Unsurprisingly Lawhead's version of the legend has not been greeted with enthusiasm in Robin's spiritual home. "But Nottingham would have been too far for the Welsh Robin Hood to visit, Maid Marian was total fiction and he would have never met the Sheriff of Nottingham." "He would have been really good with a bow and there are a lot of documents about how devastating a weapon that was. He added: "My Robin would have won in a fight for sure! In fact the only similarity Lawhead's Robin has with the more accepted one is that they were both lethal with a bow and arrow. They are pretty heavily invested in the Nottingham Robin Hood version and with good reason." "I realise, though, that we could have some trouble with Nottingham. "But he could have lived for years in the forests of the March and never been seen nor heard. "It would have been exceedingly difficult for Robin to hide in England's ever dwindling Sherwood. ![]() "While the forests of England had long since become well managed business property at the time, Wales still had enormous stretches of virgin Wood. A Welsh location is also suggested by its nature and landscape. "Every single Welshman was ready for battle at a moment's notice. Lawhead said: "Several small but telling clues locate the legend of Robin Hood in Wales. Just like the classic version of Robin Hood, Lawhead's re-telling involves a strong and beautiful maiden, a wine-loving priest and plenty of heartless kings and aristocrats.īut the American historian and author has Bran fleeing to the woods of the March rather than Sherwood, where he meets Angharad, a mysterious healer and singing storyteller.Īngharad's faith in Bran's potential as a heroic king eventually inspires his notion to steal from the rich in order to raise the money needed to buy back his kingdom and free his people, forced into slavery by their new ruler. He quickly becomes a marked man and makes plans to escape his kingdom and his people, until he is almost killed by the forces of Count Falkes de Braose, who took possession of the kingdom. In his book, Lawhead, still tells of a wronged nobleman turned heroic outlaw but names him as Bran ap Brychan instead of the more recognised Robin of Loxley.īran is a spoiled and selfish prince who becomes the rightful heir to the kingdom of Elfael after his father is killed by the Normans. The sheltered woodlands would have provided him with the perfect base to launch lightening attacks on invading Norman armies. Robin would, he said, be able to remain undetected in the vast and unknown forests of the March. He claims Robin would not have been able to hide out in Sherwood Forest because it would have been too small and well chartered. Lawhead, 56, believes the folk hero and his band of merry men would have carried out their thieving in the Marsh, a primeval forest in Wales in the 11th century, more than a hundred years before the English Robin Hood. The American blows apart the widely accepted version of the legend in his new book, Hood, arguing that Robin Hood was really a hardened Guerrilla based in the Valleys.īut tourism chiefs in Nottingham have rubbished the theory, warning: "Hands off our Robin!" The medieval outlaw - said to have robbed from the rich to give to the poor - never once met Maid Marian nor the Sheriff of Nottingham, according to Stephen Lawhead.
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