The Relation and Development of English and Icelandic Outlaw-Traditions

The subject of this treatise was suggested to us by the chapter on 'Outlaw Legends' in H. G. Leach’s remarkable work: 'Angevin Britain and Scandinavia'. The reading of this book stimulated our desire to make a closer study of the relation between the English and the Scandinavian outlaw-matter and the conditions which influenced their development in either country. We hope to show in the following pages that the 'kinship of Robin Hood and Grettir' is indeed more than a hypothesis, instead of hardly more than a hypothesis. The merry outlaw of Sherwood Forest is not a direct descendant of the gloomy 'skógarmaðr' of the Icelandic outlaw-sagas, but they possess common ancestors, who infested the forests of Norway in a period previous to the settlement of Iceland. The proofs of this statement may be derived from the 'fornaldar-saga' of Án the archer, in which may be found a kindred tradition to the outlaw-matter of England and Iceland.