Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select, I've
Speaker 1: chosen our episode, Was There a Real Robin Hood? From
Speaker 1: the Heady Innocent Days of twenty eighteen. It's a super
Speaker 1: neat history episode where we search for the real Robin
Speaker 1: Hood and find some really great candidates. Was there a
Speaker 1: Real Robin Hood? I guess you'll just have to listen
Speaker 1: to find out.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 1: there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
Speaker 1: We're just horsing around saying who's a Who's Ah?
Speaker 3: Actually, I think people might like a little recree of
Speaker 3: what just happened.
Speaker 1: Let's hear it.
Speaker 3: Jerry said, I need to check levels. We didn't really
Speaker 3: say anything, and she said, all right, you're ready. And
Speaker 3: you said, we didn't say anything for levels. She said,
Speaker 3: I don't need you to say anything.
Speaker 2: She's like, in fact, I need you to stop talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then I had to wait until she said
Speaker 1: start talking his mouth start talking? Monkey?
Speaker 2: Goodness me? Is that where we are? Yep? How's it going?
Speaker 1: It's good. I just want to before we really get started.
Speaker 1: Chuck on to point something. I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: know this or not. O, boy, you have a paper
Speaker 1: clip holding your glasses together.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: At first I was like, is he just storing the
Speaker 1: paper clip? And I thought, no, he's not storing a
Speaker 1: paper clip. Keep that tucked in his cheek. If he
Speaker 1: were just storing.
Speaker 2: It, that would like everything else store.
Speaker 1: It's on the arm of your glasses where your glasses
Speaker 1: meet the body.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. You see there, it goes through.
Speaker 3: It's the it's acting as the screw because the thing,
Speaker 3: the screw came out and I need my glasses on
Speaker 3: in order to put the screw in the glasses.
Speaker 2: It's quite an under him.
Speaker 1: Were you raised in Oklahoma in the depression?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Why because you can get other glasses.
Speaker 3: Dude, that's how busy I am. I can't go by
Speaker 3: the glasses store.
Speaker 2: I don't need new ones.
Speaker 3: I just need someone with tiny fingers, okay, and good vision.
Speaker 1: In Oklahoma could probably help you to put in the screw.
Speaker 2: Ironically, and this is this worked so well.
Speaker 3: I stuck this the paper clip in there, bent it
Speaker 3: around and I kind of like it.
Speaker 1: It is. It's handsome. It's a handsome. Look I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna start there. Well, I like it. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: thanks for playing a long sure. So, uh we're talking today.
Speaker 1: The reason I said who's A? Who's A? Is because
Speaker 1: we're talking Robinhood.
Speaker 2: Is that from Robin Hood?
Speaker 1: No, it's actually from the movie Role Models, the Paul
Speaker 1: Rudd movie.
Speaker 2: I like that movie.
Speaker 1: It's good. I saw it the other day again.
Speaker 2: Good dumb fun. Yeah, I love it. You know he
Speaker 2: like wrote that Rud Yeah he's great. I like a Stiffler.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's great in that too.
Speaker 2: His little buddy in that movie or whatever they call.
Speaker 1: Him, Ronnie, Yeah, yeah, he was Ronnie. Yeah, he's amazing.
Speaker 2: I expect great, great things from that kid. Ye, at
Speaker 2: least I hope so.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I was watching roll Miles the other day and
Speaker 1: one of the larp guys comes up and goes, who's A?
Speaker 1: And I was like, I always thought it was huzzah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Strickland always says it when he's dressed up like the
Speaker 1: King of the Renaissance Festival.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those larp scenes were funny too, right, But the
Speaker 3: guy comes up and says, who's A?
Speaker 1: So I was like, I can't wait to incorporate that
Speaker 1: somehow Robin Hood here we go.
Speaker 2: Prince of Thieves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the reason why that would work is because
Speaker 1: the LARPers were set in the medieval era, and everyone
Speaker 1: knows Robin Hood's set in the medieval era. But actually
Speaker 1: that's totally incorrect. Yeah, most of the time when you
Speaker 1: see Robin Hood, it's set in the Tudor era, almost
Speaker 1: almost variably in Sherwood Forest, which is a wooded area
Speaker 1: and about the right smack dab in the center of England.
Speaker 1: And everybody running around is acting like it's the fourteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: maybe the fifteen hundreds, And that's all well and good.
Speaker 1: If you're making a Disney version of it, reality just
Speaker 1: goes right out the window. Right, it's Disney. It's a cartoon,
Speaker 1: for goodness sake. Everybody lighting up.
Speaker 2: But I love that version.
Speaker 1: It's entirely possible and it's a good one. And there
Speaker 1: are historians who believe that there was a real Robin Hood,
Speaker 1: and they have spent a lot of time and effort
Speaker 1: trying to track down exactly who it might be, exactly
Speaker 1: when he might have lived, and my money and a
Speaker 1: lot of historians place it right around the beginning of
Speaker 1: the twelve hundreds the thirteenth century in England, long before
Speaker 1: the tutors werever even a twinkle in anybody's loins.
Speaker 3: But here's my bet is that Robin Hood is a
Speaker 3: an amalgam amalgam of a few dudes that the writers
Speaker 3: of history have filled in some blanks and then the
Speaker 3: writers of literature just like ran with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's my take on it, as well as
Speaker 1: that it's a few people served as role models for it,
Speaker 1: role models and new plan that Paul rud is everywhere.
Speaker 3: But there are some people who still think that there
Speaker 3: was no such person at all, or maybe even persons.
Speaker 2: It might have been wholly created.
Speaker 1: Sure, But then on the opposite side, there are some
Speaker 1: people and there are few and far between from what
Speaker 1: I can tell, you believe there was a single person, yeah,
Speaker 1: named Robin Hood, who did most of this stuff and
Speaker 1: was the basis for these legends that.
Speaker 2: They're called people who want to sell books.
Speaker 1: So there's right, there's like they're like Robin Hood case
Speaker 1: closed a big stamp to do it was like a
Speaker 1: whole spectrum that you can just walk right up and say,
Speaker 1: I believe this, and you're as right as anybody on
Speaker 1: the Robin Hood train.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if we go back in time, you know,
Speaker 3: I think everyone knows that early historians had a lot
Speaker 3: of blanks and they weren't the most reliable narrators.
Speaker 1: No, because they would just fill them in with stuff
Speaker 1: they made up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I think they didn't. I don't know if
Speaker 3: they realized that early on. I'm speculating here that they.
