Richard both researched and created the museum-quality hand-made reproduction medieval costume illustrated in this article and to prove it actually functioned in a practical sense lived for a time later described by a local journalist as 'an outlaw in Sherwood Forest'.

The author is a long-term historical interpreter, an international historic tour guide and a historical consultant for television drama and documentary. In 1997, he became a guide and lecturer in exploring "Robin Hood Country" after serving for several years in successful television drama series and has since contributed to several documentaries discussing Robin Hood. Most of the aspects in this article are featured or outlined in the author's two popular books 'The Legend of Robin Hood' and 'Robin Hood : On the Outlaw Trail in Nottingham and Sherwood Forest'.

Richard Rutherford-Moore is currently an international historic tour guide for MIDAS TOURS and has previously served both on- and off-camera in the role as Historical and Technical Adviser and Armourer in two very successful television historical drama series. Richard has appeared in several television and radio documentaries on Robin Hood and has just completed 'Off On the Outlaw Trail Again …' the final book in his Robin Hood trilogy scheduled to be published in late Spring 2003. Richard has also contributed articles to The Nottingham Website and The World-Wide Robin Hood Society.

This article is not written to be 'politically-correct' and does feature adult themes in parts.

PART ONE :

'Walking in a Winter Wonderland …'

If a band of medieval outlaws in Sherwood Forest managed to survive the every-day threat of being betrayed, captured or killed by the forces of law and order, their next biggest worry would be simply how to stay alive in terms of shelter and finding something to eat and drink as medieval temperatures dropped far below the winters we experience today. From works such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle between the years 1066 - 1200 we can see the River Trent froze at least five times, with the surface so solid that folk could walk across from one bank to the other. In prolonged daytime temperatures of below freezing, living permanently outdoors is very risky unless you know what you are about ; after dark in the same conditions, you sleep with the risk that you might never wake up again. There are books you can read today and high street shops that stock all the relevant protective clothing for living in cold conditions ; in the early medieval era there were no such luxuries. The only thing that an outdoorsman could draw on was practical experience, either his own or someone else's. To have an 'old hand' with you at this time would be priceless, as he would have the knowledge of his years to use in terms of survival.
There are four basic tangible rules for short-term survival in the extremes ; obtaining shelter, drink, food and warmth. You require all four in reasonable quantities not just to survive but to stay both alert , efficient and sane in the long-term. Survival should be ensured through planning - not happen simply through luck - and knowing what the threats are and what to expect is halfway to solving the problem.

Military campaigns undertaken at the time simply went into 'winter quarters' some time prior to the Wind, wet and extreme cold of bad weather (with a few period exceptions, notably King Stephen and King John during civil wars). Prepared depots in castles or towns would provide the shelter and would have collected during summer and autumn harvests the fuel and stores to provide for the soldiers through the winter months. But no such military preparations as the above would be possible for an outlaw band ; the outlaws would be by necessity nomadic, moving around within an established area unsettled in terms of any permanent storage capacity and so be unable to plant and nurture any crops or vegetables. Staying in one place for too long risked detection by the authorities - in summertime a band of men could survive by eating as 'hunter-gatherers' like their prehistoric ancestors but with the approach of autumn and as the temperature began to drop other measures would clearly have to be adopted. To physically exist a man requires food and drink - in cold weather he would also require a suitable shelter and a source of heat. An outlaw band planning to stay in Sherwood Forest through the winter would have to have the means to provide themselves with all four. The problem with not having made proper provision for winter is obvious - you will meet a cold, lonely and hungry death.

