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Marian Locksley, nee Fitzooth, once "Maid Marian", is an mystery even to herself. |
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| Independent,
brave, capable, freethinking. Marian is all these, yet remains a
prisoner in her own mind, trapped by the hidebound thinking of
the Middle Ages. All her life, Marian has wanted more, yet is never sure what "more" is. She yearns for freedom and equality - physical, intellectual, marital - yet can't fully express her desires because she can't conceive them. In other words, she's a proto-feminist and a product of her time. Her problem with advancing any feminist agenda is, "Where do you begin?" Noble women had two choices: aut virum aut murum, "a husband or a wall". Married to a man or sent to a nunnery. Marian rejects both choices, yet her only other option is to behave like a man. To dress, shoot, and fight like a man is not a real choice, it's a cop-out and surrender. Still, it's her only choice, so she embraces it. She refuses to cook and sew, and trains and fights harder than any man. Yet Marian always wishes for more. |
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| As
a girl, Marian was a tomboy, refusing to learn a noblewoman's skills
and running off to the woods. By age nine she was adventuring
with a boy from a nearby castle, telling him, "We're to be married, you
and me, Robert Locksley." Marian also terrorized her brothers. She would pick fights and thrash them, and once pushed a brother out of the window, breaking his arm. Considered out of control, her parents consigned her to a nunnery for schooling. Outnumbered and ganged, Marian acquised to her temporary fate. Settling in, she sought out skills that would prove useful in the forest: herbology, healing, reading, languages, bookkeeping, and more. Older, she began to slip out of the nunnery by night to visit Robin Hood, who'd become a dashing and hunted outlaw. Yet she couldn't live permanently in Sherwood Forest for, before Robin took command, the outlaw band was grim, rough-and-tumble, and dangerous. Still, the two would go roaming. Eventually Marian was gone so many nights the nunnery expelled her. With no other options, she joined the newly-named Merry Men as their first woman. And just when things were perfect, Robin "heard the call" and left to crusade in the Holy Land. Marian was, to put it mildly, ticked. Her parting words were, "I won't be here waiting when you come back - if ever!" How she spent the intervening years with Robin away have yet to be chronicled... |
| Robin
did return, and after some time, Marian forgave him. He reformed
the Merry Men. On paper, Little John is his chief
lieutenant. Marian is unofficial "co-chief" in that everyone
defers to her. As "chieftess" of the outlaw band, Marian encourages women to mimic her "yeoman" model, or to be a "cook" performing normal womanly duties. Yet even then the cooks must learn to shoot, in the mode that "Every Marine is a first a Marine." In later years, Marian more or less gives up fretting over her peculiar role. Robin Hood slows down because of a recurring injury. Marian finds she's needed at the nunnery for healing and justice-dealing. Working under the name Matilda, she continued to do good works. Marian was a major obstacle to King John's plan to eliminate nunneries, as will be detailed in MAID MARIAN AND KING JOHN. Art is Madeleine Stowe swiped from LAST OF THE MOHICANS, which is a whole lot like what a Robin Hood movie should be. |
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Robin Hood's Robin Hood |
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 | Ruth is a Jew (or Jewess) like the famous Rebecca of Ivanhoe. |
Robin first meets Ruth when they're both in a haze, which might explain a lot. Living in London, the Merry Men find their house is surrounded by Jewish neighbors. At first, as good (ignorant) Christians, they freak. It's only later, when the Jews save most of their lives, that they come to value and accept the strangers. Robin automatically saves Ruth from harm when she's driven from a public well. The archer nearly beats a man to death with a wooden bucket for manhandling a woman - any woman. Though Robin, sick and foggy, scarcely recalls the incident, Ruth does. Later she's instrumental in bringing the Jews to succor the stricken outlaws. Ruth is the daughter of Solomon and Ariella, sister to Hiram, sister-in-law to Sabra, and aunt to Sawra, Geveret Alanot, and Israel. Following the pogrom in London, Hiram brings his extended family to Sherwood Forest. Ruth, unmarried, comes along. For the girl has fallen helplessly and hopelessly in love with Robin Hood. (What girl wouldn't?) Ruth knows full well Robin loves Marian, and she would never do anything to interfere in their romance. So she pines and sighs and dreams of Robin Hood, him never knowing. Despite growing up in a city, Ruth adjusts quickly to the Greenwood, settling in among the cooks, contributing selflessly where she can, and watching Robin Hood from the corner of her eyes. Being a city girl, Ruth dresses well in bright colors, and always keeps her head covered - as did every other medieval woman except a whore. Ruth is dark, tall, and lovely, with bedroom eyes. When Robin first sees her, he thinks, "That's what Marian would like as a Jew." That Ruth does resemble Marian makes for a fatal error when Taragal comes skulking to the Greenwood with a knife in her hand and hate in her heart. Art by Harry G. Theaker from Robin Hood by E. Charles Vivian. |
