Fairytale Fantasy Week 2026: Revisionist Robin Hood

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasyLeave a comment

DAY FOUR of Fairytale Fantasy Week 2026, and we move to revisionist takes on the Robin Hood legend. This category is a bit unfair, because almost all Robin Hood retellings in the contemporary world are revisionist in one way or another. But some novels set out to turn the Robin Hood legend on its head. Here are a few of the types I’ve seen–and I’m talking about novels and stories here, not Robin Hood tales presented in some other medium:

  • The many, many books in which Robin is reimagined as a woman.–See the Maid Marion books in this series of posts, where Maid Marion takes on the Robin Hood role. But there are also books where Robin himself turns out to be a woman. The name “Robin,” historically a nickname of “Robert,” has in the past century become a very common name for a woman and less common for a man, so this makes the switcheroo pretty plausible for a lot of readers. A few of these Robin-Hood-As-Woman books seem to be about a daughter or female descendant of Robin Hood instead, a woman who takes on his mission.
  • Robin set in other historical times and places. Some of these are really interesting. I’ll review two of them in this post.
  • Robin turned into comedy. I mean, these men are merry, right, but that’s not the main gist of the Robin Hood stories. But it is the main gist of comical Robin Hood tales, most of them children’s books. Now, as for movies. . .! But I will talk about these in my next post.
  • Robin goes contemporary. I found a few of these. I was actually surprised I didn’t find more. I also read a reviewer who considers Mario Puzo’s The Sicilian a Robin Hood retelling set in more or less contemporary times. I haven’t read that novel, but its promotional materials claim Puzo’s novel is based on a real Sicilian bandit. Maybe he is of that “social bandit” Robin Hood ilk, but I’d suggest he’s his own rogue or bandit and not really indebted to the legend of Robin Hood. I can’t say for certain, though.
  • The Robin Hood tale in combination with other folk tales/fairytales. I know about a Robin Hood Meets Beauty and the Beast novel, and I believe there are others. I know there are a number of authors who do an amusing mashup of various fairytales in the same story, such as Megan Morrison’s charming middle-grade Tyme novels, but the novels I’m talking about do a kind of folktale ‘ship between Robin Hood and some other tale.

I wish I could have read and reviewed some from each category, but I didn’t have time (and I don’t review books I haven’t read. . .and tried to read carefully). But I’ll mention the variety out there, so if any of them capture your fancy, you can head over to them and read them yourself.

I had definitely planned to read and review at least one of the Robin Hood As Woman books, but in spite of searching through an enormous list of them, reading many sample chapters, etc., I couldn’t find one I felt I could do justice by. With very few exceptions, I don’t want to review a book I have to trash. I ended up reading too many sample chapters that screamed “bad writing” –OR were a bit too YA for me to review very well, even though I have reviewed a few of those–and will in this very post.

I also tried to read one of the books setting the Robin Hood story in contemporary times, but I had to give up on it. It was pretty bad. I will not name it.

Here are two reviews of books I enjoyed very much. Both take the Robin Hood legend out of Sherwood Forest and place it elsewhere. Both make this change in our expectations about the famous outlaw really work.

Wolf’s Head, by Steven McKay (2013)

cover of Steven McKay's novel Wolf's Head
find out more HERE

Authors of most Robin Hood retellings follow many of the ballads and much of the lore in placing Robin’s story in Sherwood Forest, in the east Midlands Nottinghamshire, and in the time period of the Third Crusade (1189-1192) and the troubled reign of Richard I. Steven McKay chooses an alternate Robin Hood for his Forest Lord series. McKay doesn’t make this change arbitrarily. There is plenty of historical precedent for his own Robin Hood vision. McKay’s Robin follows a slightly different set of lore placing the famous outlaw in Yorkshire’s Barnsdale Forest, and also in a later historical period, the reign of Edward II around the time of the rebellion of the Marcher lords against the excesses of Edward’s royal favorites, the Despenser family (1321-22). Read McKay’s take on the Robin Hood legend HERE.

I’ve only read Wolf’s Head, the first in the series, but I found it fast-paced and interesting. The writing is workmanlike, nothing fancy, but at least it’s not that flowery drek that some historical novels serve up to readers. I liked the novel for its sense of history. The characters are kind of bland. But all the Merry Men are there, even if Maid Marion is not quite the way she is depicted in the legends. These are the outlaws that the times labeled “wolf’s heads,” perhaps because killing an outlaw, like killing a wolf, wasn’t seen as an act of murder but as a civic service, ridding your community of a danger. The life of a wolf’s head, then, was nothing like romantic ballads about hijinx in the greenwood. This Robin’s life was brutish and full of dangers. McKay’s novel captures the feeling well.

