we determine though in a
35:50
Speaker 1: podcast nine and a half years ago, that you stay
35:53
Speaker 1: alive for like what six or seven seconds? I think
35:57
Speaker 1: that's what they found in rats after you were beheaded. Yeah.
36:00
Speaker 1: I remember that one guy who was guillotine like he
36:02
Speaker 1: kept like looking over and like trying to die, But
36:04
Speaker 1: then they'd say his name and his eyes would open
36:06
Speaker 1: back up and he would be like what, Oh, could
36:09
Speaker 1: you imagine the horror of potentially looking up for four
36:12
Speaker 1: seconds and seeing your headless body. No, No, my mind
36:17
Speaker 1: just rails against going there. Yeah, it should, it's it's
36:21
Speaker 1: replacing it with the with up. Yeah. Alright, so uh
36:29
Speaker 1: there was a guy who wrote a book. A lot
36:30
Speaker 1: of people are still trying to pieces together. Um. This
36:33
Speaker 1: is not something that historians, uh put to bed years
36:36
Speaker 1: and years ago. Definitely not um, only fourteen years ago
36:39
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, and probably since then. But
36:41
Speaker 1: there was a dude named Brian Benison who wrote a
36:44
Speaker 1: book called Robin Hood colin case closed, always a culd
36:49
Speaker 1: the real story. That's pretty close to case close, Yeah,
36:52
Speaker 1: pretty much. Uh. And he says he's a lot he's
36:55
Speaker 1: in the in the camp. That Robin Hood is a
36:58
Speaker 1: name like a tide uh. Similar, he says to Billy
37:02
Speaker 1: the Kid. I thought Billy Kidd was a real dude though, right, Yeah.
37:05
Speaker 1: I think his name is William Bonnie. Yeah, but I
37:08
Speaker 1: mean he knew at the time that he was called
37:09
Speaker 1: Billy the Kid r right. That. Yeah, that's a it's
37:11
Speaker 1: a terrible analogy. I think so too, because it would
37:13
Speaker 1: be like Robin son of La Fever. Right, but you
37:18
Speaker 1: call him Robin Hood not even close. Um, But at
37:21
Speaker 1: any rate, he claims it's a nickname and that of
37:24
Speaker 1: a man named Roger Godbird or go Baird. Uh. And
37:29
Speaker 1: he said he's the real guy. He said he lived
37:31
Speaker 1: in the thirteenth century. He was a friend originally of
37:36
Speaker 1: the Sheriff of Nottingham, Reginald Degray. That's pretty significant, and
37:39
Speaker 1: we should point out to that. The one reason we
37:42
Speaker 1: can't pinpoint a lot of this is that they never
37:44
Speaker 1: name of the Sheriff of Nottingham they're talking about in
37:46
Speaker 1: any of these stories. Um, and that's not a person's name,
37:50
Speaker 1: that's a that's a title. No, but there is such
37:52
Speaker 1: a thing as the Sheriff of Nottingham. There was then.
37:55
Speaker 1: But there were many of them, right exactly, just one
37:58
Speaker 1: after the other. So that doesn't help out much, but
38:00
Speaker 1: it does zero in on the area. But yeah, it
38:03
Speaker 1: doesn't help get a time period down. No, but he
38:06
Speaker 1: claims that it was specifically Reginald Degray that Sheriff of Nottingham,
38:11
Speaker 1: and Um, after what four years as an outlaw, the
38:15
Speaker 1: dude was captured, went to jail, pardoned, and then farmed
38:20
Speaker 1: peacefully for the rest of his life. Yeah, And I
38:22
Speaker 1: mean that guy is a pretty good candidate. He is
38:26
Speaker 1: because one of the things about the robin Hood themes,
38:30
Speaker 1: despite in some in some of the I think the ballads, No,
38:34
Speaker 1: not in the ballads. It would have been in the
38:36
Speaker 1: ones that came later, so I guess the ones that
38:38
Speaker 1: the Scottish historians added he was battling the king in
38:43
Speaker 1: the original ballads, all of the people he was rebelling
38:47
Speaker 1: against him fighting were like local authorities, like the sheriff
38:51
Speaker 1: of Nottingham. Yeah, so he was kind of a working
38:53
Speaker 1: class hero in among like the first working class the
38:58
Speaker 1: West has ever seen. The awman farmers of the era
39:02
Speaker 1: or of the area. They were like the first like
39:05
Speaker 1: middle class that ever developed. Because either you were a peasant,
39:09
Speaker 1: meaning you were a feudal slave to the feudal lord
39:13
Speaker 1: and you worked the land whether you liked it or not,
39:16
Speaker 1: or you were landed gentry, like you were a feudal
39:19
Speaker 1: lord and you had a peasantry and you had, you know,
39:21
Speaker 1: a bunch of land, you're friends with the king. But
39:23
Speaker 1: in between there were yeoman's. I think that's how you
39:26
Speaker 1: say it, y e o m a n yeoman. There
39:29
Speaker 1: were yeoman farmers who were they weren't slaves, but they
39:34
Speaker 1: didn't have a title. They just kind of made their
39:37
Speaker 1: own way, and supposedly that's what robin Hood was. So
39:39
Speaker 1: it sounds like that this was what this Roger Gobert is.
