Good Versus Evil

The essential theme of the adventures of Robin Hood is good versus evil. Robin and his men are always pictured as fair, even to those from whom they rob. Robin's adventures begin, not because he kills a man, but because he has killed one of the King's deer, and a bounty is put upon his head. As he gathers men to be part of his merry band, they vow not to harm women or children, and, "when the people began to find that no harm was meant to them, but that money or food came in time of want to many a poor family, they came to praise Robin and his merry men, and to tell many tales of him and of his doings in Sherwood Forest, for they felt him to be one of themselves." Prologue, p. 6

The story places Robin at a time when...