A Note About This Story

The stories of Robin Hood are very old. They are folk stories stories which people have told to each other over the last 800 years. Children heard the stories from their parents and then they told them to their own children. Slowly, over the centuries, tales about Robin Hood the forest outlaw1 were collected and written down. They were turned into songs and poetry, and more recently into plays, television dramas and films. Robin Hood was not a real person, but there are many other real people from history in the stories. King Henry II, King Richard and the Sheriff 2 of Nottingham, were real people. Sherwood Forest is a real forest. Robin Hood came from a town called Locksley near Nottingham. He was born between the years 1160 and 1170 in the time of King Henry II. At this time, the kings of England were not English they came from Normandy in northern France. The Normans had invaded3 England in 1066. For two and a half centuries, the kings of England did not speak English, they spoke Norman French. King Henry II owned more land in France than he owned in England. He fought many wars because he wanted to be King of France as well as King of England. King Henry needed money and soldiers for his wars. He raised the money by making the common4 people of England pay very high taxes. The Normans made laws for the Normans. These laws were very unfair. The Normans did not care about the English, so English people had no rights. English people had 4