Robin hood was a symbol of defiance for centuries as in this 16th century woodcut (Photo: WikipediaCommons)
Elon Musk is trying to claim Robin Hood for the Maga right. Robin was not, he says, taking from the rich to give to the poor—he was protesting against unfair taxes.
Musk even posted a vomit-inducing AI generated video of himself as Robin.
Yes, Robin reclaimed the wealth stolen from the poor in taxes—but only because they went straight into the coffers of the brutal, bloated aristocracy.
The tale of Robin is a tale of class conflict, of defending the common land and of freedom from injustice and oppression.
Robin first appears in the records in the 12th century. But it was following Wat Tyler’s Rebellion in 1381 that the legend really took hold. Tyler’s revolt forced a king to negotiate with a mob of commoners—before he sent assassins to murder them.
Outlaws thrived when the nobility owned the forests. Aristocrats chopped down the trees for palaces and warships, hunted animals—and hanged starving poachers.
The Ballads of Robin Hood were sung throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. They tell of how Robin and his outlaws undermine the social order by disguising themselves as state officials, robbing churchmen, and liberating condemned prisoners and women forced into marriage.
In the famous ballad, A Lyttell Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin lays out his class‑conscious guide to being an outlaw. Leave farmers alone, he advises—
“But these bishops and these archbishops / You shall them beat and bind / And the High Sheriff of Nottingham / Keep him on your mind.”
As historian Stephen Thomas Knight points out, “The Gest advocates massive theft from the church, and civic insurrection against and murder of a properly appointed Sheriff.”
Robin, and the characters that attached themselves to legend—Little John, Friar Tuck and Maid Marian—were celebrated across England in the riotous May games. These celebrated sexual freedom and defiance against authority.
The symbolic radicalism of Robin Hood often spilt over into real rebellion. In 1555 the Scottish parliament actually banned celebrations involving Robin—but it didn’t work.
In 1516, in Edinburgh, apprentices came together “efter the auld wikid maner of Robene Hude”. They elected a leader as “Lord of Inobedience” and stormed past the magistrates, through the city gates and up to Castle Hill. Here, they refused to accept the usual wages.
During the revolutionary upheavals that marked the birth of capitalism, Robin’s legend expressed revulsion at the enclosure of the common land and political tyranny.
In 1795 the radical Joseph Ritson, a friend of the poet William Blake, wrote his famous Life of Robin Hood which was reprinted throughout the 19th century.
Ritson’s Robin was “a man, who, in a barbarous age and under a complicated tyranny, displayed a spirit of freedom and independence which has endeared him to the common people, whose cause he maintained—for all opposition to tyranny is the cause of the people”.
In 1817, poet John Keats evoked Robin and Marian to condemn war and the commodification of nature, writing—
“And if Robin should be cast /Sudden from his turfed grave / And if Marian should have / Once again her forest days / She would weep and he would craze / He would swear, for all his oaks / Fall’n beneath the dockyard strokes / Have rotted on the briny seas / She would weep that her wild bees / Sang not to her—strange! that honey / Can’t be got without hard money!”
Robin was also brought in to serve those constructing a new British nationalism.
The novelist Walter Scott portrayed Robin as a decent Anglo-Saxon, fighting off the Norman invaders.
Robin became the wronged Earl of Locksley, a man of noble birth, as he made the transition from page to screen.
Perhaps the most influential film portrayal was Errol Flynn’s 1938 film, in which Robin swashbuckles athletically against a Norman foe whose fashion and architecture appear decidedly fascistic.
The Robin of the 1950s TV series, written by US Communists on the run from the FBI, reclaimed the radical Robin.
Not even Kevin Costner’s dreary Robin or Russell Crowe’s thuggish Robin could crush the legend of the rebel against authority and the symbol of a better world.