Sleeping in the open after a day spent in the open is risking hypothermia and exposure - simply freezing to death and dying in your sleep. Any shortages of drink and food would result in a quicker fall in energy in the short-term and in the long-term the body's natural resistance to cold and sickness and in both the brain's ability to reason ; death could be measured in hours. But without sleep, the body cannot function naturally. Many people are surprised when they hear that hypothermia can occur anywhere and anytime when the air temperature is below 60 degrees F (16 degrees C) - the body needs to maintain a core of warmth and as the core temperature drops heat is taken from the head, resulting in a drop in circulation and energy being burned to provide heat rather than to feed the brain ; the brain slows down, irrational behaviour gradually grows until the subject doesn't know what they are doing. The effect is so gradual the subject will not realise it is happening - without immediate help, they will die. A slight breeze can halve the time a man could expect to be troubled by hypothermia ; a cool wind could further reduce the time by four times that. To stay alive, our outlaws would quickly have to learn two things ; stay dry and keep out of the wind.

In the medieval era, clothes would be made of wool with a next-to-body material generally of linen. Both materials - worn in layers - are excellent to keep you warm. Perspiration reduces this effectiveness, so if you couldn't avoid sweating for some reason and you became hot through physical exertion the correct thing to do would be to take a layer or two off until you cooled down, then put the layers back on again. Medieval men wore a linen shirt and underclothes, a woollen coat with a hood over a coif - a tight fitting cap - on the head and also covering the shoulders and upper arms. Trousers weren't invented - pockets weren't either - and 'hose' were simply woollen leg-coverings held up by a cord or a sash to a waist-belt worn under your coat. Gloves were known - by comparison to our modern five-fingered gloves medieval winter gloves had two large fingers and a thumb only, or more likely were mittens, both sorts of glove made from wool or padded / lined leather. If you possessed them, an extra coat or a thicker gardecorps overcoat and an extra pair of leggings could be added in really cold weather.
Even soaking wet wool provides a modicum of warmth. Our medieval outlaws couldn't wear anything else anyway, as fibres such as polyester, lycra and nylon weren't invented and silk was both rare and too expensive for a common man when seen at market (Silk is a recommended next-to-body material for keeping warm, but rare in England for many years to come. Being an outlaw, even if you couldn't afford any silk you could always steal it!). Wool - and the medieval variety was overall far better in quality than ours today - if kept clean and maintained is waterproof up to a point but could not resist a downpour and shelter have to be sought. Wool can be waterproofed, but this affects the warmth it provides ; a far better and a more common waterproof for winter-time would be leather - a fatty skin taken from an animal such as a deer or a pig or a skin treated and tanned into leather and fashioned into a cloak, perhaps also including a hood. In the ballad Robin Hood and Sir Guy of Gisborne, Guy wears a capull bann for protection against the elements, the ideal period material against fierce wind and cold rain although heavy to move around in if worn as a capall bann is a fleshed-out horse-hide : Sir Guy in many illustrations is see as wearing the head-skin as a hood. As any motorcyclist will already know, leather is still the best protection against high wind - modern fabrics only attempt to reduce the weight of the protective material and introduce 'breathability' to avoid internal damp through perspiration.
Above all your footwear would be a very important asset - generally and although handmade, medieval footwear as seen in surviving museum examples was nothing like as stout in the sole as our shoes or boots today. In damp or wet, the average medieval shoe or boot would only be a decent way of going barefoot. Buskins - overshoes worn in bad weather - and pattens worn to raise the shoe slightly above the ground could protect you in part from inclement weather but the wet and cold would eventually penetrate to your bare feet. Footwear would have to be well-maintained on a daily basis, greased regularly and a spare pair would have to be carried somewhere to keep dry to sleep in. Socks did exist in one form or another but if you didn't have any of them there were certain materials to hand you could pack into your footwear to serve as insulation. A foot ailment in the form of 'trench-foot' because of damp and cold (in recent times suffered by British soldiers serving in the Falklands War) would cripple the mobility of an outlaw.

