Reading Notes: Robin Hood B

Reading Notes: Robin Hood

As I stated in my last post, this week for the Celtic and British unit I chose to read about Robin Hood. Not only was this section different in the way it was written, it had very ideas of Robin Hood than I am used to. These ballads portray Robin Hood as more of a villain, which is very surprising. For the second part of this reading unit I found a few stories that could be interesting to rewrite. These include The Bishop of Hereford and The Bishop.

The Bishop of Hereford and The Bishop.

In The Bishop of Hereford Robin Hood disguises as a Shepherd and kills a deer in the Bishop's path so that the Bishop would condemn him for killing the King's deer. When this happens Robin calls for his men and they overtake the Bishop and steal his gold. In the story of The Bishop, the story of The Bishop of Hereford continues. After Robin Hood lets the Bishop run away after robbing him the Bishop gathers men and hunts down Robin Hood. Robin changes clothes with an old lady and tricks the Bishop into taking the wrong person. I think that it could be interesting to retell these two stories as one and to not do the traditional ballad form. Although the ballads are interesting they can be slightly hard to read and I would change it into a normal story. I could also tell it in first person from Robin's perspective or give a better backstory of the Bishop. If I were to retell these two stories as one I could also do a better job of describing the timeline between Robin robbing the bishop and the bishop hunting down Robin. Another idea would be to tell the story as if it was someone telling their child a bedtime story.

(Robin, Credit to Nilfanion, link)

Bibliography

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads,Francis James Child. (1882-1898) link