Robin Hood. I have mentioned elsewhere that I have been fascinated by this swashbuckling character since childhood. It may just be that there were not many mediaeval figures to feature in stories when I was a mere stripling, but my interest has held fast over the years. There has been much scholarly debate whether he actually existed, or was an exercise in mythological folk tales and such.
I have also found the knight-errant stories absorbing, too. Along with plastic cowboys and the like I also had toy knights - namely crusaders. Their armour (unbeknownst to me at the time) was also fairly accurate for that period. When, later on in life, I learned about the Knights Templar (the warrior monks of Jerusalem) I became even more engrossed in the period of time surrounding the Crusades.
I have been a regular reader of a magazine called the Fortean Times for at least fifteen years now. Named after Charles Fort, an American who collected reports of strange phenomena and later wrote several books on the subject, it has been a constant delight and eye-opener. Imagine, therefore, my surprise and delight when I found both subjects covered in one article! To try and summarise; the Templars were outlawed by the Pope at the time and some of them may have hidden in the woods. They were very skilled in feats of arms, and so one of these bands could have been led by the character we came to know as Robin Hood. The chap who wrote the article, John Paul Davis, has written a book - "The Unknown Templar" - on this very theme. I fully intend to get my hands on a copy. Here is a link to their site. Try registering and typing "Robin Hood" into their Search. See what you think.
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