Fuck Robin Hood.
Rob from the rich, he said! Life as an outlaw will be glamorous, he said, with nights spent drinking ‘round fires and days filled with swinging about on ropes and bandying clever insults. Wear tights, he said! And, get the ladies!, as if the wearing tights and the getting of ladies were somehow connected.
Screw Alfred Noyes and his stupid poem. Be a highwayman, he said. It’s romantic, he said, the road will be a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, and there will be red-lipped daughters and adventure and even your bloody and permanent death will full of lace and blood and other poetic things.
May they rot in hell, every scribe and scrivener who wrote or copied an ode to this most unfortunate of heroes, the highwayman, the outlaw, the brigand, the bandit, and forgot to mention just how much fifteen unwashed men stink.
Ever noticed how outlaws in the stories moves through the woods like they are a part of him? Well, they aren’t. They’re a hostile alien force trying to do everything in its power to break your neck. They’re full of roots waiting to trip you, and branches waiting to break and give away your position so you get latrine duty again as punishment. And at night they come alive with strange sounds and terrible smells, and wolves prowl your campfires, hoping to eat the bones you left behind from your meagre supper.
It was supposed to transform me into a hero. Instead, my cloak and matching gloves, which cost me three months pay and are the exact colour of bluebells, make me an instant target for arrow fire every time we launch ourselves from the treetops. And trees! Did you know they’re full of sap, and it sticks in your hair and on your face and you can’t scrub it off because no one has any soap (if they had we wouldn’t smell like the underside of a used pig)? And instead of a brave nom de plume like The Dark Rider or Tom Blue Eyes, everyone calls you Nancy and asks if you’re sure you ain’t a girl.
Fuck Robin Hood.
Image by Kieran Macanulty