Vikings Used Sherwood Forest Long Before It Was Known as the Hideout of Robin Hood

Ancient Origins

A team of archaeologists has made a significant discovery at an ancient monument which served as a Viking meeting point in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England. Archaeologists stated that the newly found ruins mark the site of ‘Thing’ or Thynghowe of great archaeological significance not only nationally, but internationally as well.

 Vikings Used Ancient Monument Way Before Robin Hood Makes it Famous The new discovery suggests that long before legendary figure Robin Hood was hiding in Sherwood Forest, Vikings held their most important meetings there. The site, known as a Thynghowe, is at the top of Hanger Hill, on the boundary of the Budby, Warsop and Edwinstowe parishes, and on the edge of Birklands wood. 

The Thynghowe was discovered by local residents Stuart Reddish and Lynda Mallett in 2004, who have since founded the community action group The Friends of Thynghowe. Over a decade later, Mercian’s Geophysical Magnetometer Survey findings are putting a spotlight on their discovery, opening a window for new study and further examination of the Viking influence in Sherwood. “It was the group, their drive and passion, who have helped to find and protect this site,” archaeologist Andy Gaunt of Mercian Archaeological Services told Observer.

Consequently Gaunt explains how these meetings worked, “It’s where they [Vikings] signed laws, settled disputes and all sorts of things like that. The ‘thing site’ is definitely where they’d meet and where they would hold assemblies. And, if we’re correct, they would’ve stood within the circle and discussed laws and the question of the day, and then they’d pronounce the verdict from the top of the hill from the ‘thing mound’. That’s how it might have worked,” he says according to a report from local news site Notts TV.

A scan of the Viking meeting point in Sherwood Forest. Credit: Mercian Archaeological Services CIC

The Ancient Parliamentary Plains of Iceland
 Only a handful of ‘Thing sites’ have been found all over the Viking world: in Dublin, the Isle of Man and the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands and Iceland – arguably the most famous Viking Thing Site.

 Also known as the country’s first parliament, the Althingi (literally meaning the all thing, or general assembly), is over a thousand years old. As reported in a previous Ancient Origins article, the Althingi was founded in 930 AD and was originally used for the general assembly of the Icelandic Commonwealth.

Þingvellir National Park, iceland . Photo source: UNESCO.

These assemblies were conducted at Þingvellir (the ‘assembly fields’ or ‘Parliament Plains’), which is in the south western part of the island. The gatherings typically lasted for two weeks in June, which was a period of uninterrupted daylight, and had the mildest weather. During these meetings, the country’s most powerful leaders would decide on legislation and dispense justice. At the center of the assembly was the Lögberg, or Law Rock. This was a rocky outcrop which the Lawspeaker, the presiding official of the assembly, took his seat. This Lawspeaker was an important national official, and was elected for a three-year term as the chairman of the lögrétta (legislative or law council). Among other duties, the Lawspeaker had to announce publicly the laws that were passed by the lögrétta.

The Law Rock, where the world’s first every Parliament congregated. Image source

 Despite the prestige that went along with this position, the Lawspeaker had, in reality, little or no official power. Thus, the Lawspeaker may be comparable to the Speakers of modern day parliaments. Serious matters of government were not the only items on the agenda. The general assembly was in fact also the main social event of the year. Hundreds of Icelanders of all professions, including farmers, traders and craftsmen, would converge on the Axe River which ran through the Þingvellir. During the two weeks that the general assembly was in session, friendships were formed and broken, news and information were passed on from one person to another, disputes were settled, and business would have been transacted. The gathering would almost certainly have had a festival-like atmosphere to it.

Vikings marching to Althing, the world's oldest parliament established in Thingvellir in AD 930. Image by Marja.

The Viking Meeting Point in Sherwood Forest is Unique
An excited Gaunt, however, argues that the Viking meeting point in Sherwood Forest is different than the rest in its own way, “The level of preservation makes it a pristine. There’s not really an equivalent. We can stand on that hill and know we’re standing where Vikings stood. There are not many places in the U.K. where you can say that,” he told Observer. And adds: “Its hugely important archaeological remains could have been lost forever and have remained unknown and unrecorded.”

Ultimately, Gaunt clarified that the next step for the Mercian and the Friends of Thynghowe team is to wait patiently for the results of further scientific examination of the finds from local universities, and then to conduct a wide study where more experts can participate, while everyone who’s fascinated by Viking history will get a chance to learn more about Viking legacy in Sherwood. “This is the Viking part of the story of Sherwood Forest,” he told Observer adding that between the Saxons and Medieval period, Thynghowe provides “another layer of that magical story.”