For a nomad, a shelter exists as one of two things - a readymade item small, light or convienient enough to carry around ; or a material ready to hand in such a plentiful quantity and easy to acquire from which a shelter can be reasonably quickly fabricated using an established design. For protection as a shelter, Sahara Desert bedhouin carry tents but further south a bushman on a hunting trip away from his village would make a shelter from thorn bushes and tree branches. Both are nomads and masters of their way of life and erect shelters for different reasons - the bedhou against the burning daytime sun and night-time cold and the bushman in addition to these for protection against predatory wild animals. Our Sherwood outlaws have an advantage in that materials to create a shelter exist - a modern boy scout having had even the slightest outdoor training could create a reasonably comfortable and rainproof shelter in two to three hours using his sheath knife and the natural materials he could spot in a broad-leaved deciduous woodland environment (What would prevent a modern boy scout demonstrating shelter-construction today is that most of these environments are protected against damage by statutes and by-laws and cutting down small trees or removing branches isn't permitted.) There are natural shelters - rock overhangs, space under fallen large trees and also inside large standing trees ; these are good for emergencies or overnights and avoid using up energy making a shelter. There are still large caves in Sherwood Forest with a past of having been used as shelters on a regular basis - excavations reveal bones and the remains of fires. Some caves are so big and strong they could be used for defensive purposes or as a temporary hide-out ; any outdoor traveller - above or beyond the law - would register where all forms of natural shelter might be found and of course having used a particularly good one, you would remember it as you might pass that way again in the future (Possibly the best-known locally of these large caves is Robin Hood's Cave at Cresswell Crags, used by people for shelter for over 35,000 years.)

When you've found a shelter, the next thing to acquire is a Fire ; a wonderful morale-booster, fires give off warmth and light and you can then heat your water and cook your food using it, adding a civilized aspect to living rather than just simply surviving outdoors and is what makes most folk today remember as a comfortable camp under canvas or the stars from a past outdoor experience. Fire can be made using natural materials and is not as hard to create this way as you think if you simply have a go and practice ; matches and similar fire-lighting items were unknown in the medieval era but fire-lighting with natural materials was an everyday task which would be as natural and easy to a medieval person as tying shoelaces or switching on an electric light would be to a modern city-dweller (Medieval people often carried flint and steel but could also recognise the correct materials for 'making fire by rubbing two sticks together' at a glance. This method generally falls into two categories ; using the Fire Plough or the Fire Drill.)