The Sheriff of Nottingham isn’t in the book either, but then, McKay doesn’t set his novel there. There is a dastardly sheriff, though. McKay’s historical note at the end explains who this sheriff was historically and why this was the sheriff he chose for his Robin Hood retelling. In fact, there are a bunch of bad guys in this novel who gave me as much or more of a sense of the problems people faced in the time period than the good guys did. What motivated these baddies? What pressures were they under, and what fueled the worst of their oppressions? This novel answers questions like that–the economic hardships of uncertain climate (leading to poor harvests, leading to starvation), the political chaos during the reign of a corrupt king, the class divisions that allowed some to feel entitled to lord it over others, even to murder or sexually abuse them without facing any kind of consequences. Actually, it seems all too contemporary.

One interesting historical factoid I really liked: all the yeoman characters, because they were required by law to practice archery from the age of seven or eight, had enormously over-developed arms and shoulders–freakishly so, by our standards. I’d heard this before, but I’ve never encountered a Robin Hood character where this bizarre physique is admitted by the author. I suppose people who really, really like bodybuilders might go for such a character, and in the era of the novel’s setting, a physique like that must have seemed normal. It is also very clear that women wouldn’t have been able to compete with these highly trained male archers. Not physically likely, given the nature of women’s lives in the era–so all those Robin-Hood-as-a-woman writers might have to think twice about what their characters actually look like. I’m not saying it’s impossible. A woman given the chance to train like that from a similarly young age would have been able to take on one of the big yew longbows. I’m saying it isn’t very likely. Maybe this is where most Robin Hood retellings really do become fantasy.

McKay’s novel is not fantasy. It’s good solid historical fiction using a legendary character as its centerpiece. If you like Bernard Cornwell’s novels (I personally find the writing style pretty flat), you will probably like this Robin Hood novel.

Will I read the other five books in the series? Two of them were published just this year. I think I probably will. I am fascinated by the time period and this will be an entertaining way to find out more.

Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix, by Aminah Mae Safi (2022)

Book cover of Aminah Mae Safi's novel Travelers Along the Way
Find out more HERE.

Part of the Remixed Classics series by various authors, this novel is a delight. I suppose it is YA, but it’s the kind of YA where I, at least, don’t think about that but only how clever and funny the book is–serious, too.

What is at all Robin Hood-like about this book? That was my first question. At first glance–title, cover, the cultural clues it seems to project from the beginning–Safi’s novel seems to have little to do with that most English of legendary figures, Robin Hood.

And yet–lovable rogue? Check. Band of broth. . .er. . .sisters? Check. Set during the Third Crusade? Check. Thrilling escapades, improbable shenanigans, much merriment? Check. Green hood? Check. Robbing from the rich to give to the poor? Check. All the most important features, right there. At the beginning of the novel, the author writes us readers a letter. In it she says, “The following is a story that perhaps we cannot say did happen. We have no proof that such a girl as [the main character, Rahma Al-Hud] ever existed. But neither can we say that the following did not happen.” Safi reminds us that history is a slippery thing, and that true history might exist between and among and around the facts we claim to know and might not really know at all.

This is a novel of the Third Crusade from the other side of the traditional Robin Hood story, the one where Richard the Lion Heart, the bold Crusader king, rides out to do battle with the infidel and recapture the Holy City (leaving his people–Robin, his merry men, all the rest–to suffer in his absence). In Safi’s Robin Hood novel, we see events through the eyes of two sisters, soldiers in the army of the Muslims trying to keep Richard out of that City. The terrible siege of Acre has killed almost everyone inside it, and Richard has committed an act so horrendous we’d quickly label it a war crime today.

All the sisters want to do is creep in disguise across a battle-scarred landscape and get home safely. Circumstances keep thwarting them, and at practically every step they pick up another stray, until they’ve become a merry band of travelers along the way to their destinies. The strays come in all sorts: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Other. Man, woman. This being YA, there’s some young love in the mix as well, love of all sorts too, but it does not dominate. We come away with a sense of sisterhood and solidarity and camaraderie. If any novel passes the Bechdel Test, this one does. Love, sure. But in many different forms other than romantic–love of country, of honor and courage, of family–biological and found.

