Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen...
Anyway, back to this thread. I've been looking at one of the books we got at Oxonmoot - Tolkien's Mythology for England by Edmund Wainwright, and read an interesting passage about Robin Hood. He points out a striking similarity between Robin Hood and Faramir.
They are both expert bowmen - Robin stories occurring of course at the height of English archery skills as demonstrated to devastating effect at Agincourt. In On Fairy Stories Tolkien speaks of his particular desire to become a bowman (and he has lots of other experts in his work, including the woodsy Legolas)And both also use 'guerilla tactics' in the course of their days in the woods - Faramir to defend Gondor and Robin to rob from the rich. Wainwright also points out that Ithilien is a beautiful land which has suffered "under the depredations of a merciless foreign invader, just as England was under Norman rule." Thinking about the old tales i note that just as England's fortunes are once again revived by the return of King Richard the Lionheart, Gondor's are by Aragorn. Faramir is also something of an 'outsider' in terms of not being his father's favourite, and he looks back to the past of Numenor as Robin looks back to his Saxon roots. Allegedly, if he was indeed Robin of Leocsley (Loxley). Eowyn could indeed be his Lady Marian.
As Wainwright points out, the story of Robin Hood is incredibly strong to the English, and its one of the few stories that has passed down the ages and is still being made into dramas, comedies and films to this day. Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire are still fighting over 'ownership' of Robin. If Tolkien was hoping to capture some of the Northern spirit and create something he could dedicate to England how could he miss out Robin Hood?
But this isn't a simple analogy. There are also elements of Robin to be found in Tom Bombadil, and Marian in Goldberry - this side I think is the more 'mystical' aspect of Robin Hood where he is seen as the Lord of the Greenwood in English folklore, taking on aspects of the Green Man. We also have Bard the Bowman, and as previously mentioned, Legolas the Woodland Prince.
Tolkien holds both trees and woodsmen in great regard; and in England we have such odd things as Tree Preservation Orders and documentaries about trees (one of which I saw earlier - which included a look inside the great bole of the Major Oak, one of our legendary trees - we have many of 'em). We regard eco-activists such as Swampy with affection, and have a great love of hiking, camping and being outdoorsy. The love of the lost wildwood is still strong and its fitting that possibly our greatest English myth, Robin Hood (Arthur is slightly too British, as Tolkien himself thought), is about a woodsy man, a lover of the trees, and also of course a mythical bowman such as those legendary figures of Agincourt.
Tolkien said of Faramir that he just appeared to him as if out of nowhere; he said:
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"I am sure i did not invent him, i did not even want him, though i like him, but there he came just walking through the woods of ithilien"he just walked out of the woods".
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So where earlier in the thread I was wondering where exactly and
how did Tolkien hope to create something 'English' to dedicate to England, this is an example of how he used something clearly recognisable to the English as part of their own past and present. Yet seemingly without seeking out a 'source', simply by being in tune with the stories we all grew up with. Robin looms large in the English psyche, so I'm not surprised there is possibly a lot of Robin to be found in Tolkien, woven into the fabric of the story.
Does this add to the 'Englishness' of this mythology?
What does the following mean in the context of the interweaving of English legends/folklore into the legendarium?
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the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth
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