Speaker 1: Were really good historians.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that they're like recording history. I think it was
Speaker 3: more like, hey, this is a good story, and I
Speaker 3: don't know, in five hundred years people are going to.
Speaker 2: Be taking this as is written history. There's spinning yarn.
Speaker 1: In this case. I don't think that's correct. I think
Speaker 1: that they were they considered themselves actual historian thinks who
Speaker 1: were getting to the bottom of history. But they had
Speaker 1: a worldview, and specifically with Robinhood, it was I think
Speaker 1: fifteenth century or sixteenth century Scottish historians who were the
Speaker 1: ones who really kind of gave us the image of
Speaker 1: Robinhood that we have drunk, the robbing from the rich
Speaker 1: to give to the poor, the chivalry, a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff.
Speaker 2: Anti establishment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that actually was part of it before they had
Speaker 1: to kind of figure out how to make that one
Speaker 1: work because it didn't make sense to them at the time.
Speaker 1: But they basically said, here, we've got these ballads that
Speaker 1: were written in the thirteen hundred, it's the fourteenth century,
Speaker 1: and we think they're historical, so we're going to try
Speaker 1: to put this in context. And the stuff we don't understand,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna make up, but we're going to pass
Speaker 1: it off as real. So there's this if you it's
Speaker 1: one of those great things like with fairy tales. We
Speaker 1: know all these fairy tales, and you remember we did
Speaker 1: those those episodes on it. Yeah, but if you strip
Speaker 1: away this stuff that's been added over the years and
Speaker 1: get to the bare bones, it's way darker, a lot different, yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot different than what we know and love,
Speaker 1: as you know, for in this case the robin Hood legend.
Speaker 3: Right, So if you want to look at literature, like
Speaker 3: you mentioned these ballads, the actual canon for robin Hood,
Speaker 3: the very first mention is one called Piers Plowman p I. E. R. S.
Speaker 1: Like Piers Morgan exactly.
Speaker 3: From William Langland about thirteen seventy seven. And then there
Speaker 3: were a host of other ballads and this is all
Speaker 3: what was this Middle English, I think, so is that
Speaker 3: what you would call it?
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe even old.
Speaker 3: Like why's for vowels and things like that, like cannaburytail stuff.
Speaker 1: I really don't know if it's Middle or Old English. Way,
Speaker 1: it's barely legible.
Speaker 3: It is a little and that is spelled l y
Speaker 3: t y lll, which is great.
Speaker 2: A little gest of robin Hood.
Speaker 1: Those was that like Sean Connery maybe dope.
Speaker 3: Gest of robin Hood. That's just straight up says Robin Hood.
Speaker 3: And then a few more robin Hood and the Monk
Speaker 3: robin Hood, and the Potter robin Hood, and Guy of
Speaker 3: Gisborne and Robin Hood in the Temple of Doom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that one was super dark.
Speaker 2: It was very dark.
Speaker 1: The author had just broken up with his girlfriend.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what brought us the PG thirteen rating.
Speaker 3: It was mistaken that incremlins. So whether or not you
Speaker 3: believe this stuff basically has to do with whether or
Speaker 3: not these early songs you think are just songs or a.
Speaker 2: Matter of history historical record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like that's how before people commonly wrote stuff down.
Speaker 1: Like at this time when this stuff was being written,
Speaker 1: the people who were writing it were monks, those are
Speaker 1: the only people educated enough to write, but people still
Speaker 1: pass stories down. They did it through oral histories. So
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that these early ballads were meant to
Speaker 1: were created to commemorate person or people or events or
Speaker 1: something like that, and then just over time we lost
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, are these fiction or nonfiction? But you're right,
Speaker 1: like that's the divide when it comes to approaching robin
Speaker 1: hood from an historical advantage, like are these just totally fiction, right,
Speaker 1: or are they meant to commemorate something that actually happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's easy through today's lens to dismiss these
Speaker 3: things as songs. But back then, like you're saying, it's
Speaker 3: like what better way to remember history, sure than to
Speaker 3: set it to Come on, Eileen, you know.
Speaker 1: Why that man? Why'd you just do that?
Speaker 2: That's a great song.
Speaker 1: It was the first thousand times I heard it.
Speaker 2: Oh, you don't like anymore? You know.
Speaker 1: That's one of the problems is it's like it's like
Speaker 1: they just made ten songs in the eighties and that's
Speaker 1: all you ever hear. There were so many more songs.
Speaker 2: Burning down the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was once a great song as well.
Speaker 2: I'm going to see David burndon night.
Speaker 3: Oh cool with uh, So you've won't listen to kime
Speaker 3: on Aileen, but you'll regurgitate the what's up Budweiser guys.
Speaker 1: That was from the nineties. I've heard that less frequently.
Speaker 3: What connection did I hear recently from the guy who
Speaker 3: directed those I think he's directing movies now or something.
Speaker 2: The guy who directed those commercials.
Speaker 3: Right, they're like, you may like, you've never heard of
Speaker 3: this movie director, but you right, remember these guys.
Speaker 2: That was the gist of it.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised those ads never got like a full movie themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was that. That definitely that era.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: Remember the Caveman from the Geico Ads. H they had
Speaker 1: their own TV show for a come out. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: for like three episodes see that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this totally could have been a TV show and
Speaker 3: call it What's Up?
Speaker 2: Guys?
Speaker 1: Right, what's happening was taken?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: So where were we? We were talking about the talking heads?
Speaker 2: Oh, let's talk about the forest.
Speaker 1: Well, the reason we're talking about the forest is because, well,
Speaker 1: a character may or may not have existed. The stuff
Speaker 1: in the ballads definitely bears a strong resemblance sexual historical events.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the forest is significant here because at the time
Speaker 3: in the Middle Ages, how much head a percentage of
Speaker 3: two thirds of the land in England was forest land and.
Speaker 2: It was sort of a.
Speaker 3: It was a place where the king, it was a
Speaker 3: place where people could go hide out. So that's where
Speaker 3: it gets this sort of outlaw lore is it was
Speaker 3: a legit place for outlaws to go do their business.
Speaker 1: Right, but it was also an outlaw hideout. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: just by hanging out in the forest you were by
Speaker 1: definition an outlaw because of those forest laws that were
Speaker 1: super unpopular among people.