And it is so much fun! Here are some chapter titles, to give you a sense of how much: “Oo-de-lolly,” “A Horse With No Name” (the setting here being the desert, you understand), “A Pox on the Phony King of England,” “The Boy With Kaleidoscope Eyes.” What a wonderful book.

Coming up next: Robin Hood in other media

Fairytale Fantasy Week 2026: Others in the ‘Hood

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasyLeave a comment

You think Robin Hood retellings, you’d be perfectly justified in thinking they’re going to be about Robin Hood, am I right? And they are. They are. But a lot of them don’t feature Robin as the main character in the Sherwood Forest ‘hood. I was amazed at the number of them focusing on someone else, while Robin lurks on the fringes.

As I mentioned in my last post, any good Robin Hood novel or movie needs to have one or more of these iconic Robin Hood sidekick characters, usually part of Robin Hood’s gang, the Merry Men:

Little John, Will Scarlet, Maid Marion (token woman), Much the Miller’s Son, Friar Tuck, and Alan a’Dale. (A Saracen often gets added into the mix in modern retellings. Token POC.)

I have chosen three to review in this post.

First, a look at one of the Maid Marion books.

In an era where it has almost become an Olympic sport to reboot a famous piece of literature from the feminist perspective, there are many of these, and a big audience for them, too. (Like, I just saw an absolutely wonderful reboot of Macbeth from a four-woman production/acting/writing team in a south Minneapolis black-box theater a few months ago. I wish you the best, The Macbeths! I wish you the best, Rough Magic Performance Company! You are fabulous!). (And no, south Minneapolis is not a violent place. Or at least it wasn’t before certain people of the thug and goon persuasion came in there and turned it violent.) Wow, two digressions in one part of one post. Must be some kind of record. So, Maid Marion. Tailor-made for this kind of reboot. I should mention that there are also tons of feminist-perspective Robin Hood books in which Robin turns out to be a woman. More about that later. Here’s a Maid Marion novel many readers love. I agree with them!

Sherwood, by Meagan Spooner (2019)

cover of Sherwood, a novel by Meagan Spooner
Find out more HERE.

Lady Marion is in mourning after she learns that her dearest love, Robert of Locksley (nicknamed Robin), has died during the Crusades. But she has to put her grief aside. Will Scarlet, the brother of her maid, is about to be executed. When she disguises herself to help free him, she sets in motion a series of events drawing her ever deeper into the righting of wrongs, the aiding of the innocent and helpless, and eventually, down the slippery slope to rob from the rich to give to the poor. In doing so, she flies in the face of expectations about her social class and her gender.

Spooner’s book is not a historical novel and it is not what I’d call romantasy, either. It seems to be categorized as YA by booksellers and publishers, but I wouldn’t call it YA. This is a fairytale retelling for sure–folk tale, I should say–so while it has no magic in it, it does fit into that retelling category of fantasy. Spooner’s Marion is a courageous and feisty woman who doesn’t wait around to be rescued. She does the rescuing. She’s young, but she is no swooning teen torn between two lovers. (not exactly.) She’s a woman with a lot of what’s called agency in a time when women were rarely allowed any.

The writing is good. It doesn’t distract from its setting around the time of the Crusades, but it doesn’t try to mimic that language, either. As the author says in an afterword, the tale of Robin Hood is patched together from many places and time periods, and her book follows the lead of her original, not worrying too much about any anachronisms or being faithful to any set of historical facts. Was Robin Hood really a nobleman named Robert of Locksley? Or was he somebody else entirely? Or was the name “Robin Hood”–as Spooner suggests in one part of her book, simply the common epithet given to a bandit in late medieval England? I admired Spooner’s ability to build a convincing and compelling novel from the materials of period atmosphere, historical fact, beloved legend, and exciting contemporary character and plot.

This is a book that is fun to read but has serious underpinnings. It’s a book about disguise. A character disguised as someone else, fooling everyone around her, even people who know her well, is a hard fictional tactic to pull off. It’s also one of the hoariest. Remember the scene in Jane Eyre, when Mr. Rochester disguises himself? (Jane wasn’t fooled, but then, very little got past Jane.) Remember The Scarlet Pimpernel? (You don’t? Not many people read that novel any more, but they should. It is tons of fun.) Remember The Prisoner of Zenda? (likewise. . .) Okay, you do remember Tale of Two Cities, right? Hasn’t this disguise business run its course? But every now and then, an author pulls the disguise trope off. Shakespeare did it, and in multiple plays that keep charming and thrilling audiences even now. One of Tana French’s most amazing novels, The Likeness, does. And Spooner’s novel does it, too. Very, very skillfully.