39:44
Speaker 1: He was the same thing. And um, the idea that
39:46
Speaker 1: he was battling the sheriff of Nottingham, that would place
39:49
Speaker 1: him more in the historical lens than say, if he
39:53
Speaker 1: were like battling King John. That's actually a mark against
39:56
Speaker 1: folk fitz Warren, because that doesn't appear or in the
40:00
Speaker 1: original ballads it was he was battling the sheriff of Doningham,
40:03
Speaker 1: where he's battling local church officials. He hated the church officials,
40:07
Speaker 1: but he loved God, he did so much so that
40:09
Speaker 1: he would get arrested to come out to go to church, right.
40:12
Speaker 1: He just hated the clergy which has been trying. Those
40:16
Speaker 1: were the people who were taking your land or telling
40:19
Speaker 1: you and jail are taking your stuff without a warrant. Yeah.
40:22
Speaker 1: And also when you look back on a lot of
40:23
Speaker 1: these early ballads and stories, they're very, very different from
40:28
Speaker 1: what the legend of Robin Hood became to us in
40:31
Speaker 1: like contemporary fiction. Apparently that the Jest Ballad only had
40:36
Speaker 1: a couple of things that he did that we're even
40:40
Speaker 1: close to, like these big altruistic acts that he's really
40:44
Speaker 1: really most known for now. I think one of them
40:46
Speaker 1: was he agreed to lend money to a night that
40:50
Speaker 1: was one of those two there's five bucks just pay
40:52
Speaker 1: it back with a two percent big right, But that
40:55
Speaker 1: right that that whole um steal from the rich and
40:58
Speaker 1: give to the poor thing. Yeah, that came thinks of
41:01
Speaker 1: the Scottish historians. Yeah, all these authors sort of littered
41:04
Speaker 1: it with that stuff because they had found a champion
41:06
Speaker 1: of the underling basically in the common man, and ran
41:10
Speaker 1: with it just from standing up to the king or
41:12
Speaker 1: to the authority who were acting unjustly and above the
41:15
Speaker 1: law themselves. Yeah. There's also no mention in those early
41:18
Speaker 1: tales of a made Marian, who um seems to have
41:22
Speaker 1: come along later and is actually one of a great
41:25
Speaker 1: example of one of the first examples in literature of
41:29
Speaker 1: female empowerment of a character, because made Marian was no
41:33
Speaker 1: one's chump in any of these stories, and and he was.
41:36
Speaker 1: She was like a sort of an equal to Robin,
41:40
Speaker 1: partially because of her spunk and partially because Robin and
41:44
Speaker 1: the stories at least uh was kind of down with equality. Right. Yeah,
41:49
Speaker 1: that was one thing. That and basically being in in
41:53
Speaker 1: um Nottingham area or Yorkshire area, but somewhere in the woods.
41:58
Speaker 1: Those two things are basically the two constants throughout all
42:01
Speaker 1: the Robin Hood legends that he was very much down
42:04
Speaker 1: with um. He was a feminist and made Marian. From
42:10
Speaker 1: what I saw, she had her own series of ballads
42:13
Speaker 1: before she appeared in the Robin Hood ballads. She was
42:16
Speaker 1: her own character, and so when they were brought together,
42:19
Speaker 1: it was kind of analogous to like putting Superman and
42:22
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman in the same comic book basically, which is
42:25
Speaker 1: a pretty cool move. That is a cool move, and
42:27
Speaker 1: to keep her equal to him. That's here. It is huge. Um.