Speaker 2: You know, forest law means what I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell.
Speaker 2: You what's days. What happens in the forest days in
Speaker 2: the forest?
Speaker 1: Yeahs unless somebody comes out and blabs about what goes
Speaker 1: on in the forest. Do you remember, like being a
Speaker 1: kid though, hanging out in the forest, in the woods,
Speaker 1: like playing.
Speaker 3: I grew up in on two acres in the woods,
Speaker 3: so yeah, I was always in the woods.
Speaker 1: Its own place it is. So you can imagine like
Speaker 1: your whole country is like that, and like that's how
Speaker 1: you're living. You're just an outlaw with your buddies hanging out,
Speaker 1: having a campfire every night, eating roast pig that you
Speaker 1: find wandering around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was weird because the king could like
Speaker 3: that was his land where he could go have, you know,
Speaker 3: go hunting, right and have his his dudes hunting. But
Speaker 3: it was also lawless in a place to hide.
Speaker 2: It was weird. There was a lot going on in
Speaker 2: the forest, right.
Speaker 1: So the reason why you were just by definition and
Speaker 1: outlaw if you were hanging out in the forest is
Speaker 1: because the king had these forest laws that said, all
Speaker 1: this forest, this is mine. Yeah, this is for my hunting,
Speaker 1: my friend's hunting, and that's it. If you're hanging out
Speaker 1: in the forest, you're breaking the law. And it was
Speaker 1: like a big law and like there was serious punishments first,
Speaker 1: So just being in the forest made you an outlaw.
Speaker 1: But even more than that, the people who went and
Speaker 1: lived in the forest weren't like on the run necessarily
Speaker 1: from the king and the king's officials. They were like
Speaker 1: at war with the king and the king's officials. This
Speaker 1: is a time where like just some schmoe like you
Speaker 1: or me could like wage war directly with the King
Speaker 1: of England and get him to come fight us basically,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what happened, and that's why the
Speaker 1: forest was a backdrop for all of the robin Hood
Speaker 1: legends from the beginning of the ballads up to the
Speaker 1: Robinhood Men and Tights. They were all set in the forest.
Speaker 1: And because this happened, the forest laws were passed and
Speaker 1: everyone was really upset about it. So, whether it's a
Speaker 1: metaphor or whether they're saying, like the king did this
Speaker 1: and we need to commemorate it, or they were just
Speaker 1: you know, building a foundation for why this action was
Speaker 1: taking place, The forest like plays a huge role.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's a new Robinhood movie out. Yeah, it's crazy,
Speaker 3: Like it seems like every couple of years this this
Speaker 3: just won't die. They're going to do a new version
Speaker 3: of it. And there's a new one with the kid
Speaker 3: from Kidd and play the Yeah with kid from Kidd
Speaker 3: and Play.
Speaker 1: He's awesome. He does that like jump through he remember
Speaker 1: foot and then jump through this.
Speaker 2: I used to could do that.
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, I never could. Yeah, I would just fall
Speaker 1: flat on my face.
Speaker 2: Young Chuck was a little more fleet of foot.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's got the kid from the Kingsman, you know
Speaker 3: that guy he plays Robin Hood and Jamie Jamie Fox
Speaker 3: is Little John, I guess, but it's you know, of
Speaker 3: course this one he's he's shooting like literally like five
Speaker 3: arrows at once, and they all manage to go in
Speaker 3: different directions somehow.
Speaker 1: Oh is it a comedy?
Speaker 2: No, No, it's real.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, Like there's guys coming at him from different directions.
Speaker 3: And so he'll put like three arrows and shoot them
Speaker 3: at the same time. Yet they'll all like spread out
Speaker 3: like a machine gun fire or something, her shotgun.
Speaker 1: And for some weird reason, he's going yeah, yeah with
Speaker 1: every shot.
Speaker 3: And then I was looking up movies today just while
Speaker 3: we're on that, and I totally forgot there was a
Speaker 3: Russell Crowe version that I didn't even see.
Speaker 1: I think that was just Robin Hood, right.
Speaker 2: Robin Hood from like twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Surprisedly, Yeah, No, that's not the one. There's one that
Speaker 1: like historians are like, this is about as close to
Speaker 1: accurate as we've gotten.
Speaker 3: Well, I looked up on the Russell Crowe and then
Speaker 3: I think the deal is that one is a prequel
Speaker 3: of sorts, because it's it's like the Wars before he
Speaker 3: became you know, Robin hood.
Speaker 2: That you know robs and gives to the poor.
Speaker 1: I would go check that one out. The one that
Speaker 1: I was thinking of is from nineteen ninety one. It
Speaker 1: was directed by John Irvin, starring Patrick Bergen, remember him,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and Uma Thurman. That's the one of the
Speaker 1: historians are like, this really is the best out of
Speaker 1: all of them, not Costner.
Speaker 2: I like that movie when it came out. I'll admit it.
Speaker 1: I saw JFK on the plane to Australian and I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you as it came a Costner fan with
Speaker 1: that one all over again is a great actor.
Speaker 2: You fell in love all over again?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I specifically avoided Draft Day so I could
Speaker 1: leave the door open to be a fan again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's funny. I don't remember.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: All I remember was that preview for Draft Day.
Speaker 1: That's all I saw it too.
Speaker 2: But I just remember that.
Speaker 3: They built up in that previous it's about the NFL Draft,
Speaker 3: something so big, like I can't believe that happened, It's
Speaker 3: gonna happen. I was like, what did they like kill
Speaker 3: somebody in the draft room.
Speaker 1: No, they drafted calling Kernick Capernick, that's so you Kaepernick whatever, let's.
Speaker 2: Take a break. I feel like we're off the rails
Speaker 2: and we're lost in the forest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll come back right after this as W
Speaker 3: s K as.
Speaker 4: Big should know that.
Speaker 2: That's why s K.
Speaker 4: You should know why s K.
Speaker 1: That we should know knows. But Josh Clark, by the way,
Speaker 1: I want to say, I admire Colin Kaepernick or Kpernick,
Speaker 1: and I might no disrespect by saying his name. You're right,
Speaker 1: that is just so me.
Speaker 2: Of course I knew you're kneeling right now.
Speaker 1: In fact, I know that you knew, but I just
Speaker 1: wanted to sure you know.
