I think my first acquaintance with the story was the Carola Oman retelling, which I now know was based on the various ballads of Robin Hood, although she sets her Robin in the reign of Edward II, which makes more sense in the light of the book's depiction of a 'weak King' who needs the outlaws' help than using the chronology popularised in "Ivanhoe" (as seen in the Flynn film). https://www.amazon.co.uk/Robin-Hood-Aldine-Paperbacks-Carola/dp/046002177X
It starts off as what appears to be the story of a mediaeval knight who has nothing to do with Robin Hood at all -- which, when you're a child who has just plucked the book off the shelf and don't have any idea what to expect of this 'Robin', isn't in any way off-putting, but might puzzle an adult reader who is already well-versed in the legend! Of course, by the end of the first story the narrator has had an encounter with Robin and his merry men and the day has been saved -- not sure this is a story I've ever seen anywhere else (I assume it's a specific ballad), but I was quite taken aback to find that the next version of the legends I encountered started off on a quite different note :-p
Anyway, I'd recommend the book if you ever come across an old paperback reprint, though I don't know now if it's still as good as I remember...
Marian doesn't feature very much in that one either, though she turns up in a couple of the chapters (including the first). I suspect she was a later addition to the corpus of stories, like Lancelot in Arthurian legend. Most children don't have any taste for love-interests anyway.
I think you must be the first person I've ever heard of who recognised Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone as headline actors before encountering Errol Flynn :-P They're both very well worth watching; both fall under the category of people whose name on a film is likely to arouse my interest for that alone. But yes, that "You speak treason"/"Fluently" exchange is a classic of its kind; I just wish the period costumes in this production did Olivia de Havilland's beauty a few more favours!
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http://www.forgottensouls.com/movies/Robin-Hood-(1938)%7B%7D_0.html
I think my first acquaintance with the story was the Carola Oman retelling, which I now know was based on the various ballads of Robin Hood, although she sets her Robin in the reign of Edward II, which makes more sense in the light of the book's depiction of a 'weak King' who needs the outlaws' help than using the chronology popularised in "Ivanhoe" (as seen in the Flynn film).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Robin-Hood-Aldine-Paperbacks-Carola/dp/046002177X
It starts off as what appears to be the story of a mediaeval knight who has nothing to do with Robin Hood at all -- which, when you're a child who has just plucked the book off the shelf and don't have any idea what to expect of this 'Robin', isn't in any way off-putting, but might puzzle an adult reader who is already well-versed in the legend! Of course, by the end of the first story the narrator has had an encounter with Robin and his merry men and the day has been saved -- not sure this is a story I've ever seen anywhere else (I assume it's a specific ballad), but I was quite taken aback to find that the next version of the legends I encountered started off on a quite different note :-p
Anyway, I'd recommend the book if you ever come across an old paperback reprint, though I don't know now if it's still as good as I remember...
Marian doesn't feature very much in that one either, though she turns up in a couple of the chapters (including the first). I suspect she was a later addition to the corpus of stories, like Lancelot in Arthurian legend. Most children don't have any taste for love-interests anyway.
I think you must be the first person I've ever heard of who recognised Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone as headline actors before encountering Errol Flynn :-P
They're both very well worth watching; both fall under the category of people whose name on a film is likely to arouse my interest for that alone.
But yes, that "You speak treason"/"Fluently" exchange is a classic of its kind; I just wish the period costumes in this production did Olivia de Havilland's beauty a few more favours!