42:31
Speaker 1: Whether or not any of that happened, it's kind of
42:34
Speaker 1: irrelevant as far as literature is concerned. There was one
42:37
Speaker 1: historian that wrote, Robin permitted no harm to women, nor
42:42
Speaker 1: sees the goods of the poor, but helped them generously
42:45
Speaker 1: with what he took from abbots, like we were saying
42:48
Speaker 1: earlier with the clergy. But then in some of the
42:51
Speaker 1: earlier stories, there's not a whole lot of mention of
42:54
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, except for one that just had
42:57
Speaker 1: one comment that Robin did poor men much good. It's okay,
43:02
Speaker 1: I guess it's better than like he was the scourge
43:04
Speaker 1: of the poor. Yeah, But it wasn't like they built
43:07
Speaker 1: the legend upon that one kind of throwaway line. But
43:09
Speaker 1: I think they did well, yeah yeah, yeah, but they
43:12
Speaker 1: didn't make a lot of hay out of it, or
43:14
Speaker 1: at least this that one author didn't. Yeah, not at
43:16
Speaker 1: the very beginning. In the ballads, Yeah there, it was
43:18
Speaker 1: also like way more violent, Like there was um one
43:21
Speaker 1: of the characters much the miller's son, much was his name,
43:25
Speaker 1: and just loved that guy's name much. Um was. I
43:29
Speaker 1: think in the ballots he lops off the head of
43:31
Speaker 1: a page boy, a child to keep him from like
43:35
Speaker 1: blabbing from what he saw, you know, the location of
43:38
Speaker 1: where the merry Men were, right, Um there. It was
43:41
Speaker 1: way more violent than the than the the later ones
43:46
Speaker 1: depicted Robin Hood. Yeah, they were though all uh Robin
43:51
Speaker 1: and his merry Men archery was always a big deal.
43:54
Speaker 1: They're all very skilled archers, um and one of the swordsmen.
43:58
Speaker 1: But they were all super skilled horseman and that's not
44:01
Speaker 1: something that you see as much, although I think in
44:04
Speaker 1: this new movie there he's pretty good horsemen. Yeah. I
44:07
Speaker 1: mean imagine like it's it's hard enough to be good
44:10
Speaker 1: on a horse, but a horse in a forest, that's
44:12
Speaker 1: that's like a whole different level, shooting arrows like a
44:15
Speaker 1: Mongol exactly. And that was who was so good, the Mongols,
44:21
Speaker 1: the Mongol hordes who made their um thigh steaks. Remember
44:27
Speaker 1: they sat on raw meat on their saddles to cure it.
44:31
Speaker 1: Steaks tartar steak, tartar Uh. What else you got anything? Um? Oh?
44:37
Speaker 1: He was killed by a treacherous prioris, a female church
44:41
Speaker 1: official kind of like a middle manager. None, a middle
44:45
Speaker 1: manager none. Yeah, he went to go see none for
44:49
Speaker 1: right he was. Was he hurt healthcare? I'm not sure
44:52
Speaker 1: what it was, but he went to go get bled
44:54
Speaker 1: and she purposefully over bled him. And then when he
44:58
Speaker 1: asked to be buried somewhere and she's like, no, I'm
45:00
Speaker 1: gonna bar you on the side of the road. And
45:02
Speaker 1: she supposedly erected a um this is in Kirklees. She
45:07
Speaker 1: erected a stone that that said here lies Robin Hood
45:12
Speaker 1: or something. I don't remember exactly what variation of robin
45:15
Speaker 1: Hood it was, um Robert hood h u d e
45:20
Speaker 1: um And supposedly she erected it. And this was written
45:23
Speaker 1: hundreds of years later to to basically let travelers through
45:27
Speaker 1: the woods know that they didn't have to fear being
45:30
Speaker 1: held up any longer. Apparently, if your name had the
45:33
Speaker 1: initials r H, it was fair game. Yeah. They really
45:37
Speaker 1: have a lot of leeway here with with things like
45:41
Speaker 1: hoo'd holde hod. Yeah. Well, everybody was illiterate, so it
45:44
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Robin Robert robertas come on, maybe I'm on
45:51
Speaker 1: you Middle English dumb dumuh. And supposedly after as he
45:55
Speaker 1: was dying, he used his last bit of energy to
45:57
Speaker 1: shoot it, to fire an arrow and say that's I
46:00
Speaker 1: want to be buried. And that's what she was like.
