Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 47

_RobinHood|s^erva^^

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you. Lord!" On their trek across the country to Robin's home, Azeem
insists on facing east to pray, continuing to pray even as Robin is
attacked by half a dozen armed men. Robin wins, saving the
adolescent boy the men were chasing. The boy, on a rope around his
neck, is wearing a large cross.
. When Robin and Azeem arrived at burned out Locksley Hall,
they discover that Robin’s father was killed because of the trumped
up charge that he was a worshipper of the devil. This is the same
father who, as Robin recalls, told him that it was unwise to go on the
crusade because it was "vanity to force other men to our religion."
Robin buries his father, puts a cross at the head of his grave, and
takes with him the jew el^ cross his father wore, swearing to avenge
him. This cross plays major roles later on, first when Robin loses it to
and regains it from Little John and later when the Sheriff gives it to
Marian to claim that Robin is dead.
In the next scene, Robin's blind servant, not knowing that
Azeem, his sole companion, is a moslem, curses Moors and Saracens for
their ungodly ways.
The dead brother's ring Robin brings to Marian is in the shape
of the cross of Lorraine.
When Robin demonstrates his ignorance of telescopes and
Azeem asks him, "How did your uneducated kind ever take
Jerusalem?" Robin replies "God knows."
It won't do to go through the entire script at this rate, but,
more quickly, Marian attends Mass, gives alms to the poor, and prays
at a chapel; Guy of Gisborne suggests a peasant "pray" for relief from
hardship; Robin declares that they will "by God, take . . . back"
what the Sheriff's men have stolen; those men are caught stealing a
large cross from a priest and made to give it back; a peasant cries "God
bless Robin Hood;" the windows in a treasure wagon are of an
exaggerated cruciform; Azeem, finding Robin alive rather than dead,
cries out "Christian!"; Marian wears a large cross during the last
battle between Robin and the Sheriff; King Kchard and his men ride
up wearing body length crosses on their costumes; and, finally, before
an altar bearing a large newly made cross. Friar Tuck marries the
happy couple with the words, "By the power vested in me by God’s
holy church......."
And the theme of faith is also emphasized by contrast. The
evil ones in the story are identified with darkness and anti-