It’s not that a reader won’t say, oh, come on. . .that’s not realistic! A reader will say that. But a writer skilled in the use of this tactic keeps the pace and the excitement so compelling that we don’t stop to ask that question, and even when and if we do, the story just grabs us again and hurries us along. In fact, Spooner’s use of this well-worn trope goes beyond the skillful, because she uses it to raise some very interesting questions about the masks we all wear, masks that society compels us to wear. Marion is not the only character in the novel who puts on a false face.

As for the plausibility of disguise, Spooner asks the question, Don’t we see what we expect to see? In a trivial but very telling incident, a shyster at the fair nails this timeless piece of wisdom down for Marion and her father late in the novel, followed immediately afterward by an important episode that does the same. And Spooner accomplishes this feat without losing the fun and the pace of her novel.

She also raises some important questions about the difference between legality and justice. I think that’s a necessary thing to do in these times. She’s not starry-eyed about the outcome, either.

Then there’s the aspect of the book I maybe appreciated more than any other, the element of surprise. I’ve read too many novels that try to surprise the reader through manipulation, including the abhorrent “O. Henry ending.” I hate them. Hate ’em all! They assume the reader is stupid. By contrast, Sherwood had the ability to surprise me without any of the cheap tricks that turn me off as a reader in too many other books with “twisty” plots. Sherwood earns its surprises. Marion the character earns hers. They are a delight.

Next, there are Alan a’Dale books.

He’s the Robin Hood minstrel we all love. Actually, whenever I think of him, I can’t help thinking of the “Brave Sir Robin” episode in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This Sir Robin is one of Arthur’s knights, not a minion of Robin Hood, but I can’t help myself. . .

I admit it, I am too easily distracted by anything Monty Python. Back to the point– One of the best books I’ve read for this series of posts is an Alan a’Dale book, Angus Donald’s Outlaw, Book I of his Robin Hood series.

Outlaw, by Angus Donald (2009)

book cover of Outlaw, by Angus Donald

Find out more about this novel and the others in the series HERE.

The main character, at least in Book I, is Alan Dale, Donald’s version of a Robin Hood side character, the minstrel Alan a’Dale. This novel, as is the case with others in my series of posts this year, is historical fiction. There are no fantasy elements (well. . .a few, sort of). But it’s a rousing adventure story that changes the thigh-slapping Merry Men into disciplined foot soldiers of Robin the Mafia boss of the Middle Ages.

Actually, that click-bait-ish subtitle (“Meet the Godfather of Sherwood Forest”) does the novel a disservice. Robin is an important figure in the novel, and I found it compelling to think that an outlaw in this historical period would actually be a pretty morally gray character. But Alan’s is the voice we hear. And because Donald has done his research, I could believe it, too. Many versions of the Robin Hood legend are set in the late 12th century, the time of the Third Crusade, and Donald has thoroughly integrated this historical era into Outlaw and all the other novels in his Outlaw Chronicles series. Outlaw is the first novel that Donald published in the series, but the first book chronologically is a prequel novel. There are twelve novels in the series overall, three of them more accurately described as novellas.

I can’t speak for the others in the series. I haven’t read them yet. (I plan to!) I can tell you, though, that Outlaw is very well written and fast-paced, with none of the faux-archaic language that spoils too many novels set in the time period. The characters, especially young Alan and Robin himself, are nuanced and well-developed. Plus, scenes of torture to rival Robin Hobbes. So it’s a dark read. Beware, if you don’t like those.

Last, this post will take a look at one of the Will Scarlet books.

Will is another of Robin Hood’s Merry Men. Actually, his name in some of the old ballads is Scarlock or Scathelock or other similar names, probably because these tales were communicated orally before being written down. Also, orthography–spelling–took a long time to standardize after printing was introduced in the 15th century. The surname “Scarlet” might refer to scarlet stockings that Will wears in some of the legends (or this might be a way of justifying his surname). Conversely, the variants on “Scathelock” may refer to lock-picking or lock-smashing, a handy skill for a bandit to possess. Then again, some legends suggest that Will Scarlet and Will Scarlock are two different characters entirely, not to mention yet another Will with a surname beginning with the letter S, Will Stutely. All this confusion is actually pretty characteristic of the ballad tradition.

Here is a Will Scarlet book I found pretty entertaining:

Scarlet, by A. C. Gaughen (2012)

book cover for Scarlet, by A. C. Gaughen
Find out more HERE.

