avrelia

I keep trying to write something important marking the year that passed – but then I would to think about it, and this is something that just doesn’t work for me right now.

So instead I think about Robin Hood. I was reading Robin McKinley’s Sherwood Outlaws and started thinking what the legend means to me.

I cannot get into the book – even though I like the characters (this incarnations of them) and the writing, they seem to be behind a glass wall that I cannot break, and don’t want to. I cannot start to care – and this feels to be of crucial importance in fiction for me lately. I don’t have to like everybody and everything in a book, but at least something must pull me into – even if it is a description of a sea, or beautiful style, or fancy ideas. Here it was nothing of the sort, and the only thing that elicit emotions was the marginalia on a page splattered with something brownish: “It is blood. Don’t lick it”.

I thought that may be the case is in the legend itself? That I grew disenchanted with Robin Hood and his merry band? I used to love the story and its heroes and heroines. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was always sure about the continuous existence of Robin Hood, Marion, Little John, Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, Sheriff of Nottingham, Guy of Gizborne and others in the Sherwood forest and around. They add something to the world, some important tiny bit.

Why not to read a novel about them? I cannot say that the interpretation is too contrary to what I imagine – or any other interpretation, because I just don’t really imagine them at all. I have a vague picture that changes when I change or when my mood change. Robin can be young or grown man, blonde or black-haired, bearded or not, asshole or sweetie or both, of gentle birth or of common, just a robber or an idealist – none of it ever sit in stone. Same with Marion (though I like her more when she is not a damsel in distress) and everyone else. I probably have a more definite image of Friar Tuck – he is short and round, good with his staff, optimistic, and the only monastic vow he takes seriously is the one of poverty.

But maybe that was the reason – I prefer my vague image to the detailed and rooted in the time and place version. Plus I always get annoyed when Richard the Lionheart came and resolved the matter. Because he would never do that. But I got even more annoyed when he took all the band with him to Holy Land – even though he might do that, he really needed more troops, and his only reason to be in England was to get some (and get money). But Robin Hood cannot be outside of England! There mere idea of it destroys the Universe as we know it. Well, it can be before the story- but not after.

I remember the old British TV series about Robin Hood. I really loved it when I watched it as a child. The best bit was at the end, when Marion died – and there were some magical trees or fairies or whatnot, and she came back. It was very mysterious and cool. (When I caught this series on TV much later, it seemed just stupid, and I couldn’t remember what was cool there.)

( So I designed a poll about Robin Hood – and your image of the legend. )