Robin Hood is an outlaw of the medieval era in archetypal English folk tales, who may be based on a true story.
In modern versions of the legend, is famous for robbing the rich to provide for the poor and fighting against injustice and tyranny. His band consisted of "seven score" (140) group of fellow outlawed yeomen – called his "Merry Men". Robin Hood and his band's tales are usually associated with the area Sherwood Forest and Nottinghamshire, though most historians point towards him having been a Yorkshireman. He has been the subject of numerous movies, books, comics and plays.
In many stories Robin's opponent is the Sheriff of Nottingham. In the oldest legends, this is because a sheriff is by profession an outlaw's enemy, but in later versions, the sheriff is despotic and gravely abuses his position, appropriating land, levying excessive taxation, and persecuting the poor. In some tales the antagonist is Prince John, based on the historical John of England, who is seen as the unjust usurper of his pious brother Richard the Lionheart. In the oldest versions surviving, Robin Hood is a yeoman, but in some later versions he is described as a nobleman, the earl of Loxley (or Locksley), who was unjustly deprived of his lands. In other stories, he has served in the crusades, returning to England to find his lands pillaged by the dastardly sheriff. In some tales he is the champion of the people, fighting against corrupt officials and the oppressive order that protects them, while in others he is an arrogant and headstrong rebel, who delights in bloodshed citation needed], cruelly slaughtering and beheading his victims.
Many accounts of Robin Hood, though not the very earliest, bear a striking similarity to accounts of the life of Fulk FitzWarin, a Norman noble who was disinherited and became an outlaw and an enemy of John of England.