I suppose it’s no spoiler to reveal that Scarlet, by A. C. Gaughen, is another one of those books that re-imagines a traditional or well-known male character as female. The book cover gives it away–and also the book’s promotional material–even though the reader doesn’t find out about this most interesting aspect of the novel’s main character until a good way into the story. In Gaughen’s reimagining of the Robin Hood legend, “Will Scarlet” is the name assumed by a young girl on the run. She disguises herself as a boy and ends up in Sherwood Forest as one of Robin Hood’s Merry Men. The main character’s story and the motives for her disguise are gradually revealed as the novel progresses.

It’s an interesting tale, handled well, but I had a little trouble as a reader. This Y.A. novel uses the typical Y.A. tactic of a first-person narration. We see the events directly through the main character’s eyes and hear her voice. Such a choice by an author allows the reader to identify more fully with the main character. It also comes with its own set of problems. For example, we readers can only know what the character knows. That makes it difficult, for example, to bring off a convincing plot surprise that the main character knows about or should know about before we readers do. This book falls into that trap.

The other problem is the language. The voice of the main character is presented to us as a certain type of dialect which sometimes leads a reader to have a hard time plowing through the book’s prose, but which also (trying hard to avoid spoilers here) leads the reader to certain conclusions, with an unconvincing rationale revealed for them, and in retrospect, an unconvincing voice overall. The author’s choices here are tricky to pull off, and for me, at least, they don’t quite work. I did find the book entertaining. It is part of a three-book series, so if you are charmed by the main character–and she is pretty charming!–you might want to read on.

Other characters have their own Robin Hood books!

I can’t possibly list all of them, but just about every Merry Man has a book of his (often her!) own–and so do some other Robin Hood mainstay characters who are not even Merry Men.

There are two or three Friar Tuck novels. Much the Miller’s Son is a minor Merry Man if there ever was one, but he has a few books too–and a webcomic!

There is even, believe it or not, at least one book from the perspective of the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham: The Sheriff of Nottingham (1993), one of the few novels by the celebrated journalist and social commentator Richard Kluger. Writing a book from the perspective of a fictional bad guy is a trendy thing to do to a fairy tale. Gregory Maguire’s fantasy novel Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, for example, gives the reader a lot of sympathy for one of the Cinderella fairytale’s baddies. His even more popular Wicked does the same for the Wizard of Oz baddie the Wicked Witch of the West. Reading reviews of Kluger’s novel leads me to believe, though, that he is making a serious fictional exploration of legal issues in the sheriff’s era–so this book was probably not written to fit the trend. I love historical novels that really delve into obscure historical issues and subcultures. This novel might have to go on my TBR pile.

There is even a Prince John book, The Wicked Prince: A Robin Hood Retelling, by Celeste Baxendell (2023), with alternating chapters from the prince’s point of view and Robin’s (she is a woman in this version of the story). This is part of a “clean” multiauthor fairytale retellings series with a swoony prince in every volume. The idea of Prince John, that pusillanimous villain, as a swoony prince is pretty intriguing. I doubt I’ll read this one, though, because it really does seem to be written for teens.

Coming up next! Robin Hood revisionist history

Fairytale Fantasy Week 2026: A Good Robin Hood Read Is Hard to Find

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasyLeave a comment

Today, DAY TWO of FAIRYTALE FANTASY WEEK, I take a look at some of the many recent Robin Hood-themed recent novels and comment on two of them.

Every year during the week including Valentine’s Day, this blog explores a theme connected to fairytale fantasy.

What do I mean by fairytale? It may not involve fairies! This is a misleading word describing what anthropologists might call “traditional tales” or “tales from folklore,” especially one known to us from the oral tradition.

This series of posts will review Robin Hood retellings. In previous years, I have blogged about novels based on: fairytales from cultures world-wide, Cinderella and Rapunzel (two literary “fairytales”), dance-themed fairytales, and Little Red Riding Hood retellings. Click on the links to read those.

In the past, I’ve warned my readers that I will not deal with anything Disney. There’s the good Disney, the bad Disney, the downright ugly Disney, and occasionally there’s the brilliantly inspired Disney. All of it has its fans. I usually warn readers I’m not going there. This year I will. That’s because the Walt Disney animated Robin Hood movie from the ’70s is one of the best Robin Hoods ever. Oodalolly! AND there are very few other good Robin Hood retellings. Alas!

So that’s one problem with my Robin Hood posts this year.