46:02
Speaker 1: It was nice for the movies, but it's not happening.
46:04
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, sure, sure you can die knowing that
46:07
Speaker 1: I'll bury you just there over bled. Man, can you imagine,
46:10
Speaker 1: because I guess you just get so weak that I
46:12
Speaker 1: can't imagine. You're probably like I think I'm good, but
46:16
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling so hot. She's like, just a little more.
46:21
Speaker 1: I'm not dead yet. Yeah, uh, you got anything else? Nothing?
46:25
Speaker 1: So that was Robin Hood. I love history. Uh And
46:28
Speaker 1: if you love history too, we'll go look up some
46:31
Speaker 1: Robin Hood stuff on the internet. Since I said that
46:33
Speaker 1: it's time for this an, I'm gonna call this one
46:37
Speaker 1: of the many, many, many roundabouts emails that we got.
46:41
Speaker 1: We got a lot. Everyone loves the roundabouts. I know.
46:44
Speaker 1: It was really surprising, like everyone wanted to talk about
46:48
Speaker 1: their hometown roundabout. Everybody's very proud of their roundabout. Apologies
46:51
Speaker 1: to the people of Carmel. Carmel, I didn't say it
46:55
Speaker 1: was Carmel. I don't remember any more. I think it's
46:57
Speaker 1: supposed to be Carmel. Let's go with Carmel. Hey, guys,
47:00
Speaker 1: just finished roundabouts. I thought i'd pitch a little info
47:03
Speaker 1: on our local one. In Alexandria, Louisiana, the es IT
47:07
Speaker 1: built two circles part of a road project speed up
47:10
Speaker 1: travel between two local military bases that had popped up
47:14
Speaker 1: to during World War Two. The larger of the two
47:16
Speaker 1: is still in use, so it's notorious in the area
47:19
Speaker 1: for traffic accidents, especially during heavy traffic and bad weather.
47:23
Speaker 1: It's a two lane circle with a large forested area
47:26
Speaker 1: in the very center that is probably the size of
47:27
Speaker 1: the city block. Like other roundabouts, you must yield the
47:30
Speaker 1: traffic already on the circle. There are two lanes the
47:33
Speaker 1: funnel traffic onto the circle and only one lane for
47:35
Speaker 1: getting off. This means that if you're in the UH
47:38
Speaker 1: if you enter in the left lane, you have to
47:40
Speaker 1: merge to the right lane before you can exit because
47:43
Speaker 1: the circle is so big. Though the speed limit is
47:45
Speaker 1: fort within this circle, people inevitable inevitably go too fast
47:51
Speaker 1: or sometimes lanes change as slower cars are entering the circle,
47:55
Speaker 1: resulting in rear end crashes. The problem is frequent enough
48:00
Speaker 1: that the city is seriously looking into eliminating the circle.
48:04
Speaker 1: No definitive planet it's replacement has been settled on, and
48:07
Speaker 1: some locals are concerned about disrupting wildlife in the forest
48:10
Speaker 1: as well, which has delayed any definitive action on whether
48:13
Speaker 1: the circle will continue to exist. May the Circle be unbroken,
48:18
Speaker 1: warmest regards. I love that Marshall wells from Colfax, Louisiana.
48:23
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Marshall, appreciate that great story. UM let
48:27
Speaker 1: us know how it pans out because we worry about
48:29
Speaker 1: the wildlife too. Yeah, and thanks for everyone who wrote
48:32
Speaker 1: in about the roundabouts. I love the enthusiasm. Yeah, it's nice,
48:35
Speaker 1: especially from Carmela. If you want to get in touch
48:39
Speaker 1: with Let's do that, you can go to stuff you
48:41
Speaker 1: Show dot com, find our social media links, and you
48:44
Speaker 1: can also send us an email to stuff podcast how
48:47
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com for more on this and thousands
48:55
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.