Speaker 3: All right, So they're in the forest. The forest makes
Speaker 3: historical sense, like we pointed out, that's where outlaws did
Speaker 3: their bidding. And now we should talk about the king
Speaker 3: because it's sort of not all over the map. But
Speaker 3: there's a few a few people that some historians believe
Speaker 3: could have been the King of note.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what's what's weird is if you read those
Speaker 1: original ballads that are spelled all crazy, they mentioned the
Speaker 1: king once. Out of all of you, there's just one
Speaker 1: mention of the king, and they refer to him as Edward,
Speaker 1: our comely King.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think is Edward three.
Speaker 1: Right, that's what some historians say if you take the
Speaker 1: ballads at face value and that they were written contemporaneously
Speaker 1: to Robin Hood's exploits.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people and even in the popular culture,
Speaker 1: the kings that are most associated with the robin Hood
Speaker 1: legend are Richard the Lion Heart and his brother, the
Speaker 1: sniveling villain, King John.
Speaker 2: He's always sniveling and when he and so.
Speaker 1: In the In the robin Hood legends, Robin Hood frequently
Speaker 1: helped Richard the Lion Heart regain his throne from King John,
Speaker 1: who had scheme to get it away from him. King
Speaker 1: John's the villain King King. Really, Robin Hood's the hero,
Speaker 1: but King Richard's like the backup hero. But they think
Speaker 1: that it's possible in some of the best candidates for
Speaker 1: who robin Hood is based on. Actually, we're running around
Speaker 1: and interacting with the real life King John, if not
Speaker 1: also King Richard too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that doesn't make sense time wise, right, because
Speaker 3: unless they just took a while to get around to
Speaker 3: writing these stories, because they were around one hundred years
Speaker 3: before the first Robin Hood ballad started appearing.
Speaker 1: Right, which, in my opinion, lends credence to the idea
Speaker 1: that the ballads are folklore based on actual events, because
Speaker 1: that time span is just about enough for things to
Speaker 1: be kind of changed and compressed and added to and
Speaker 1: for a folklore to develop. Like, think about it, if
Speaker 1: you're describing like an outlaw, Like if you or I
Speaker 1: like wrote something about Billy the Kid based on stuff
Speaker 1: we'd heard, what will we come up with? It'd be close,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't be like one hundred percent accurate, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point.
Speaker 3: Richard, though, had a pretty interesting story when he died,
Speaker 3: and this is something that is not lower but is
Speaker 3: as close to recorded fact as we can get. He
Speaker 3: was walking around the perimeter of a chateau in France
Speaker 3: where he that was just there was a battle going on,
Speaker 3: basically didn't have I get the feeling that it was
Speaker 3: sort of winding down. So he may have d chain
Speaker 3: mailed and was like just airing out his armpits or something.
Speaker 3: Oh so sweaty, and he was shot with a crossbow
Speaker 3: in the shoulder. Ordinarily might not have been a big deal,
Speaker 3: but it turned gangrenous. And some people say as he
Speaker 3: was dying, he said, bring me the man who shot me,
Speaker 3: and they bring the man and he like forgave him
Speaker 3: and said, spare this man. I may die, but do
Speaker 3: not do anything to him. But that's not how it
Speaker 3: turned out.
Speaker 1: Is it. It's not the guy's name Peter Basil. And
Speaker 1: after the king died, everybody turned to Peter Basil and
Speaker 1: was like, you know you're dead, right.
Speaker 2: He's like, I probably figured it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like I was really hoping that wasn't the case, best, right,
Speaker 1: But didn't you hear him? He just said right, mother.
Speaker 1: But they flayed him alive, which meant peeling the skin
Speaker 1: off of his head while he was alive, unbelievable. And
Speaker 1: then after he endured a lot of agony, they hanged
Speaker 1: him without the skin because I'm sure they peeled it
Speaker 1: off of his neck as well. Imagine how bad a
Speaker 1: hanging would be. But then without your skin on your neck,
Speaker 1: it's adding insult to injuries, what it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it was custom at the time that you
Speaker 3: bury the king in different places, which sounds really horrific now,
Speaker 3: but he was. He was cut up and buried in
Speaker 3: different places heart in Normandy, his entrails and shallows, and
Speaker 3: apparently the rest of his remains in anjou.
Speaker 2: Right, so that was a good brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was Richard the lion Heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he wasn't like deposed by his brother John. He
Speaker 1: actually died. He was king for two years after their father.
Speaker 1: What was his name, Henry, I believe, Henry the second, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Henry the Second, right, Yeah, Okay, so after Henry the
Speaker 1: Second died, Richard took over for two years, then he
Speaker 1: dies and then John ascends to the.
Speaker 2: Throne reign of terror.
Speaker 1: And John was like he's known among historians as the
Speaker 1: worst king England's ever had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was, like you said, he was paranoid, he
Speaker 3: had no scruples, he was humorless.
Speaker 2: He was just not a good guy.
Speaker 3: They point out in this article you sent he was
Speaker 3: the opposite of Robin Hood and that he took from
Speaker 3: the rich and the poor and just.
Speaker 2: Gave it to himself.
Speaker 1: I actually wrote that, did you write that?
Speaker 2: Very well done?
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you everybody.
Speaker 2: It sounded like a Josh Clark line.
Speaker 3: And in the movies, like John's always just sort of
Speaker 3: a just that he's sort of a whiny baby.
Speaker 1: He is, but he's also very powerful and very evil
Speaker 1: and deadly.
Speaker 2: Yes, and vindictive.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So this is in real life. That's how
Speaker 1: he's remembered and just described. He was very well known
Speaker 1: for being a heavy taxer. He would take your state
Speaker 1: and he would use these funds to like enrich himself
Speaker 1: basically like you were saying. But he was the noble
Speaker 1: or he was the king that the nobles rebelled against
Speaker 1: and forced to sign the magnet Karta. That was John. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that means that he was such a bad king that
Speaker 1: his own people rose up and took London hostage and
Speaker 1: forced him to negotiate with them, and he signed this
Speaker 1: document that forms the basis of civil and individual liberties
Speaker 1: in the Western world, you know, the Magnet Carta signed
Speaker 1: in twelve fifteen. So John was forced to sign that,
Speaker 1: and this rebellion is kind of part of the Robinhood
Speaker 1: legend as well.
Speaker 2: Pretty cool. Yeah, he wasn't cool.
