The Robin Hood Principle: Folklore, History, and the Social Bandit

Abstract

The debate over the social bandit's existence has raged ever since the original publication of Eric Hobsawm's Social Bandits in 1969. Hobsbawm's argument that a few individuals in the history of crime and politics transcend the status of the criminal to become truly representative of an oppressed group's struggle has been reinforced or attacked by historians, anthropologists, and political scientists. Given folklorists' interest in the origins, roles, and meanings of heroes, it is odd that folklorists have only marginally participated in these debates. This study of outlaws offers a mediation between the conflicting poles of the debate. By investigating both the history and folklore surrounding outlaw heroes, the mythologies that produce and sustain them can be understood as a series of identifiable cultural processes. These processes can be expressed in a general principle—the Robin Hood principle—and modeled as an iterated cycle of cause and effect that is profoundly implicated in folklore. As well as providing a broad understanding of the production and perpetuation of outlaw hero figures, the model also has a predictive dimension.