Food can be found growing in the forest - the 'nuts, roots and berries' aspect of military survival training through eating native plants. However these plants are seasonable and in winter largely cease to exist or require more energy to collect than they do by being eaten. Eating wild plants - for sustenance rather than a requirement for medicinal aid - only provides a small part of a daily calorific requirement and eating in error a small portion of the wrong plant can be quite deadly ; certain toadstools mistaken for edible mushrooms or hemlock for burnet-saxifrage or ground elder would quickly result in your death. The effort required to gather most fungi is more that that gained in return by eating them - use them for adding flavour only but recognising other edible plants has a distinct advantage - they require few hunting skills or tools and opposed to edible animals, plants don't run away when you spot them! Constructing traps and snares to catch wild animals requires quite specialist knowledge but a modicum of this would be possessed by every medieval person having any outdoor associations. Eating animals is the quickest way of providing your body with the necessary protein and some parts of them can be eaten raw. For small mammals and birds, there are many kinds of traps or snares that can be created with a knife from materials common in every British broad-leaf woodland and the design of them hasn't changed much since prehistoric times - but - it is equally important with construction how you treat the trap or snare and where you put it to get the desired result. (Please note that in this politically-correct age there are various statutes preventing you from picking wild plants and catching wild animals - contained in The Wildlife and Countryside Act - but a large quantity of material giving the knowledge to do so is currently available both in your local library and on the internet. Training and practice is paramount before moving outdoors and you should never set a trap or snare or consume any unknown foodstuffs except under expert supervision and with the permission of the landowner.) Carrying a bow and arrows or a knife and tracking the forest deer in order to kill them for food would quickly bring you to the notice of the Kings Foresters who were there to prevent just this being illegally undertaken and has the inherent hazard that you would then become the hunted quarry ; if you found and disturbed a winter-time wild boar in error whilst hunting deer this animal was just as likely to kill you. But - crops and vegetables would have been planted and nurtured by local villages earlier in the year, to be harvested when ready and then stored for later use ; these could be raided by an outlaw band and taken in small quantities to provide food for a number of days. There are the obvious disadvantages to this - common people have little or nothing to spare and would resist as best they could as their lives literally depended on these stores. An outlaw band sheltering in woodland would exist almost side-by-side with local villagers and as most medieval outlaws were captured though being betrayed, it would be best to either avoid people and villagers altogether or at very least try and stay on reasonably good terms with them. To make the local people fear you so much that they would both provide valuable foodstuffs and not betray you to the authorities has been demonstrated enough in the past to be seen as being worthless for anything beyond a few days.
The Kings' deer - the oft-quoted 'free lunch' of Robin Hood and The Merry Men - would be there to be taken if you have the courage, skills and the necessary hunting gear. However, in addition to meat, bread is also a human necessity and does not grow on trees or roam the forest glades and by eating only venison you would grow weaker and become sick on a diet of pure animal protein. If you could both find the animals, avoid the Foresters and take a deer, a local villager could probably be contacted who would readily exchange a piece of meat for a loaf of bread, a basket of vegetables or a jug of ale. The penalties for both parties if caught actually performing or being suspected of poaching were extremely severe - in some cases hangings, the amputation of fingers or hands, brandings and blindings or a fine so heavy it would financially cripple a man or his village for years - and the outlaw would run the risk of being betrayed to the authorities by the villager for the usual cash reward.
It remains to be seen that lurking outlaws themselves often once had lived in the same village and were not even criminals or necessarily 'bad' men but fallen foul - sometimes through no fault of their own -through simple poverty or the existing manorial legal system. Although the common law forbad anyone to give succour, aid, help and food to any outlaws ; men who could be taken dead or alive in the forest by anyone for the guaranteed cash reward from the medieval forest court ; these 'outlaws' would have relatives or friends in the village who would probably - up to a degree - help them survive and pass them at times a very valuable resource : information.
For the 'out-laws' to move back in with the 'in-laws' in hard times or bad weather would make good sense ; travel and news became very hard in Sherwood Forest in winter and some places would at times be simply unreachable through snow or mud, with roads and tracks simply disappearing for weeks in the rain or under snow and ice (March was known in Sherwood Forest as 'Mud-Month' where roads and tracks became impassable for long periods ; a problem that remained in Sherwood Forest into the mid 18th Century.) If at these times of bad weather you couldn't get out of the village it meant that a threat in the form of officialdom couldn't get into the village either ; for a time a resident outlaw amongst friends might have relative peace and comfort in a roof over his head, a fireside, hot food and drink and a welcome change of company in the form of friendly faces.

January in Sherwood Forest was known as 'Wolf-Month' for a very good reason ; wolf packs driven by snow or cold to shelter in the woodlands in the same way as the outlaws would become a serious threat ; the wolves natural food was scarce at that time and starving animals were known to overcome their natural fear of Man and enter nearby villages in an attempt to carry off livestock and on more than a few occasions even small children - grown men and horses passing through Sherwood in the medieval period are recorded as having been attacked by wolves. (A winter-time hazard that remained until the 14th Century. In one medieval example, a wolf leapt out on a horse and rider, bit off a piece of horse-rump and fled into the forest with the reeking piece of flesh before the rider realised what had happened. A small child was carried off from Linby in Nottinghamshire by a wolf in the early 12th Century.) Even an armed man on foot would become a hunted quarry by a wolf-pack and possibly have to face a desperate and terrifying foe well-suited to the environment and equipped with deadly weapons designed by Mother Nature for face-to-face close-combat where only the strongest survive.