Speaker 1: No, but I just thought everything going on around him
Speaker 1: was cool. And I think that the point of John
Speaker 1: and the reason why I think that he was part
Speaker 1: of the basis of the robin Hood legend historically, is
Speaker 1: that prior to John, when his father was king, there
Speaker 1: was a respect for the rule of law and things
Speaker 1: were just kind of run well, like the king didn't
Speaker 1: act above the law. Well, King John was very much
Speaker 1: not like that. He was above the law and acted
Speaker 1: like it and flawn at it. So when his father
Speaker 1: was around, the idea of an outlaw, an outlaw was
Speaker 1: a villain. By the time John took over, or after
Speaker 1: John took over, that had reversed. The outlaw was in
Speaker 1: opposition to the king. The law was what was corrupt,
Speaker 1: and so John's reign kind of gave this fertile ground
Speaker 1: for a legend like Robin Hood, an outlaw hero to develop,
Speaker 1: possibly for the first time in Western culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was prime time for something like this to
Speaker 2: take hold. Right.
Speaker 3: So, as far as who Robinhood may have been, historians
Speaker 3: have tossed a lot of people into the pot over
Speaker 3: the years, and most of them have some variation of
Speaker 3: that name.
Speaker 2: There was a Robin with a Y.
Speaker 3: Hod h o d, a Robert Hood or Robertus not bad,
Speaker 3: that was Gilbert Robin Hood.
Speaker 1: Sure, why not with a Y N. So all these
Speaker 1: historians are like, oh, it's got to be these three guys.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, robin Hood with a U.
Speaker 3: But here's what some other folks have finally said, is
Speaker 3: you know what I think that name is not a name,
Speaker 3: but it is a term for an outlaw. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: it was created and there's a little bit to back
Speaker 3: that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there really is. They actually this is like as
Speaker 1: clever as an historian.
Speaker 2: Can get pretty good stuff here, clever.
Speaker 1: And lucky some historians. I didn't find out who it
Speaker 1: was or when, but they came upon a I guess
Speaker 1: like a civic proclamation about prior, which is a church
Speaker 1: official being pardoned for seizing somebody's assets. Yes, and the
Speaker 1: person and he seized him without a warrant, which is
Speaker 1: what he was being pardoned for. But the person whose
Speaker 1: assets he sees was an outlaw named William Robehood. Okay,
Speaker 1: Robin Hood right, rob e Hod. So they were like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is a Robin Hood right here. They managed to
Speaker 1: find the year's court record before for the same area
Speaker 1: that there was only one prior in the area, and
Speaker 1: that noted that the prior had seized the assets of
Speaker 1: a guy named Robert Son or no william Son, yeah,
Speaker 1: william Son of Robert Lefever. So what they figured out
Speaker 1: was that the clerk in the pardoning proclamation wrote down
Speaker 1: that the guy was a Robohoud, which meant a fugitive
Speaker 1: an outlaw, and they say, okay, this is proof positive
Speaker 1: that as late as twelve sixty two, no later than
Speaker 1: twelve sixty two, the idea of using the term robin
Speaker 1: hood or some variation of that as a term for
Speaker 1: an outlaw generic term for an outlaw was so widespread
Speaker 1: that a clerk could write that down denote somebody as
Speaker 1: a robohod and people would know what they were talking about,
Speaker 1: which means that that legend of Robinhood had to have
Speaker 1: been around prior to this and in circulation for long
Speaker 1: enough that it had spread.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So in effect, William's son of Robert Lefever is the
Speaker 3: same person as William Robahod, right, And this dude in
Speaker 3: twelve sixty two, this clerk just took it upon himself
Speaker 3: to give him that name, and no one thought he
Speaker 3: was crazy.
Speaker 1: Right, Almost like he had written down William the bank robber, right,
Speaker 1: or William the bandit yeah yeah, rather than writing his
Speaker 1: last name, which frankly, he didn't have a last name.
Speaker 1: He was son of Robert Lefever, yeah, because they didn't
Speaker 1: have last names very much back then. So it was
Speaker 1: very much like the clerk wrote William the Outlaw Bannit, Yes,
Speaker 1: but what he used robahod or robin Hood instead of
Speaker 1: outlaw Bandit is just somewhere over the ages we lost
Speaker 1: that knowledge that Robahad or robin Hood meant that and
Speaker 1: wasn't an actual person.
Speaker 2: Right. So there's this other guy, Fulk Fitzwarren.
Speaker 1: This guy, he is a bad dude.
Speaker 3: He was a bad dude and he was a real guy.
Speaker 3: And it turns out there was actually a personal link
Speaker 3: to King John. They were pals, Little Fulk Fitzwarren and
Speaker 3: Young John, who I bet Young John was a not
Speaker 3: fun to be around. Now he's probably not a fun playmate,
Speaker 3: yea mine. And here's one story. They were playing chess
Speaker 3: one day, John got mad, broke his chessboard over Folk's head.
Speaker 3: Folk kicked him in the stomach and John almost said
Speaker 3: little John, but that would be a mistake. Little John
Speaker 3: was a character which, by the way, I don't think
Speaker 3: we mentioned Little John was referenced in all those old ballads.
Speaker 3: See he's been around kind of since the beginning.
Speaker 1: And they think they found his grave.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: So this John, as he was younger, went crying to
Speaker 3: Daddy and said, he kicked me in the stomach. Expecting
Speaker 3: to get some sort of back up, and apparently that
Speaker 3: would have been Henry the second. I don't know if
Speaker 3: he beat him, but he was beaten for complaining about
Speaker 3: being kicked in the stomach.
Speaker 1: Kanked him good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so no wonder John grew up to be a jerk,
Speaker 3: right His dad did never have his back.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, yeah, that's part of it, I'm sure.
Speaker 3: So flash forward a bit. Folk's father passes away in
Speaker 3: eleven ninety seven. He inherits his ancestral holding at Whittington.
Speaker 3: John comes to power and says, I remember when you
Speaker 3: kicked me in the stomach, what at bastard? I am
Speaker 3: going to take your holdings, take your family estate basically,
Speaker 3: and I don't give it to your enemy, old Maury
Speaker 3: fits Roger. Yeah, sorry, Maury's. There's a name as an
Speaker 3: ess at the end.
Speaker 1: These names are great.
Speaker 2: So Folk ends up murdering Maury's.
Speaker 1: It might it might even be Morris Morris maybe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably today it would be Morris fitz Roger.
Speaker 1: That's a new pseudonym.
