By Lori J. Fitzgerald

The Charmings may be growing magic beans to return to the Enchanted Forest, but in Episode 2x19 “Lacey,” Once Upon a Time takes us into the medieval literary setting of Sherwood Forest.  Although the famous outlaw of this greenwood, Robin Hood, makes but a short appearance, his presence still gives us a glimpse of the swashbuckling legendary character and holds its weight worth in gold by advancing the symbolism and theme of this episode.

Robin Hood was a character of medieval ballads which were told or sung by wandering minstrels. In a time where only members of the nobility or clergy could read, the ballads were meant as performance literature for both the commoners and the court; therefore, as in many folktales of the oral tradition, the Robin Hood stories were a constant re-creation, continually adapted and changed by the minstrels who performed them, rather than a careful, exact recitation (Bolton 348-349).  Thus many of the original stories that have survived about Robin Hood and his band of outlaws are conflicting or fragmented.  Medieval stories achieved some consistency once they were scribed by monks or printed, but being written down was usually the last thing that happened to a ballad.  The Gest of Robyn Hode, which is a collection of these ballads, was probably first set to type by the famous medieval printer, Wynkyn de Worde (the successor to William Caxton’s printing press) around 1500, although the ballads were popular entertainment for more than a century before this.  The Gest as we have it today in Middle English was compiled from a series of Gest manuscripts and printed in the collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads by Francis James Child in the late 1800s.