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| Jemima was formerly Jezebel, a whore of London. |  |
Black Bart, of all people, finds a lady to love in London's mean streets. He befriends her, and fascinates her, in a backhanded way by mending a knife for free. "Not for trade?" asked the astonished prostitute. Jezebel, every bit as stubborn as Bart, returns the favor by bringing him meals. Eventually the leering Merry Men note that "Bart has a lady". Marian asks she be brought round, and gets a surprise. Jezebel is a whore with hennaed (red) hair, slutty clothes "with her breasts hanging half out", and worst, no head kerchief. Unused to kindness and attention, Jezebel clings to Bart and the Merry Men - and gives up whoring. She lets her hair return to its natural color, covers up her breasts and head, and dresses modestly. If she could only contain her screeching street tongue, everyone would be happy. Friar Tuck baptizes the woman and christens her "Jemima" after Job's first daughter. The name means "Dove" and stands for purity. And recalling Job, reckons the sly Tuck, reminds others to bear patience. Jemima proves a demure and worthy wife to Bart for the short time they're together. She helps Clara and Mary cook, even "hiding her light under a bushel", for she's an excellent cook. Grateful for kindness and acceptance and dignity, Jemima weds herself to the Merry Men also, even staying on after Bart is killed. But then again, where could she go? Art from Robin Hood, retold and illustrated by Margaret Early. |
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| Helen of London is barely a woman and totally unclear on what's happened. |  |
Helen, a milkmaid of London, comes sniffing around the Marian's house trying to learn the name of "that handsome forester". After some confusion, David's name comes up. Helen is smitten, and gravitates to David. The forester is strikingly handsome (even lacking ears) and carries a delicious air of tragedy because he's still mourning his first wife, Shonet the Sower. Helen sets out to occupy his mind with other thoughts. When the city burns, Helen scurries like mad to find David, and finally runs into his arms as the outlaws cross London Bridge, leaving the city forever. Starry-eyed, Helen follows... ... and wakes up to find herself amid decidedly strange company deep in a darksome forest far to the North. Everyone goes armed to the teeth, prepares for war, and routinely talks about theft, menace, and mayhem. For now, Helen snuggles close to the gentle David and tries to make sense of exactly what new life she's plunged into. Artist unknown, from Tales of Robin Hood by Enid Blyton. |
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 | Gryth the Grim joins while the band chases Vikings up and down the coast. |
He's not as grim he pretends. He does carry a fearsome six-foot Saxon ax, a weapon that frightens everyone, and a smaller hand ax. Gryth the Grim was created by Clayton Emery. Art from Celtic Warriors 400 BC - AD 1600 by Tim Newark, with color illustrations by Angus McBride. |
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| William of Goldsborough is an enigma. |
William is listed in Grafton's Chronicle of 1569 as being buried with Robin Hood, or next to him. Supposedly the Prioress of Kirklees Abbey had a stone engraved. No other information is forthcoming. |
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| Reynold Greenleaf is never seen, but not an enigma. |  |
"Reynold Greenleaf" is a standing joke among the Merry Men, as the Merry Man Who Doesn't Exist. Whenever a Merry Man is questioned, or in disguise, he calls himself Reynold Greenleaf. That makes him the only Merry Man to confess any crimes to the Sheriff, and it drives him wild. Little John originated the name, and the rest picked it up. Even Robin uses the name when he wants to go unknown, as the time he joined a baron's army as a fumbled-finger archer. In The Gest of Robyn Hode, Little John uses the name as an alias. Yet later on Reynold appears as a real Merry Man. Child includes a ballad telling how Reynold joined the outlaws. Why would Little John use his name? TBR (to be unraveled). |
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Robin Hood's Robin Hood |
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| That's everyone so far, I think. More on new members as they arrive. |
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view the rare and dazzling plates of English Medieval Clothing taken from the 1906 book by Dion Clayton Calthrop. |
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