Robin Hood Week: Best Websites

I've lost count of how many emails over the years I've received with requests for links to sites "like SurLaLune is about fairy tales, except about _______." If only, right? Even if there have been some good sites about related topics over the years, most have disappeared. So I rarely create lists of recommended sites to publish on SurLaLune proper.

Still, my knowledge of Robin Hood is limited, still more than the average person on the street, but not much in the scheme of what I would LIKE to know. And where do any of us start a search these days? Well, I start online with the intent of ending up in other reliable sources off the web, too.

In my Robin Hood research, I have discovered two excellent sites to recommend.

The first is Robin Hood: Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood. While this one is full of helpful information and links, it also offers more pop cultural information and the personal experiences of the site's keeper, Allen W. Wright.

This Robin Hood site offers historical and literary information on the legendary stories of England's best-loved outlaw and his band of Merry Men. This website covers the entire legend from the earliest medieval ballads and May Games to the latest films. Like the adventures of Robin Hood, these resources are intended for everyone: students and scholars, longtime fans and beginners, children and adults.

Nearly all the articles are written by Allen W. Wright, an independent scholar who has spoken at several international academic conferences on the Robin Hood legend and been published in the scholarly collection Bandit Territories. This site and its creator were featured on the TV documentary Robin Hood: The First Outlaw Hero.

The second is the Robin Hood Project at the University of Rochester. This one is more academic in nature although still quite accessible for everyone.

Welcome to the Robin Hood Project at the University of Rochester. The Robin Hood Project is an academic endeavor, designed to make available in electronic format a collection texts, images, bibliographies, and basic information about the Robin Hood stories and other outlaw tales. Additionally, the Robin Hood Project offers exclusive critical articles examining individual characters within the vast corpus of the Robin Hood legends.

The Project is prepared and published in the Rossell Hope Robbins Library, a special medieval collection in the University of Rochester's Rush Rhees Library. The Project is overseen by Alan Lupack.

The image at the top of this entry is by Bernard Westmacott and came from The Robin Hood Project.