DVD Review: Robin Of Sherwood Set 2

As kids, my brother and I would get periodic gifts from ancient relatives living in various parts of the British Isles. Considering that the only time they met me I was sixteen months old, and my brother was about five, they did a pretty good job of supplying us with books through our early years. If it wasn't for them, I'd have never met Paddington Bear, and life as a child would have been a lot duller without that very English bear from Peru.

However, one of the real treasures was a book they sent my brother called simply The Adventures of Robin Hood It had wonderful colour illustrations, and the first page of each chapter was decorated like an illuminated manuscript. I think it was a reproduction of a book published in the 1880s in Great Britain. Thinking back on it now, it was reminiscent of treatments given the story of King Arthur published during the same period. A very romanticized version of the stories, in spite of living in the woods all the outlaws looked freshly shaved and their clothes were neatly laundered and pressed in the illustrations.

Unlike any of the movie versions where they all live happily ever after, Robin dies at the end of the book. Seeking shelter in a convent (I can't remember why he would have gone to a convent or why they let him in come to think of it – I thought they were for women only) to recover from wounds suffered during a fight, he is betrayed when they bleed him to death. The story ends in true Romantic fashion; Robin, propped up in the arms of Little John, fires an arrow from the window of his cell in the convent and tells his faithful companion to bury him where the arrow's flight ends.

All very beautiful and heroic, but no more realistic than Kevin Costner, Errol Flynn, or any of the other Hollywood types who have taken on the role and tried to tell the story. While Costner may have rubbed some dirt into the faces of his Merry Men, the only real redeeming feature of Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves was Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham and some of the best dialogue given a villain in years:

"I'm going to cut out his heart with a spoon."

"Why a spoon cousin?"

"Because it will take longer."

Thankfully the British decided to do what they do best and make a television series based on the stories of Robin Of The Hood called Robin Of Sherwood. After a very successful first series, repeating their success with a second season was complicated by having followed the story too closely first time out and killing off Robin of Locksley. In the first year they had utilized a figure from British mythology, Herne The Hunter, to anoint the original Robin, so they merely utilized the same device for a new Robin — Robert Of Huntington.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the recently published What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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