Remember that outlaws were not necessarily bad men - some were victims of a corrupt law system, some honest rebels against a regal or religious status quo, others simply 'in the way' or a social outcast ; one at least was quite obviously mentally ill and persecuted for it. Medieval people were all firm believers in God and The Virgin Mary and prayed to both for deliverance and support ; this would provide a degree of comfort during periods of pain or lonely isolation. In addition to the tangible requirements for survival stated earlier, there is the less tangible but most important requirement of sheer willpower - if you don't believe you can survive you won't survive. The psychological effect of being an outlaw living for weeks both outdoors and on a knife-edge would wear down an outlaw's ability to think and plan ; he would be unable to react rationally to an immediate or sudden threat and any ill-considered action - or simply sheer panic - would sink him deeper and deeper into trouble. He would become as wild as the environment, cease to be fully human and eventually succumb.

An old survival adage from the North American Fur Trade years 1750-1840 is 'Where one man can survive, two men can fare well' : certainly numbers would permit support and a delegation of tasks - but would also require more food from a selected catchment area. In the medieval forest world there are no doctors, dentists, supermarkets, clothing outlets, friendly policemen, fast-food chains or charity shops. To survive in the medieval forest to become like Robin Hood, one must take into account that it isn't just about survival - you must adapt, improvise but above all overcome ; take precautions, make preparations and plan ahead. Only then will it cease to be simple survival and become a way of life - but to endure the long term, you really must learn to stop 'roughing it', settle in, know your stuff, develop a routine, then learn to like it and want to be there. Only then can you become part of it all. Today, during summertime and early autumn in England there are many areas where a man withdrawn from the World could survive by 'living off the land' and it is not difficult with the correct preparation depending on your skills to remain mostly undetected to boot. The greatest long-term enemies are pure loneliness and food shortages during the cold and wet of winter. I leave to the reader to ponder the likelihood under these circumstances in the early to late medieval world that an outlaw band would become so efficient and prosperous from robbing an unsuspecting and unforgiving Rich for any length of time and that they would remain in the forest to re-distribute their wealth or assets by donating it to the Poor. It is not impossible they could do so …

PART TWO :

'CHESTNUTS ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE …'

We celebrate Christmas today somewhat differently from our ancestors ; some traditions remain but have changed through time. If they survived and prospered, would our band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest celebrate Christmas and if so, why and how ? The answer is Yes - but a celebration at Christmas goes back far beyond the medieval period and like traditional Robin Hood stories has changed from that era all the way up to the present-day.

A calculation based on adding up the ages of the characters in The Holy Bible was made by an early medieval monk who then arrived at the result that the World at that time was just over four thousand years old. However, evidence for a major event in December (as we know it) was made far beyond 35,000 years ago. The Christian faith adopted this time as one of their major yearly celebrations from the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice, the day when the sun at it's lowest ebb - the 'shortest day' - begins it's journey through the heavens towards the 'longest day' of the Summer Solstice in June. It was mainly the spelling that was changed by the Christians ; 'the birth of a Sun' became 'the birth of a Son'. The slight change in the 16th Century after the amendment by the Church of the Julian calendar made the 'birth' on the 21st of December the 25th of December instead. Various traditions hanging over from prehistoric and pagan days were subsequently 'Christianised' too, by giving the old traditions a different interpretation and favouring the new religion. The Winter 'solstice' - a latin word meaning 'standstill' - was a fire festival ; fires were lit to strengthen and welcome back the sun on its six-month climb up to summer - these fires also kept the waiting people warm during their all-night vigil. This tradition is now kept by The Yule log ; 'Yule' is the old English word for the Christmas period, and on the eve of the solstice a log would be placed with great ceremony on the hearth and lit with a brand from the Yule log used the year before, commemorating the continuity of the sun from one year to another.

