Will Scarlet
Will Scarlet is a fictional character from the legendary world of Robin Hood .
Will Scarlet is one of Robin Hood's loyal companions and appears - unlike Maid Marian or Friar Tuck , for example - in this role in the earliest Robin Hood legends. The name was not fixed at this time, however, so he is often called Will Scarlock or Scadlock. Compared to most other medieval hero stories, the Robin Hood legends are characterized by the fact that the secondary characters have their own recognizable roles and can be identified by name for a long time. Scarlet and Much, the miller's son, play only passive roles compared to Little John and rarely carry the plot, but they are always present, and their names are mentioned in the earliest Robin Hood works.
In the most important printed collection, the Gest of Robin Hood , Scarlet and Much appear as Robin's companion when the three meet Little John for the first time. From 1600 the number of printed Robin Hood stories increased sharply. Literacy was spreading in England at this time, new readers grew, Robin Hood stories appeared as two-page leaflets and formed numerous versions of around 25 basic stories, including the story Robin Hood and Will Scarlet . She describes how Robin meets a stranger dressed in red and defeats him in battle. The stranger turns out to be his cousin Gamwell, whereupon Robin accepts him into his gang. Robin Hood Newly Revived contains essentially the same story as Robin Hood and Will Scarlet , but introduces a Scotsman at the end. Although the ending is quite incoherent and obviously represents the unsuccessful mixture of two texts, it too enjoyed numerous new editions for a long time. In Robin Hood, Little John, and Will Scarlet [Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon] , the outlaws free the English king, who is besieged in London by the Prince of Aragon and his giants. Scarlet marries the princess and turns out to be the son of the Earl of Maxfield . In some legends he is portrayed as very brutal, in some as Robin's nephew.
A rose hybrid (see Will Scarlet (Rose) ) and a cultivar of devil tobacco ( Lobelia tupa ) are named after the figure . There are also various streets and squares in the USA and a mine in Illinois , the Will Scarlet Mine , which bear the name of the legendary figure. There are also various artists and authors who adopted the name as a pseudonym or made Will Scarlet the title hero of a song. The figure also appears in almost all modern adaptations of the legend, in books, films and computer games.
Individual evidence
- ^ AJ Pollard: Imagining Robin Hood: the late-medieval stories in historical context , Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-22308-3 , p. 3
- ↑ Jeffrey L. Singman: Robin Hood: the shaping of the legend , Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998, ISBN 0-313-30101-8 , p. 141
- ↑ Jeffrey L. Singman: Robin Hood: the shaping of the legend , Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998, ISBN 0-313-30101-8 , p. 37
- ↑ Stephen Thomas Knight: Robin Hood: a mythic biography , Cornell University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8014-3885-3 , p. 22
- ↑ Jeffrey L. Singman: Robin Hood: the shaping of the legend , Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998, ISBN 0-313-30101-8 , pp. 122-123