Top image: Reconstruction of a Viking meeting by jonathan_hart

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Medieval Ring Found in Robin Hood’s Forest Hideout May Net Finder a Small Fortune

Ancient Origins

An amateur treasure hunter with a metal detector turned up a Medieval, gold ring that was set with a sapphire stone in Sherwood Forest—haunt of the legendary (or real) Robin Hood. Experts have examined the ring and believe it may date to the 14th century.

The amateur, Mark Thompson, 34, had been using an inexpensive detector that he bought on the online auction website Ebay. He is a painter of fork-lifts and had been searching for treasure for just a year and a half, says the Daily Mail.

The ring may net him a small fortune if it truly is worth its estimated maximum value of $87,000 (70,000 British pounds). He detected metal underneath his wand just 20 minutes into his recent session in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. The British Museum is examining the ring with the expectation of formally declaring it treasure.

The British Museum is analyzing the ring and may declare it to be national treasure, though the finder would collect any reward. (Mark Thompson photo)

Online news accounts of the find said Mr. Thompson expected to find scrap metal of no value or coins of little value, but when he turned up the soil he saw the glint of gold.

One side of the ring depicts a baby, possibly the Christ child, and the other side depicts a female saint, both engraved into the gold of the ring. Mr. Thompson reported the find to proper authorities.

“I called my friend who came down to take a look and help see whether there was anything else related nearby,” Thompson told British news outlets. “If it does prove to be as valuable as we think it might be, it would completely change my life. I’m renting at the moment and I’d love to be able to buy a house or move into somewhere more comfortable.”

A regional finds liaison officer, Dot Boughton, said the ring is being examined by the coroner. The coroner may confirm the ring as treasure at an inquest, after which museums will have a chance to display the ring. Mr. Thompson would collect any reward.

Ms. Boughton has written a report, says the Sun, that compares the stone to another that adorns the tomb of William Wylesey, who died in 1374 and who was the archbishop of Canterbury.

The ring is not believed to be contemporaneous with Robin Hood, who, according to legend, operated with his gang out of Sherwood Forest in the 13th century, around the time of King John. It is unknown who Robin Hood truly was or even if he was more than just a legend but a real historical figure.

A statue of Robin Hood at a castle in Nottinghamshire, where the legendary robber was an outlaw in Sherwood Forest. ( Wikimedia Commons photo /Olaf1541)

He differs from other robbers of the time, including Fulk Fitzwarin and Eustace the Monk, who were real people and not just legendary. Legends say Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

One thing all three of these robbers and other fugitives have in common was that they used the king’s private forest reserves for refuge. The forests of Sherwood and Barnsdale, which are rife with old legends, were supposed to have been the kings’ private lands where they could hunt.

Historians think there may have been two historical figures from whom the legend of Robin Hood derives. Other outlaws also possibly took the name, which further confuses the historical record.

 Top image: Experts have valued the ring between $25,000 (20,000 British pounds) and $87,000 (70,000 pounds). The man who detected it, Mark Thompson, will collect any reward associated with the gold ring set with a sapphire stone. (Mark Thompson photo)

By Mark Miller

7 myths about Robin Hood

Robin Hood, an archetypal figure in English folklore. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

History Extra

Myth 1) Robin Hood was a real person

Robin Hood is an invented, archetypical hero, whose career encapsulates many of the popular frustrations and ambitions of his era. Robin (or Robert) Hood (aka Hod or Hude) was a nickname given to petty criminals from at least the middle of the 13th century – it may be no coincidence that Robin sounds like ‘robbing’ - but no contemporary writer refers to Robin Hood the famous outlaw we recognise today.
There were men like Robin Hood, however, such as fugitives who flouted the harsh forest laws [unpopular laws that retained vast areas of semi-wild landscape over which the king and his court could hunt], and these fugitives were largely admired by the oppressed peasantry. But the individual(s) whose deeds inspired the legend of Robin Hood may not have been called Robin Hood from birth, or indeed even during in his own lifetime.

Myth 2) Robin lived during the reign of Richard the Lionheart

Robin Hood is often portrayed as the enemy of the ambitious Prince John and the ally of his brother, the imprisoned Richard I (1189–99), but it was Tudor writers of the 16th century who first brought the three men together in this context.
Alternatively, Robin Hood has been identified (not very convincingly) with one of a number of Robin Hoods mentioned in the Wakefield Court Rolls during the reign of Edward II (1307–27), and, more probably, as a disinherited supporter of Simon de Montfort, who was slain at Evesham in 1265.
All we can say with certainty is that Robin the Outlaw had entered popular mythology by the time William Langland wrote The Vision of Piers Plowman in 1377. In it, Sloth the chaplain says: “I kan nought parfitly my Paternoster as the preest it syngeth, But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf, Erl of Chestre.”
Unfortunately, it is not clear if Robin was associated with Ranulf ‘de Blundeville’, earl of Chester (d1232) in some way, or if the ‘rymes’ about them sprang from entirely separate traditions.

