Merry and Wise: Folktales of Nottingham

erry and Wise: Folktales of Nottingham

In dear, old Nottingham, your home for the next few years, belongs a legend that has travelled centuries – told again and again until it has reached your little ears. I speak of Robin Hood, the merry folktale, reimagined repeatedly in modern times. But did you know that it is not the only lively tale that rooted itself in Nottingham’s history?

Robin Hood’s quest to steal from the rich to give to the poor is a tale as old as time. Yet, early depictions portrayed our hero as a deceitful and violent fellow, contrary to his modern chivalry. Although characters like Maid Marian and Friar Tuck did not arrive until the 16th century, it was centuries prior when Robin Hood first appeared.

This tale was one of the first of our hero, a ballad called ‘Robin Hood and The Monk’, published originally around 1450 in an untitled Cambridge University manuscript. For a child, the tales of Robin Hood are watered-down. The murder and trickery hidden from innocent ears. However, Robin Hood and his fellow thieves are not the only Merry Men that occupied Nottingham:

The Wise Men of Gotham, or Mad Men as the 16th Century text Merrie Tales of the Mad-Men of Gotham calls them, is Nottingham’s other amusing folktale. Gotham locals partook in ridiculous tasks like those above to dissuade King John from creating a hunting lodge and public highway in their village. This bizarre plan actually worked! Out of complete bewilderment to the idiocy on display, King John and his messengers were deterred from ever crossing paths with the merry men, or Gotham, ever again.

By Córa-Laine Moynihan Illustration and Page Design by Chiara Crompton