The other is this: yes, Robin Hood is a piece of enduring folklore. His tales (see the preceding post) were mainly communicated via song. The folk ballad was a primary medium of storytelling among illiterate peasants and other people who couldn’t read or didn’t have easy access to books. And the Robin Hood folk ballads were widespread and widely known in the British Isles, beginning in the late medieval period or maybe earlier. So what’s the problem? If you consider fantasy to be a made-up tale with fanciful elements, such as tall tales and exciting, over-the-top feats of derring do involving swords (well, and in the Robin Hood story, longbows), Robin Hood is your man. But if you think of fantasy as having to do with bending the laws of nature in a magical way–there’s very little of that in the Robin Hood story. Swords, yes. Sorcery–not so much.

And that means the books I’ll be reviewing in these posts are more historical fiction than what we usually think of as fantasy fiction.

But here’s the hill I’ll die on: historical novels are just as much speculative fiction as fantasy novels or SF. The historical background of a novel is just as much a matter of the speculative imagination as a science fiction novel. The past is a mystery to us, in spite of what we think–perhaps not as much a mystery as the future, but amazingly close. The past is a country that is dead to us. To bring it alive takes a big imagination and a whole lot of speculation–like good SF, a whole lot of fact-based speculation.

As for Robin Hood retellings–yes, it is possible to cook in a little magic, and some authors have tried. These Robin Hood reboots generally seem to come in two flavors, though.

Flavor One: a retelling that preserves the folkloric atmosphere of the Childe ballads and the medieval texts. Older retellings, such as Howard Pyle’s (see my previous post) set out to do this–to transform the old texts and traditions into a single story a contemporary reader can enjoy.

Flavor Two: a retelling that asks the reader What if Robin Hood were a real person? What would he be like? What kind of world would he live in? What kinds of challenges would he face, and how would he handle them? From those questions, the writer builds a novel. Most recent Robin Hood retellings fall into this category.

I looked through many, many lists of Robin Hood retellings compiled by various organizations and readers. Here are a few:

Have at it. Dig through the dross to find the hidden gem for yourself!

I tried to. I really did. I discovered that a really satisfying reboot of the Robin Hood story is a hard treasure to come by. And please keep in mind: I ruled out the many, many retellings for children. Some of them are probably excellent, but my blog doesn’t usually deal with children’s literature. I also rarely deal with YA novels, popular though they are. I’ve had to review a few of them in this series of posts, though, because it’s just that hard to find a good Robin Hood read.

I say that, and I have to remind myself that readers look to speculative fiction for different joys. And of course any one reader might like some or all of these:

  • Some readers want thrills, chills, action. They’re all about the plot, and they want ingenious twists and turns. They want cliffhangers, even (noooo!) cliffhanger endings. They want surprise endings, even the unearned kind that flimflam the reader. Especially those. I guess you can see I’m not this kind of reader, but many are.
  • Some readers, especially speculative fiction readers, are in it for the world-building. Fantasy readers of this type often demand a magic system worked out to the nth degree. Some want the twists and turns and magic to be so ingenious and convoluted and spelled out that (in my opinion) you might just as well throw up a Powerpoint, turn all the plot points into bulleted items, and call it a day. These readers actually like the dreaded info dump. They’re the kind of gamers that there for the lore, while the rest of us are all just kill the monster already. I love a good well-built world myself, but I don’t think it should push to the foreground of the book and parade itself about.
  • Some readers want to be able to identify with at least one of the characters and lose themselves in that character. I love that myself. But I love a good anti-hero too, the kind you love to hate. Has anyone ever written a better bad guy than Inspector Glokta? I ask you now. And Logen Ninefingers exists in a gray moral world himself. For some readers, though, the main character has to be sympathetic and likeable.
  • Some readers want authenticity. The science in an SF novel they’re reading has to be accurate and at least plausible. My son-in-law the physicist sets a high bar for any SF novel he reads, I can tell you that. And a reader of an historical novel may want that book to be absolutely faithful to the facts as we know them. I’m kind of that reader when it comes to historical fiction, but I can be persuaded to love a book with a clever historical aroma as long as it does other things well. I also hate historical fiction that tries to be so faithful to its world that everything slows to a crawl while the author unloads a ton of historical trivia on us and/or tries awkwardly to mimic “ye Olde Englishe.” Ugh. Everyone addressing each other as thee and thou. This is rarely successful, because the author doesn’t often know, not really, what the English of the various periods and regions sounds or looks like. It seems to go along with the historical-novel-populated-by-cardboard-cutouts-in-fancy-dress type. Historical novel as visit to the wax museum. No, thank you.