The Christmas celebration - as emphasized by one old Nottingham lady recently - 'shouldn't have the modern abbreviation of 'Xmas' but should always be written 'Christmas' - is in fact quite incorrect ; X is the Greek letter for the first letter of Christ's name and was written as such long before the medieval period and as such is not very 'modern' at all.
'Christmas' - the word - comes from the Mass or Church Service for Jesus held at this time from the early medieval period of England. The Romans abandoned their gods and began to adopt Christianity in the 4th Century, but several pre-Jesus deities (such as the gods Mithras and Jeheshua) had very similar Christian attributes. Though the Christians didn't much like the sacrificing of animals in a Saturnalia to the new sun, they did favour the fun and joy associated with the event ; by the early 7th Century, Pope Gregory was ordering Christians to 'no longer offer beasts to devils at Christ's Mass, but to worship God by feasting'. By the Middle Ages, the 'Lord of Misrule' had turned the end-of-the-year feast into a festival of fun and merriment. Role-reversal meant that the poorest man in the parish usually got the top job as 'Lord' for the day and the actual nobility then took lower social places, often serving peasants at table themselves. By the 15th Century, many young people used the festival as an excuse to behave like hooligans. The 17th Century saw Christmas virtually banned by the Puritans until the Restoration ; but the straight-laced Scots did not like the new English monarch very much and that is why Christmas in Scotland is not the same as Christmas in England.

Candles on Christian altars represented the pagan solstice fire but were re-interpreted in the new religion as being the 'light of Truth'. A German religious reformer named Martin Luther first placed candles on trees to represent the stars in the heavens, and a candle on top of the tree representing the star that brought The Wise Men to Bethlehem. Evergreen trees were used as decorations by pagan peoples to show that life went on even though the Earth was dormant through winter ; the holly and the ivy were popular selections. It was hoped that associated woodland spirits would come with the plants into the home or shrine and not freeze to death in the real forest, surviving to return the favour and bring good luck in the following year. The Holly tree in particular - it's name is said to come from 'holy' - was Christianised and the story re-interpreted : the holly berries through their changes said to tell the story of Jesus' life - the white berry representing the pure birth of Jesus, the green his youth, the red his blood and black berries as death before resurrection.
Mistletoe is another plant we see at Christmas - the plant has recognised medicinal qualities and was used for this purpose well before the medieval period but as a Christian symbol of Love we have to look at the Scandinavian tradition ; Balder (their Sun God) was so revered in his beauty by the rest of the Gods that they all agreed not to do or use anything to hurt him and placed a spell on everything in the woodland world to ensure this happened. Plant poison would have no effect on him, water would not drown him nor wooden arrows pierce his body - but the sweeping woodland spell somehow missed Mistletoe as it was hanging underneath the oak tree branches. Loki - their God of mischief - found out about this and tricked the blind god Hoder into throwing an arrow or a short spear tipped with mistletoe at Balder, killing him. Balder was brought back to life again by the gods in a resurrection and the mistletoe promised never to hurt anyone again. Christians re-interpreted this story and then used the plant as an emblem of love, exchanging kisses beneath it as it grew above them on a branch. Christmas trees - evergreens - as we know them were re-introduced into England by Prince Albert in the Victorian era from the Germanic tradition. In Germany, these evergreens instead of being used as decorations being decorated in bright colours - townspeople and city-dwellers did not have access to real evergreens and began to use representations of evergreenery instead in the form of paper angels, coloured stars and glittering ornaments. Germans also exchanged the first decorated popular Christmas cards circa AD 1900 but the earliest card with a Christmas message dates from AD 1467.

Could our Sherwood outlaws have visited a Christmas pantomime ? Yes - although known by a different name. Nativity plays in church celebrated the birth of Christ using actors - people could rarely read and this was a popular way explaining the Holy Birth to everyday folk. Bible stories or Miracle plays were performed in this way throughout the year, but as they drew large crowds often too big for the interior of the church the plays became to be performed in the market square. Once outside the restrictions of medieval religion, the plays began to include humorous or bawdy scenes that would not have been suitable in church. In AD 1224, songs were specially written for one of these musical plays arranged by St Francis of Assisi ; they were written in the language of the peasants of the time and were immediately successful - the popular dance at the play was named from the French word for dance, a 'carole' - saw the people after the performance strolling home singing the songs and doing the little dance and although similar songs were performed in the 10th -12th Century by minstrels and travelling songsters in both church and castle 'Carolling' as we now know it was first born in the early 13th Century.

