Playing Robin Hood

the long version

For over five hundred years, people have been assuming the roles of Robin Hood and his companions, both in the context of plays and games and in real life. The immense popularity of the legend has been attributed to popular and elite sources, to subversive and authoritarian impulses, to its reflection of historical conditions, and to its escape from them. Less interested in the causes than the effects of this popularity, the ten essays in this collection explore the ways in which "Robin Hood" has been performed over time and in several different cultures, some of which probably never heard his name.