Myth 3) Robin Hood was a philanthropist who robbed the rich to give to the poor

It was the Scottish historian John Major who in 1521 wrote that “[Robin] permitted no harm to women, nor seized the goods of the poor, but helped them generously with what he took from abbots”.
But earlier ballads are more reticent: the longest, and possibly also the oldest, rhyme or ballad about Robin Hood is The Lyttle Geste of Robyn Hode, believed to have been written down c1492–1510 but probably composed c1400. It concludes with the comment that Robin “did poor men much good”.

_{Robin Hood, printed by Wynkyn de Worde. Caption reads: "A lytell geste of Robin Hode". (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)}
But while Robin is willing to lend to a knight who finds himself in financial difficulties, in The Lyttle Geste and in other early ballads there is no mention of money being distributed among the peasants or of society being reordered to their advantage. On the contrary, stories that have the outlaws mutilating a vanquished enemy and even killing a child on one occasion show them in a quite different light.

Myth 4) Robin was a dispossessed nobleman, the Earl of Huntington

Again, there is no real basis for this theory – the Robin of the early ballads is always a yeoman, and his attitudes are those of his class.
So from where did the idea originate? John Leland, writing in the 1530s, refers to Robin as a nobilis exlex – a noble outlaw, meaning, in all probability, that he was high-minded. And in 1569 historian Richard Grafton claimed to have found evidence in an “old and ancient pamphlet” that Robin had been “advanced to the dignity of an earl” on account of his “manhood and chivalry”; an idea subsequently popularised by Anthony Munday in his plays The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington, and The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington, both written in 1598.
Furthermore, Martin Parker’s A True Tale of Robin Hood, published in 1632, stated unequivocally that the “renowned outlaw, Robert Earl of Huntington, vulgarly called Robin Hood, lived and died in AD 1198”, but the real Earl of Huntingdon (the only possible interpretation of ‘Huntington’) at this date was David of Scotland, who died in 1219. Following the death of David’s son, John, in 1237, there were no more earls of Huntingdon until the title was granted to William de Clinton a century later.

Myth 5) Robin married Maid Marian at St Mary’s Church in Edwinstowe

Maid Marian is now as much a part of the Robin Hood story as Robin himself, yet she was originally the subject of a separate series of ballads. Curiously, the Robin and the outlaws of the earliest stories do not appear to have had wives or families – the only slight feminine interest was Robin’s devotion to the Virgin Mary.
The storytellers may have thought this devotion inappropriate in the years after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and Marian may have been incorporated into the tales at this time to provide an alternative female focus. The ‘marriage’ of Robin and Marian inevitably followed.

_{c1880: Robin Hood and Maid Marian. (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images)}

Myth 6) Robin was buried at Kirklees Priory in Yorkshire and his grave can today be seen there

According to legend, Robin went to Kirklees Priory for medical treatment (date unknown), was deliberately over-bled by the prioress, and with his last ounce of strength shot an arrow indicating where he wanted to be buried.
However, the Tudor writer Richard Grafton thought that the prioress had interred Robin by the side of the road: “Where he had used to rob and spoyle those that passed that way. And upon his grave the sayde prioresse did lay a very fayre stone, wherein the names of Robert Hood, William of Goldesborough, and others were graven. And the cause why she buryed him there was, for that the common strangers and travailers, knowyng and seeyng him there buryed, might more safely and without feare take their jorneys that way, which they durst not do in the life of the sayd outlawes. And at either end of the sayde tombe was erected a crosse of stone, which is to be seen there at this present”.
A drawing made by the Pontefract antiquarian Nathaniel Johnston in 1665 shows a slab decorated with a cross ‘fleuree’ (the standing crosses had presumably disappeared by his day), and the inscription “Here lie Roberd Hude, Willm Goldburgh, Thoms…” carved round the edge. Nothing is known of William of Goldesborough or Thomas, and the inscription was said to be “scarce legible” some years before Johnston drew it. Robin Hood could have been buried in a grave that already contained other bodies, but if the monument was erected shortly after his death (whenever that was), it is curious that there is no mention of it before about 1540.
Kirklees Priory came into the possession of the Armitage family following the Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century, and in the 18th century Sir Samuel Armitage had the ground beneath the stone excavated to a depth of three feet. His main fear was that grave robbers had been there before him, but in fact the real problem was the lack of a grave to rob. The site did not appear to have been dug previously, and Armitage concluded that the memorial had been “brought from some other place, and by vulgar tradition ascribed to Robin Hood”.
The stone was regularly attacked by souvenir hunters and by others who believed that pieces of it could cure toothache. The Armitages subsequently enclosed the site within a low brick wall topped by iron railings, the remains of which are still visible today.

