More Robin Hood trivia:
Robin Hood went through some evolution from his first literary appearances around the 12th century to his modern form.
Originally, stories characterized him as a bonafide bandit (and maybe he fascinated the medieval audience like Tony Soprano the mafia character fascinated the American audience). From the 14th century or so he grew more and more gentrified as upper class writers took fancy to him. Sir Walter Scott ("Ivanhoe") cast him as a sergeant returning from the crusades and defending English honor. Another upper class writer created the legend that Robin was a cheated member of the nobility who turned to a life of banditry to avenge the wrongs inflicted against him. By the 16th century writers had re-invented his character as an absolute do-gooder, the rob-from-the-rich-and-give-to-the-poor hero.
If you're interested, my source for this was : "Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw" by Stephen Knight. I read this over a year ago, though, and haven't bothered to verify my dates mentioned above (which are roughly accurate but likely mis-remembered).
There is also a cycle of poetry from the 1500s about Robin Hood that you can find publicly available off the web. I dug it up once to read the poem describing his murder by the nun.