Exchanging gifts has really nothing to do with Christmas. Like many other countries, in Northern Europe the tradition of the gods Woden or Odin giving a special gift to Man and the Romans offering presents to their Gods takes place at the New Year. Pre-Christian Romans would offer gifts to the goddess Strenia at this time, leaving them in her shrine ; they would exchange clay dolls with each other at the same time to be placed in each home, later evolving into the nativity dolls today. The presents given on Christmas Day today actually represent the gifts brought to baby Jesus by the Wise Men, twelve days after the actual birth.

The red-coated, white-bearded fat jolly Santa Claus does not go back in history further than 1863, from a sketch drawing in an American magazine named Harpers' Weekly (… and chimneys for Santa to climb down weren't invented in the medieval era anyway! ) In the medieval period he was known as St Nicholas, an early Christian bishop of no particular appearance living in 4th Century Turkey, who had his own celebration day on December 6th. 'Boxing Day' on December 26th would be known by medieval folk as St Stephens Day, when in medieval times the collecting boxes in monasteries and churches were opened and the money therein distributed to needy people waiting outside for that purpose. On the same day, the nobility gave their manor servants a tip or a bonus in the form of a gift of money, placing the money in a small box to avoid any embarassment in one servant seen to be getting more than another servant.

One of the animals sacrificed by Romans at Christmas-time was the pig ; it replaced the lamb of biblical times which was then seen as a Christian symbol. In medieval England, Christian Anglo-Saxons slaughtered their pigs in November as they couldn't feed them through winter and their neighbouring pagans sacrificed a wild boar to the goddess Freya to ask for a good harvest in the coming year - this wish and pork being the main meat of the feast in medieval times is still represented by the placing of a joint of pork on the Xmas dining table. Pork meat would have been salted by the Anglo-Saxons to preserve it through the medieval winter and the hardest portion of a pig or boar to salt-down was the head - this is the reason why the boar's head appeared on the feast table. Before the arrival of the North American turkey to England in the early 16th Century the bird served at the Christmas feast would have been a peacock. The 'minced-meat' in small pies in the medieval era would have been minced mutton rather than the spiced mixture of suet, plums, raisins, sultanas and currants we enjoy in Xmas mince-pies today ; the pies would also have been deeper and oval-shaped rather than shallow and round, representing the crib used by Christ at his birth which is why you would never see a medieval person cut a mince-pie with a knife, thought then to be an extremely unlucky act. In eating the pie, people were supposed to think of the Holy Infant which is why in older days people gave their first pie to a child who was then encouraged made a wish with their first bite.

So from Christ's Mass on December 21st (since the mid-16th Century now our December 25th) to Epiphany on January 6th - 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' as we now know it - our Sherwood outlaws might have thought to celebrate the birth of Jesus by observing the natural world, following the medieval Church's rather austere teachings but also acknowledging and mixing in with these a few more pleasant hangovers from their pagan past. If the weather wasn't too cold - or the Sheriff's men too close - they could have perhaps forgotten some of their earthly troubles for a short time in 'wassailling' with a bucketful or a piggin of strong ale and enjoyed a little 'Peace on Earth and Goodwill amongst Men' in Sherwood Forest. Have a very merry seasonal 'wassail' yourself !

Richard contributed to and can be seen in a new television program on Robin Hood in the New Year and from January 2003 will lecture for the WEA in Nottinghamshire on many aspects of "Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest". You can e-mail the author at : armor1@ntlworld.com

Richard and Tony Robinson

The TV documentary programme "Robin Hood - Man or Myth ?" presented by Tony Robinson (with Richard Rutherford-Moore) will be screened on Channel Four in the UK in the New Year. Richard has also participated in a further History Channel program about Robin Hood and details of when this programme will be screened will be available soon..