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ROBIN HOOD by Tilman Roehrig

ROBIN HOOD

The Shadows of Sherwood Forest

by Tilman Roehrig ; translated by Oliver Latsch

Pub Date: Oct. 5th, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64690-007-7
Publisher: Arctis Books

A retelling of the old legend from Little John’s perspective.

Written with readers who delight in hefty, classic adventure tales in mind, this version draws comprehensively from both medieval sources and standard later editions like Paul Creswick’s Robin Hood (1917) to include the major exploits of Robert Loxley’s outlaw career up to his death, with a teeming cast of familiar characters from King Richard the Lionheart to young Much parading through. The prose, translated from the German, is more formal than faux antique, being free of -iths, -eths, and forsooths. At times it even has a modern cast, although dwarf is frequently used to insult John. Robin Hood himself comes off as the usual sly lover of games and jests, driven both by touchy pride and a strong streak of rob-from-the-rich-and-give-to-the-poor idealism, but his Merry Men are renamed the more serious sounding Brotherhood of Freemen, and Roehrig likewise mildly tweaks some of the other classic characters—notably Marian, who starts off as a child struck temporarily mute after witnessing the murder of her mother and ends up as a strong-willed young lady able to ride a horse, wield weapons, play a lute, and, finally, set her wimple on a prospective husband. Aside from a friendly Jewish merchant, the cast is uniformly Christian and White in presentation.

An epic and accessible adaptation.

(Adventure. 13-18)