Robin Hood Legend Draws Global Fans After 1,000-Year-Old Major Oak Dies
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jun 25
Robin Hood Legend Draws Global Fans After 1,000-Year-Old Major Oak Dies
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jun 25
Summary
June 19’s release of “The Death of Robin Hood” and the recent loss of Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major Oak have revived attention on a legend that still drives tourism and pop culture worldwide.
800 acres of Sherwood remain from an estimated 100,000-acre medieval forest, yet the site still attracts visitors seeking Robin Hood’s world, with about 400 ancient oaks preserving the landscape’s historic pull.
13th- to 15th-century records portray Robin first as a violent outlaw or “cut-throat,” before ballads recast him as a “good outlaw” and later stories added Maid Marian and a more heroic code.
1883’s Howard Pyle novel and decades of films—from Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn to Kevin Costner and Hugh Jackman—helped turn an English folk figure into a multibillion-dollar global cultural brand.
Nottingham and nearby Sherwood now function as pilgrimage sites where guides, museums and surviving ancient trees keep the myth alive even as historians still dispute whether Robin Hood ever existed.