Skip over this part if you want to. Old English aka Anglo-Saxon=a language a lot like German.None of us ordinary readers can read it without special training. HWAET!!! Middle English=comes in many dialects; the language of Chaucer is easy for us to read because modern English is more indebted to that dialect than others. “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote the droghte of March hath perced to the roote. . .”–we can read that, right? yes, we can. If we need a little help, we can take a class or just cling to https://www.librarius.com; the language of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or Sir Orfeo, also Middle English, is really REALLY difficult for most of us to read. Modern English=yeah, okay, we speak it, am I right? So did Shakespeare. His language is not “Old English.” It’s not even Middle English. It’s modern English. So there are many modern Englishes, from many eras and parts of the English-speaking world, and some are easier than others for any one of us to read. AND NONE OF THIS JUSTIFIES AUTHORS WHO WRITE IN SOME AWFUL “Ye olde fantasye speake.” Historical novelists are guilty of this, too. Bad ones.

  • Which brings me to what I really value in a novel, no matter what its ilk: good writing.

So to satisfy me, the poor Robin Hood retellings need to be historically accurate, or if not, they should be playful with history, and not heavy-handed about it. The world built out of these historical materials has to convince me. And the writing has to be good. I did find a few I might recommend. Here are three, one I thought more successful than the others. One is a romantasy, more or less, but historically themed. One is a straight-up historical novel. The other is a more traditional folk-tale retelling stitched together into an historical novel. No one of them is the iconic fantasy with the wizards in pointy hats and the poofs of magic. All three are “fairytale fantasy” in the sense that they recreate or riff off a traditional tale beloved through the centuries, taking place in a land and time far, far away–so far away from our ordinary experience here in the 21st century that it might as well be a galaxy far, far away.

What makes a good Robin Hood novel? These are the main tropes and characteristics, and any retelling may have some of them or all of them or play fast-and-loose with them:

  • Robin Hood himself. He’s the lovable rogue who robs from the rich to give to the poor. He usually dresses in green, with a green–ahem–hood. Lincoln Green, to be specific. Robin’s weapon of choice is the longbow. He leads a band of his fellow outlaws.
  • This band of Robin’s is “merry.” That means that they are all good stout-hearted fellows, but some authors want them to be giggling and slapping their thighs.
  • His band, the Merry Men, should include some or all of these: Little John, Will Scarlet, Maid Marion (token woman), Much the Miller’s Son, Friar Tuck, and Alan a’Dale. (A Saracen often gets added into the mix in modern retellings. Token POC.)
  • Robin and the Merry Men hide out in Sherwood Forest in England. Or not.
  • His arch-enemy is the Sheriff of Nottingham, aided and abetted and sometimes directed by the despicable Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Behind these baddies stands the Big Bad, the usurper King John.
  • His hero is King Richard the Lion-hearted.
  • His tale is set during the time of the Third Crusade, when Richard I (Richard the Lion-Hearted) is King of England but his weasly brother John wants to usurp the throne. Or not.
  • There’s an underlying conflict between the Saxon natives (not actually, but anyway) of England and the late-comer Normans originally from France who conquered them and took England over. Or not.
  • Robin’s origins: He is a proud English yeoman. Or maybe he is a proud English nobleman robbed of his lands and/or in disgrace.

Here are three fairly recent novels that attempt to turn the merry tale of Robin Hood, the Robin Hood of the ballads, into historical fiction of a sort. In these books (unlike many other contemporary retellings, which I’ll get to in the very next post), Robin is the main character.

The Scarlet Forest, A. E. Chandler (2nd ed. 2020)

cover of The Scarlet Forest by A E Chandler, historical novel about Robin Hood
Find out more HERE.

Chandler’s book comes more from the first category I mentioned, Flavor #1. Chandler takes the material of the medieval texts and the ballads, adds some of her own material, stirs in several charming tales-within-a-tale and ballad-like snatches of song, and puts it all together into a coherent story about Robin Hood, from boyhood (you have to wait a bit for that part) through to the very bitter end. It is historically accurate, and a bit stiffly told, like a Robin Hood pageant you might see performed at a folk festival. It gives off a definite storyteller’s vibe. First published in 2017, this new edition has more historical information in its back matter and “bonus features” which I found very interesting. The story itself is charming, and it updates the Robin Hood story to include a bigger role for Maid Marion.

