There is plentiful “learning” about Robin Hood, but no real knowledge.
He is first mentioned in literature, as the subject of “rhymes,” in
_Piers Plowman_ (_circ._ 1377). As a topic of ballads he must be much
older than that date. In 1439 his name was a synonym for a bandit.
Wyntoun, the Scots chronicler, dates the outlaw in the time of Edward I.
Major, the Scots philosopher and master of John Knox, makes a guess
(taken up by Scott in _Ivanhoe_) as the period of Richard I. Kuhn seeks
to show that Hood is a survival of Woden, or of his _Wooden_, “wooden
horse” or hobby horse. The Robin Hood play was parallel with the May
games, which, as Mr. Frazer shows in his _Golden Bough_, were really
survivals of a world-wide religious practice. But Robin Hood need not be
confused with the legendary May King. Mr. Child judiciously rejects
these mythological conjectures, based, as they are, on far-fetched
etymologies and analogies. Robin is an idealized bandit, reiver, or
Klepht, as in modern Romaic ballads, and his adventures are precisely
such as popular fancy everywhere attaches to such popular heroes. An
historical Robin there may have been, but _premit nox alta_.