Myth 7) Some of Robin’s friends, and equally some of his protagonists, can be identified with persons known to history

Little John, Will Scarlett and Much the Miller’s son are associated with Robin in the earliest ballads, but other members of his band – Friar Tuck, Alan a Dale, etc – were added later. Of these, Little John is undoubtedly the most prominent, but there are almost as many references to Little Johns – or John Littles – in contemporary documents as there are to Robin Hoods. The historical John is as elusive as his master, but what is alleged to be his grave in Hathersage churchyard in Derbyshire is not without interest. The stones and railings are modern, but part of an earlier memorial, bearing the weathered initials ‘L’ and ‘I’ (which looks like a ‘J’) can still be seen in the church porch.

_{c1600: the legendary hero and outlaw of medieval England Robin Hood with one of his Merrie Men, Little John. Original publication from the Roxburghe Ballads. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images).}
James Shuttleworth, who owned the manor, excavated the site in 1784, and found a particularly large femur 28½ inches long – a bone that is said to have been responsible for much ill luck until it was finally reburied. Two cottages, one in Little Haggas Croft at Loxley (Yorkshire) and the other in Hathersage (a village in the Peak District in Derbyshire), were said to be the houses in which Robin was born and in which Little John spent his final years respectively; but Robin’s was ruinous by 1637, and John’s was demolished in what was described as “recent times”.

An alternative approach has been to try to place Robin in a particular historical context by identifying some of his opponents, but the ballads refer merely to the Sheriff of Nottingham; the Abbot of St Mary’s, York; and others only by these titles – never to named individuals who held the offices between known dates. The lack of precise information is frustrating, but we should always remember that we are here dealing with popular literature, not with documents intended to record facts.
David Baldwin is the author of Robin Hood: The English Outlaw Unmasked (Amberley Publishing, 2010; reprinted in 2011).

The Wizard of Notts Recommends: Bob White: The five unsolved mysteries of Robin Hood

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Bob White: The five unsolved mysteries of Robin Hood

By Nottingham Post  |  Posted: November 13, 2013

                Mysterious tales and missing artefacts are the stuff that legends are made of. Here Bob White, chairman of the World Wide Robin Hood Society, looks at the five unsolved mysteries which surrounding the Nottinghamshire outlaw

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1. The remains of the ‘Fifteen Foresters’      

One of the most mystifying occurrences relates to the ballad in which Robin kills the ‘Fifteen Foresters’ who refused to pay him the wager that he won fairly with his archery skills.

The last verse states:
“They carried these foresters into fair Nottingham, as many there did know; They digged them graves in their church-yard and they buried them all in a row”.
Then, according to the historian Joseph Ritson, the following extract appeared in ‘The Star’ (probably a Sheffield newspaper) on April 23, 1796: “A few days ago, as some labourers were digging in a garden at Fox-lane, near Nottingham, they discovered six human skeletons entire, deposited in regular order side by side, supposed to be part of the fifteen foresters that were killed by Robin Hood.”
The news story goes on to say that the garden stood on the site of an ancient church that had been dedicated to St Michael and had been totally demolished in the Reformation ,so no doubt the bones had been properly buried in the churchyard.
The proprietor of the garden ordered the pit where the bodies were found to be filled up, “being unwilling to disturb the relics of humanity and the ashes of the dead!”
The original site of St Michael’s church and its graveyard secrets have never since been discovered.

