Reading Diary A: Robin Hood Ballads

This week I was originally going to read the Alice through the Looking Glass, but as I was looking through the different options, Robin Hood Ballads stuck out at me because of the way the stories are told. I really enjoyed that the stories were more of poems and songs, which made them really fun to read.

Robin Hood and Little John meet for the first time

One of my favorite stories in this unit was Little John. Although I'm not super familiar with all of the minor details of the story of Robin Hood, there are many things about it I do remember from watching the movie and hearing the story when I was younger. The name "Little John" was one of the first familiar names that I recognized, so I was naturally drawn to that particular episode. There was a minor little statement in this ballad that made me laugh "Bold Robin Hood said to his jolly bowmen". This is a very similar name that Robin Hood's men are now known by, "the merrymen", which would explain where the merrymen idea came from. I also had no idea that Little John's name was originally John Little. I love that Robin Hood and his men used that play on words (as well as his enormous height) to give him the ironic name of Little John. I thought it was cool that although Little John was the one who won the fight, he still decided to join Robin Hood and his men.

Another ballad I really enjoyed reading was Robin Hood's Delight. I found it really interesting that in both of these stories (and many others), the initial interaction between the characters was to fight and be violent. However, the end result of the story was the men that Robin Hood fought because apart of his crew, or they at least engaged in friendly conversation. I thought it was really interesting that the fighting in the story was almost pointless. They fight and fight for a few hours and then when he tries to call a truce, they refuse. However, shortly after, he tries to be friendly with the men, and they end up drinking for days.