Speaker 3: Fulk kills Morris, flees and basically wages a robin Hood
Speaker 3: like war against John and his men for about three years.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this could be him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be because not just the fact that
Speaker 1: he was battling King John and fled to the forest
Speaker 1: where he used as his base of operations. But there
Speaker 1: are a few other things that came up. Like one
Speaker 1: thing that's part of the legends but actually isn't part
Speaker 1: of the earliest ballads is that that robinhood was a
Speaker 1: fallen nobleman bud of noble birth who either lost or
Speaker 1: renounced their title and became an outlaw and then regained it.
Speaker 1: That's the story of Fulk fitz Warren, like he lost
Speaker 1: his land, he lost his title to this other guy,
Speaker 1: and then finally got it back when he was pardoned
Speaker 1: in twelve oh three.
Speaker 2: Right, pretty good candidate.
Speaker 1: That was one. There's another one where Folk was known
Speaker 1: to while he was a forest bandit. He would hijack
Speaker 1: like the King's people who were carrying the King's money
Speaker 1: album and he would say what do you have on you?
Speaker 1: And the ones who told the truth about what they
Speaker 1: actually had, the amount of currency they had on them,
Speaker 1: he would let live very Robin Hoodie, very like straight
Speaker 1: out of the legend. But the ones who lied, he
Speaker 1: would you know, punish with their lives or whatever that
Speaker 1: was super Robin Hoodie. There was also another character trait
Speaker 1: of Robin Hood was disguised as using disguises. Folk Fitzwarren
Speaker 1: was not above disguising himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was another guy historical outlaw named Eustace the
Speaker 3: Monk who also had the disguised thing down, very much
Speaker 3: like Robin exactly. He would disguise himself as a potter
Speaker 3: and that even goes to the Disney cartoon. Yeah, these
Speaker 3: disguises very much a Robin Hood thing.
Speaker 2: I haven't I don't know.
Speaker 3: Eustace the Monk doesn't seem as enticing to me as
Speaker 3: Old fitz Warren.
Speaker 1: No, fitz Fitz or Folk is.
Speaker 3: He's my guy to Speaking of fits, though, we should
Speaker 3: tell everyone that that little tag at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the name means that you're.
Speaker 2: You're a bastard child, right.
Speaker 1: An illegitimate son. I look that up because it sounded
Speaker 1: too good to be true. But the there was definitely
Speaker 1: a kid named Fitzroy, which meant illegitimate son of roy
Speaker 1: of the king. And I can't remember what king or
Speaker 1: what the guy's first name was, and since then it's
Speaker 1: kind of become code. But I don't know that that
Speaker 1: was widespread at the time that necessarily Folk Fitzwarren was
Speaker 1: an illegitimate son, or that any of the other fits
Speaker 1: is were.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I wonder today if like Patrick and Fitzgibbons
Speaker 3: and like Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald is all Is that all mean
Speaker 3: illegitimate son of Gerald or Patrick?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what's the truth anymore?
Speaker 2: Very interesting fits. Should we take another break?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll let everybody ste on that one for a
Speaker 1: little while.
Speaker 2: We'll be back right after this. As why why why
Speaker 2: s K?
Speaker 4: As he should know?
Speaker 2: That's why SK.
Speaker 1: We should know why s K.
Speaker 4: We should know?
Speaker 2: Knows Clark.
Speaker 1: All right, so we've covered Folk, and we covered Eustace Folk.
Speaker 1: By the way, we got to tell that one story
Speaker 1: real quick about him.
Speaker 2: The beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he found out that another another band that was
Speaker 1: using his name.
Speaker 2: Pierce Morgan what was his name?
Speaker 1: Pierce?
Speaker 2: What Pierce to Bruville?
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds like these sounds like romance novel names. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But he found out Pierce was using his name robbing
Speaker 1: somewhere else. And he captured Pierce and his men, and
Speaker 1: he made Pierce tie his men up and then go
Speaker 1: around and behead every single one of them with his
Speaker 1: own hands.
Speaker 2: With I guess, with the assumption that he would be let.
Speaker 1: Go, I guess, but he didn't. Then he cut off
Speaker 1: Pierce's hands when he was dead. If this happened, Chuck,
Speaker 1: can you imagine being in that house, that room where
Speaker 1: there's like five, six, ten guys? I have no idea
Speaker 1: how many men there were who were systematically beheaded and
Speaker 1: so like, as you're waiting in line as the guy next,
Speaker 1: he's getting his head cut off and your turns next.
Speaker 2: There's heads everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how much blood and gore was everywhere? Like can
Speaker 1: you imagine like really put yourself into that situation like
Speaker 1: that may have actually happened? So disturbing, so disturbing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like losing your head, that's that's I think that's probably
Speaker 1: like the first mortal fear any humans ever experienced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like we just.
Speaker 1: Know, on like a primal level, the head is supposed
Speaker 1: to be attached to the body, and when it's not,
Speaker 1: there's something bad wrong that's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like your your death.
Speaker 3: Yeah, didn't we determine though in a podcast nine and
Speaker 3: a half years ago, that you stay alive for like
Speaker 3: what six or seven seconds?
Speaker 2: Second? That's what they found in rats after you were beheaded.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember that one guy who was guillotine like, he
Speaker 1: kept like looking over and like trying to die. But
Speaker 1: then they'd say his name and his eyes would open
Speaker 1: back up and he'd be like what.
Speaker 3: Oh, could you imagine the horror of potentially looking up
Speaker 3: for four seconds and seeing your headless body?
Speaker 1: No, No, my mind just rails against going there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it should, it's replacing it with the what that.
Speaker 2: All? Right?
Speaker 3: So there was a guy who wrote a book. A
Speaker 3: lot of people are still trying to pieces together. This
Speaker 3: is not something that historians put to bed years and
Speaker 3: years ago. Definitely, not only fourteen years ago, in two
Speaker 3: thousand and four, and probably since then. But there was
Speaker 3: a dude named Brian Benison who wrote a book called
Speaker 3: Robin Hood colon.
Speaker 2: Case Closed, always a cult, the real story.
Speaker 1: That's pretty close to Case Closed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 3: And he says he's a lot, he's in the camp,
Speaker 3: that Robin Hood is a name, like a title, similar,
Speaker 3: he says to Billy the Kid.
Speaker 2: Right, I thought Billy Kidd was a real dude.