At first the language annoyed me. It seemed to be an example of that “ye olde fantasye speake” I deplore, but I don’t think it is. Actually, I trust this writer. I think the language is pretty accurate–not at all a lazy simulacrum of what some fairly uninformed writer just thinks medieval people should sound like. Chandler’s writing reminds me, though, of a sort of corollary. It’s also not too helpful for a writer to go overboard with language that’s determinedly too accurate. Does that sound like I’m contradicting myself? I probably am. But look, an historical novel is actually not history. It must lure the reader into an imagined history. I found the very accuracy of the language in Chandler’s book a bit distracting. In other words, it pulled me out of the story.

The writer who manages to hit the exact right balance between a language that sounds of its time AND a language that makes the reader feel part of things is a rare talent. I can think of a few writers who bring off this amazing hybrid: Hilary Mantel, Nicola Griffith, Patrick O’Brian, and Paulette Jiles come to mind, and for both playfulness and skill, I think of Susanna Clarke and Charles Portis. How about we add Cecelia Holland and Francis Spufford? (As you can see, I really admire good historical fiction.)

Nevertheless, I enjoyed Chandler’s book. It recounts just about every Robin Hood story known to folklore, creates a contemporary take on these old favorites, and introduces a few new ones of Chandler’s own invention. If you are a die-hard Robin Hood junkie, here’s the Howard Pyle replacement you’ve been looking for. Chandler’s storyteller voice is engaging, and I find it intriguing that she divides her book into sections named after types of forest trees. Her book IS the Scarlet Forest–I love that. Her authority is unquestioned. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on Robin Hood, and she has written other novels that attempt to bring old traditional tales to the attention of contemporary readers.

Hood: A Robin Hood Origin Story, by M. C. Frank (2019)

Find out more HERE.

This book is romantasy, at least of a sort. It’s a prequel that tells you things like how Robin Hood got his name, and other bits of backstory for the author’s Outlaws series. There’s a lot of merriment from the merry men, a lot of angst from Robin. . .

I mean, just look at this moody, swoony guy. . .

. . . and a surprising amount of piety. If you like this novella-length prequel, you have four more volumes to go. We have the opposite of “ye olde fantasye speake” here. The snarky back and forth among the merry men. . .and women. . .sounds right off TikTok.

Frank seems to love retellings. If you enjoy her sort of fiction, visit her web site (click on the link above) to discover the rest of her Outlaws books and her other novels of this type. I’m probably not her ideal reader. Just saying.

Arrow of Sherwood, Lauren Johnson (2013)

cover of Lauren Johnson's novel about Robin Hood, The Arrow of Sherwood
Find out more HERE.

Johnson, like Chandler, is a working historian. Click the link above and check out her web site. She has written several books, and most of them are nonfiction history. I plan to read one or two or three of those. They look fascinating.

This Robin Hood book of hers is a very accurate, well-written, absorbing historical novel. The underlying assumption seems to be, no, there was no real Robin Hood, but if there had been, here’s what his life might have looked like–why he became an outlaw, and what the politics of the time, both local and national/international, had to do with his social status as a lord and then his outlawry. As for the plot, it’s a kind of Robin Hood Meets the Scarlet Pimpernel. Maid Marion plays an interesting role in this one, and there’s a pretty grisly scene of apparently historically accurate torture. This isn’t a fantasy novel, except in the sense that Robin Hood is a fantasy figure, but it really works well. There is no ye olde fantasye speake here. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.

Here’s sort of a quirky thing about me, the reader: I am a structure junky. I loved the division of Chandler’s novel by types of tree, and how that reflected the concept of her novel. Johnson, too, uses the structure of her novel to communicate her theme. The epigraph of this novel is from the monk and chronicler Richard of Devizes, who writes: “As the earth grows dark when the sun departs, so the face of the kingdom was changed by the absence of the king.” Johnson’s novel continues this idea that the wheel of the year reflects the fate of the kingdom. Her novel is set in 1193, so it’s the traditional wheel of the church year, from Candlemas in the bleak midwinter all the way through to Easter and and then on into the following year. The man who will become known as Robin Hood returns to his home in Nottinghamshire, dejected and about to face a terrible personal dilemma, straight from the ill-fated misery that was the Third Crusade. He has gone on crusade as a penance for his sins. Good lord, I thought I was about to see the face of Max von Sydow. But the novel turns a lot more light-hearted than The Seventh Seal, because come on, this is about Robin Hood, people. It still has its grim moments, but they work, and there’s a twisty plot (not a fan of twisty plots) which also works.

I liked this novel a lot.

Coming up in the next post!

Favorite Robin Hood characters get their own books