One for the Rat

by Esmerelda Weatherwax (November 2011)

Sherwood Forest was one of the King’s largest hunting properties, many miles of deer park which was not all thick woodland. Some was open heath and grassland. At its largest it covered one fifth of the county of Nottinghamshire. The name Sherwood is first recorded in 958AD in the form Sciryuda meaning Woodland belonging to the Shire. 

What remains of this ancient woodland is today a National Park and Site of Special Scientific interest which contains more very old and massive oak trees than I have ever seen in one place before. Trees such as the 800 year old Harold in Essex which I mentioned here a year or two ago are relatively commonplace there, and dwarfed by the Major Oak which is thought to be 1000 years old.

But the Merrie men and Maid Marian would not have been popping in and out of the castle (back way) and the hollow oak several times in the course of an afternoon as they do in some of the films.

For example William de Fevre was declared an outlaw in 1261. Within a year court records were describing him as William Robehood.

Maybe not.

That idea was used to good effect in one of my favourite TV series, Robin of Sherwood which ran in the mid 1980s. When dark haired Michael Praed who played Robin wanted to leave for a career on Broadway and ultimately a role in Dynasty his character died, calling noble Robert of Huntingdon, played by blond Jason Connery, son of Sean, to step forward to lead the Merrie Men, and console the widowed Marian.

One for the rat, and one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow.

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