Speaker 1: Though, right, Yeah, I think his name is William Bonnie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean he knew at the time that
Speaker 2: he was called Billy the Kid.
Speaker 1: Right, right, Yeah, it's a terrible analogy. I think so too,
Speaker 1: because it'd be like Robin son of le Fever, right,
Speaker 1: but you call him Robin Hood not even close now.
Speaker 3: But at any rate, he claims it's a nickname and
Speaker 3: that of a man named Roger Godbird or go Baird,
Speaker 3: and he said he's the real guy. He said he
Speaker 3: lived in the thirteenth century. He was a friend originally
Speaker 3: of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Reginald Degray.
Speaker 1: That's pretty significant.
Speaker 3: And we should point out too that the one reason
Speaker 3: we can't pinpoint a lot of this is that they
Speaker 3: never name of the Sheriff of Nottingham they're talking about
Speaker 3: in any of these stories, right, And that's not a
Speaker 3: person's name, that's a title.
Speaker 1: No, But there is such a thing as the Sheriff
Speaker 1: of Nottingham that there was back then. But there were
Speaker 1: many of them, right, exactly, just one after the other.
Speaker 1: So that doesn't help that much, but it does zero
Speaker 1: in sure on the area. But yeah, it doesn't help
Speaker 1: get a time period down.
Speaker 3: No, But he claims that it was specifically Reginald Degray
Speaker 3: that Sheriff of Nottingham and after what four years is
Speaker 3: an outlaw. The dude was captured, went to jail, pardoned,
Speaker 3: and then farmed peacefully for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, that guy's a pretty good candidate.
Speaker 1: He is because one of the things about the robin
Speaker 1: Hood themes, despite some in some of that, I think
Speaker 1: the ballads, No, not in the ballads. It would have
Speaker 1: been in the ones that came later, so I guess
Speaker 1: the ones that the Scottish historians added. He was battling
Speaker 1: the king in the original ballads. All of the people
Speaker 1: he was rebelling against and fighting were like local authorities,
Speaker 1: like the sheriff of Nottingham. Yeah, so he was kind
Speaker 1: of a working class hero among like the first working
Speaker 1: class the West has ever seen. The Yooman farmers of
Speaker 1: the era or of the area. They were like the
Speaker 1: first like middle class that ever developed. Because either you
Speaker 1: were a peasant, meaning you were a feudal slave to
Speaker 1: the feudal lord and you worked the land whether you
Speaker 1: liked it or not, or you were landed gentry like
Speaker 1: you were a feudal lord and you had a peasantry
Speaker 1: and you had, you know, a bunch of land. You're
Speaker 1: friends with the king. Yeah, but in between there were yeomans.
Speaker 1: I think that's how you say it. Why an yeomen yeoman?
Speaker 1: There were yeoman farmers who were they weren't slaves, but
Speaker 1: they didn't have a title. They just kind of made
Speaker 1: their own way. And supposedly that's what Robinhood was. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like that this was what this Roger Gobert
Speaker 1: is right, he was the same thing. And the idea
Speaker 1: that he was battling the sheriff of Nottingham, that would
Speaker 1: place him more in the historical lens than say, if
Speaker 1: he were like battling King John. That's actually a mark
Speaker 1: against folk fitz Warren, because that doesn't appear in the
Speaker 1: original ballads. It was he was battling the sheriff of Nottingham,
Speaker 1: where he's battling local church officials. He hated the church officials,
Speaker 1: but he loved God. He did so much so that
Speaker 1: he would get arrested to come out to go to church.
Speaker 2: Right. He just hated the clergy.
Speaker 1: Right, which at the time those were the people who
Speaker 1: were taking your land or throwing you in jail or
Speaker 1: taking your stuff without a warrant.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also when you look back on a lot of
Speaker 3: these early ballads and stories, they're very, very different from
Speaker 3: what the legend of Robinhood became to us in like
Speaker 3: contemporary fiction. Apparently that the Jest Ballad only had a
Speaker 3: couple of things that he did that were even close
Speaker 3: to like these big altruistic acts that he's really really
Speaker 3: most known for now.
Speaker 1: I think one of them was he agreed to lend
Speaker 1: money to a knight of the.
Speaker 3: Really, here's five bucks, just pay it back with a
Speaker 3: two percent big.
Speaker 1: Right, But that right, but that whole steal from the
Speaker 1: rich and give to the poor thing. Yeah, that came
Speaker 1: thanks to the Scottish historians.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all these authors sort of littered it with that
Speaker 3: stuff because they found a champion of the underling basically
Speaker 3: and the common man and ran with.
Speaker 1: It just from standing up to the king or to
Speaker 1: the authority who were acting unjustly and above the law themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's also no mention in those early tales of a
Speaker 3: maid Marian, who seems to have come along later and
Speaker 3: is actually one of a great example of one of
Speaker 3: the first examples in literature of female empowerment of a character.
Speaker 3: Because made Marian was no one's chump no in any
Speaker 3: of these stories, and she was like a sort of
Speaker 3: an equal to Robin, partially because of her spunk and
Speaker 3: partially because Robin and the.
Speaker 2: Stories at least, was kind of down with equality.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that was one thing. That and basically being
Speaker 1: in Nottingham area or Yorkshire area but somewhere in the woods.
Speaker 1: Those two things are basically the two constants throughout all
Speaker 1: the Robin Hood legends that he was very much down with.
Speaker 1: He was a feminist, yeah, and made Marian from what
Speaker 1: I saw, she had her own series of ballads before
Speaker 1: she appeared in the Robin Hood ballads. She was her
Speaker 1: own character, and so when they were brought together, it
Speaker 1: was kind of analogous to like putting Superman and Wonder
Speaker 1: Woman in the same comic book basically, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty cool move. That is a cool move, And to
Speaker 1: keep her equal to him, that's huge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is huge.
Speaker 3: Whether or not any of that happened, it's kind of
Speaker 3: irrelevant as far as literature's concern. There was one historian
Speaker 3: in fifteen twenty one that wrote, Robin permitted no harm
Speaker 3: to women, nor sees the goods of the poor, but
Speaker 3: helped them generously with what he took from abbots, like
Speaker 3: we were saying earlier with the clergy. But then in
Speaker 3: some of the earlier stories, there's not a whole lot
Speaker 3: of mention of that kind of stuff, except for one
Speaker 3: that just had one comment that Robin did poor men
Speaker 3: much good.