2. Robin Hood’s personal belongings

The location of St Ann’s Well in the Wells Road, St Ann’s, is the site of a buried “treasure” connected to the Robin Hood legend. Known over the centuries as Robynhode’s Well, this holy well was linked to a charitable hermitage run by the Brothers of Lazarus, who were associated with the Knights Templar.
Its spring water was believed to have substantial healing properties; and an additional attraction was a selection of artefacts, including Robin Hood’s bow, cap, chair, arrows, boots and bottle.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, it was one of the most popular tourist attractions in England and remained so until 1825, when it had its liquor licence withdrawn and the Robin Hood artefacts were sold at auction to Lionel Raynor, a famous actor on the London stage.
Before moving to America, he was said to have offered the items to the British Museum but they can find no record. A tea room operated on the site until 1855 and when the buildings at the well site were subsequently demolished, the town council commissioned a gothic style ornamental monument to mark the spot; but in 1887 it was taken down by the Great Northern Railway to accommodate the 30ft deep foundations of an essential bridge.
One hundred years later, local historian David Greenwood sank a shaft behind The Gardeners public house which had been built at the site and confirmed that the well was still there, saying: “It’s a treasure trove waiting for the next person with the nerve and the money to fully excavate it.”

3. Robin’s Cave

Another local story, that claims to have located Robin Hood’s hideout, is highlighted in actor Sir Bernard Miles’ 1979 book about the outlaw hero, ‘Robin Hood: His Life and Legend’.
In the epilogue, he refers to an incident in the 1820s when, somewhere near Bolsover in Derbyshire, two pitmen were sinking a shaft for a new coalmine when the earth alongside them fell away revealing a yawning gap through which there was a fireplace full of wood ash, cooking pots and utensils, blacksmiths tools and a storeroom with sacks and barrels.
Against one wall was a rack of bows, broadswords and quivers full of arrows and at the end of one of the galleries was a tiny chapel with a cross still on the altar. The miners then found a skeleton wrapped in an old woollen habit, lying at the base of a flat wall with one hand holding a crucifix and the other a chisel.
A long list of names was roughly scratched on the cavern wall and painfully scored at the bottom was: “I was the last – Michael Tuck.”
The skeleton was supposedly Friar Tuck’s, who appeared to have just managed to crawl there and scratch these few words before he collapsed and died.
As the two miners climbed out of the shaft they had cut, to tell the world about what they had found, it triggered a huge rock fall that totally buried everything under hundreds of tons of stone, and the story of their amazing discovery became just another local legend.
However, Sir Bernard claimed that Robin’s cave is still there, only a little way below the ground, close to one of the worked-out pits and that “one fine day it will be found again”.

4. The missing manuscript

For many years, local historian and Robin Hood enthusiast, Jim Lees, worked tirelessly to prove that the legendary outlaw was born in Nottingham and believed that a lost ancient manuscript was the missing link in the quest.
The authentic, historical document was said to record a court appearance by Robert de Kyme, a nobleman born in what is now known as Bilborough – and actually referred to him as Robin Hood.
Mr Lees stated that the ancient court record was the most conclusive piece of evidence in existence that proved that “Robin Hood was real, that he was a local man and that Robin Hood was only a nickname.”
He said that Robert de Kyme was well documented in local archives and he was 99% certain that de Kyme and Robin Hood were one and the same, as their lives ran virtually parallel.
The missing document was believed to be in the possession of a former research scholar who had previously been at the University of Nottingham and who they only knew as a Mr McJohnson.
Having failed on numerous occasions to track down the elusive academic, with the technological birth of the internet Mr Lees enlisted the help of his nephew, Robert Henshaw, and put out a global appeal to try to make contact with Mr McJohnson and hopefully trace the whereabouts of the vital document that he believed held the key to historically proving that Robin Hood really had existed and was born in Nottingham. However, the task proved to be the proverbial “needle in a haystack” and to date, neither Mr. McJohnson or the ancient manuscript have ever come to light.

5. Little John’s longbow

Local tradition has it that Little John’s Cottage was once situated on Peafield Lane, between Mansfield Woodhouse and Edwinstowe, near the site of the old Roman Road, but its precise location cannot be authenticated. Mockingly called Little John because of his tall, heavy stature, he was in fact John Nailer (Naylor), a nail maker originally called John of the Little.
After Robin Hood’s death at Kirklees Abbey in Yorkshire, Little John returned to the village of Cromwell, near Newark, where he was said to have been given lands by Alan-a-Dale.
His grave is in Hathersage in Derbyshire in the churchyard of St Michael’s and All Angel’s – but his trusty longbow is another of those “lost treasures” of the Robin Hood legend that seems to have disappeared.
The 6ft 7in bow was made of spliced yew, tipped with horn and needed a pull of 160 pounds to draw it. Originally brought to Cannon Hall, near Barnsley, in 1729 it apparently hung on display there until the late 1960s, when on the death of the last owner of the hall, a Mrs Elizabeth Frazer it was given to the Wakefield Museum.
However, Mrs Frazer’s son later took it to a manor house in Scotland where he died in 2004 and the current whereabouts of the bow remain a mystery.

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