Speaker 1: It's okay, sure, I guess it's better than like he
Speaker 1: was the scourge of the poor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it wasn't like they built the legend upon
Speaker 3: that one kind of throwaway line. But I think they
Speaker 3: did well yeah, yeah, yeah, right, but they didn't make
Speaker 3: a lot of hay out of it, or at least
Speaker 3: that one author didn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not at the very beginning. In the ballads, yeah there,
Speaker 1: it was also like way more violent, Like there was
Speaker 1: one of the characters much the miller's son, Uh huh
Speaker 1: much was his name? I just loved that guy's name.
Speaker 1: Much was. I think in the ballads he lops off
Speaker 1: the head of a page boy, a child to keep
Speaker 1: him from like blabbing from what he saw. You know,
Speaker 1: the location of where the merry Men were right there,
Speaker 1: It was way more violent than than the later ones
Speaker 1: depicted Robin hood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were though, all Robin and his merry Men
Speaker 3: archery was always a big deal. They're all very skilled
Speaker 3: archers and one of the swordsmen, but they were all
Speaker 3: super skilled horsemen, and that's not something that you see
Speaker 3: as much, right, although I think in this new movie
Speaker 3: there he's pretty good horsemen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean imagine, like it's it's hard enough to
Speaker 1: be good on a horse, but a horse in a forest,
Speaker 1: that's that's like a whole different level.
Speaker 3: Shooting arrows. Yeah, like a Mongol exactly. And that was
Speaker 3: who was so good.
Speaker 1: Yep, the Mongols. The Mongol hordes who made their thigh steaks.
Speaker 1: Remember they sat on raw meat on their saddles to
Speaker 1: cure it. Tar tar, stake, tartar.
Speaker 2: What else you got anything?
Speaker 1: Oh? He was killed by a treacherous priorus, a female
Speaker 1: church official, kind of like a middle manager.
Speaker 2: None, a middle manager none.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he went to go see none for oh right,
Speaker 1: was he hurt healthcare? I'm not sure what it was,
Speaker 1: but he went to go get bled and she purposefully
Speaker 1: overbled him. And then when he asked to be buried
Speaker 1: somewhere and she's like, nope, I'm going to bury you
Speaker 1: on the side of the road. And she supposedly erected
Speaker 1: a This is in Kirkles. She erected a stone that
Speaker 1: said here lies Robin hood or something. I don't remember
Speaker 1: exactly what variation of Robinhood it was Robert hood Hude
Speaker 1: and supposedly she erected it, and this was written hundreds
Speaker 1: of years later to basically let travelers through the woods
Speaker 1: know that they didn't have to fear being held up
Speaker 1: any longer.
Speaker 3: Apparently if your name had the initials r h, it
Speaker 3: was fair game.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They really have.
Speaker 3: A lot of leeway here with with things like hood
Speaker 3: hod Hod.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well everybody was illiterate, so it didn't matter.
Speaker 3: Robin Robert robertus, come on, maybe I'm maybe, I'm I'm.
Speaker 1: Mine, you middle English dumb dums.
Speaker 3: And supposedly, after as he was dying, he used his
Speaker 3: last bit of energy to shoot it, to fire an
Speaker 3: arrow and say that's where I want to be buried.
Speaker 3: That's what she was like. That was nice for the movies,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's not happening.
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, sure, sure you can die knowing that
Speaker 1: I'll bury you.
Speaker 3: Just there over bled. Man, can you imagine, because I
Speaker 3: guess you just get so weak.
Speaker 1: That I can't imagine.
Speaker 3: You're probably like I think I'm good. But I'm not
Speaker 3: feeling so hot. She's like, just a little more.
Speaker 1: I'm not dead yet. Yeah, you got anything else?
Speaker 2: Nothing?
Speaker 1: So that was robin Hood history. And if you love
Speaker 1: history too, we'll go look up some Roberhood stuff on
Speaker 1: the internet. Since I said that it is time for
Speaker 1: this moment.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call this one of the many, many, many
Speaker 3: roundabouts emails that we.
Speaker 2: Got a lot. Everyone loves their roundabouts.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: It was really surprising, like everyone wanted to talk about
Speaker 3: their hometown roundabout.
Speaker 1: Everybody's very proud of their roundabout.
Speaker 2: Apologies to the people of Carmel.
Speaker 1: Carmel.
Speaker 2: No, didn't say it was Carmel.
Speaker 1: I don't remember anymore.
Speaker 2: I think it's supposed to be Carmel.
Speaker 1: Let's go with Carmel.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, just finished roundabouts. I thought i'd pitch a
Speaker 3: little info on our local one. In Alexandria, Louisiana the
Speaker 3: nineteen forties, it built two circles part of a road
Speaker 3: project speed up travel between two local military bases that
Speaker 3: had popped up to during World War Two. The larger
Speaker 3: of the two is still in use, so it's notorious
Speaker 3: and the area for traffic accidents, especially during heavy traffic
Speaker 3: and bad weather. It's a two lane circle with a
Speaker 3: large forested area in the very so that is probably
Speaker 3: the size of a city block. Like other roundabouts, you
Speaker 3: must yield to traffic already on the circle. There are
Speaker 3: two lanes that funnel traffic under the circle, and only
Speaker 3: one lane for getting off. This means that if you're
Speaker 3: in the if you enter the left lane, you have
Speaker 3: to merge to the right lane before you can exit.
Speaker 2: Because the circle is so big.
Speaker 3: Though the speed limit is forty five miles an hour,
Speaker 3: within this circle, people inevitably go too fast, or sometimes
Speaker 3: lanes change as slower cars are entering the circle, resulting
Speaker 3: in rear end crashes. The problem is frequent enough that
Speaker 3: the city is seriously looking into eliminating the circle.
Speaker 2: Oooh no definitive planet.
Speaker 3: It's replacement has been settled on, and some locals are
Speaker 3: concerned about disrupting wildlife in the forest as well, which
Speaker 3: is delayed any definitive action on whether the circle will
Speaker 3: continue to exist.
Speaker 1: May the Circle be unbroken.
Speaker 2: Warmest regards.
Speaker 3: I love that Marshall Wells from Colfax, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Marshall, appreciate that great story. Let us
Speaker 1: know how it pans out because we worry about the
Speaker 1: wildlife too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and thanks for everyone who wrote in about the roundabouts.
Speaker 3: I love the enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nice, especially from Carmel Cormel. If you want
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