Hellooooooo, I am so psyched on the new Robin Hood show, and I’m so grateful to @mirdania for putting it on my radar, because no one else seems to really know about it!!!! 4 episodes have been released so far with weekly releases for the rest of the season.
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This is a new adaptation of the enduring English folklore, produced by the American company Lionsgate for MGM+ and co-helmed by two screenwriters, one British (Jonathan English) and one American (John Glenn). I’m not really familiar with either of their past work. It stars lesser known British, Aussie, and NZ actors in the lead roles of Robin, Marian, Priscilla of Nottingham, and Little John, with genre veterans Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham and Connie Neilsen as Queen Eleanor of Aquitane. The series is filmed in Serbia, with a predominantly Serbian crew and significant Serbian contributions to the supporting cast as well.
Four episodes in, and I’m enjoying it so much! I’m a ballad scholar and a medieval television fanatic, and one of my earliest and most intense hyperfixations was on the Robin Hood mythos. I’m fascinated by the literary history and the role of Robin Hood stories in medieval and early modern popular literature. And I’m so excited that this show has given me an opportunity to revisit and unpack the Robin Hood ballads.
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A (not so) brief history of Robin Hood in folk literature
Robin Hood ballads are some of the earliest and most enduring genres of English folk song. Their tropes have been evolving and intermingling with popular literature for centuries – perhaps almost a millenium. There is an academic argument that the oral tradition captured in the earliest written Robin Hood ballads (transcribed in the 1400s) actually dates back to the Norman Conquest, as the tropes in those early RH ballads overlap with stories told about Hereward the Wake in the 1000s and 1100s. Hereward was a legendary Saxon hero, known for resisting Norman rule. He was first written about in Latin by a scholar in the early 1100s, who claimed he was transcribing an older (now lost) text in Old English. Since then, Hereward’s stories have intermingled with other English outlaw folklore, and were revived during the 19th century fad for literary Romanticism.
Although Robin Hood stories themselves show up in the written record relatively late, there is ample evidence that his ballads were popular and passed around for some time before being captured in writing. His historicity/existence as a specific individual has been long debated and remains in doubt. “Robin” and “Robert” were popular nicknames for outlaws throughout the medieval period, and ‘Robehod’ was being used as an epithet for fugitive criminals as early as the 1200s. In the medieval literary work Piers Ploughman, published in 1377, the singing of Robin Hood ballads is casually mentioned as a sinful past time, contrasted with the studying and enacting of holy works. And in the 1400s, the singing of Robin Hood ballads (among the peasant populace) is again contrasted negatively with the attendance of mass.
This is about the same time (1400s) we see written Robin Hood verse enter the written record. The early ballads focus on thievery, highwaymen hijinks, murder, and Robin’s merry band of outlaws, usually represented by Little John and Much the Miller’s Son, as well as Will Scarlet. Throughout the 1400 and 1500s, Robin Hood characters also become regularly featured in plays, pageantry, and parades. Yes, people were dressing up and putting on silly little Robin Hood shows with their friends.
Older woman who will not tell you her past. Shows open disdain for almost everything you do and say. Shares a bed with another man - the only one who calls her by a nickname. When said man tells you her traumatic backstory on the eve of your near-certain demise she grants you a courtesy fuck.
Educated young lady who you meet 2-3 times in a crisis situation. If you agree to not let her father rot in prison she grants you a courtesy fuck before making it clear you have no future.
Servant girl who grants you a shag in a meadow, possibly to distract you from your espionage. You hold her one night to prevent her nightmares. She dies the next day.
Widow who wink winks-nudge nudges you into a shag at a feast when you regale her with a tale of your bravery.
Knight who you possibly sparred with a few times. You have an implied night of passion after a subtle exchange. Next morning you discover he’s working for the enemy and you can likely never see him again.
Prostitutes.
Your lord. Your master. Your raison d'ětre. The man who you swore to protect on pain of death. Your best friend, the “only person you have left.” The one who has saved your life almost as many times as you’ve saved his. The one who saw you at your lowest, then saw you crawl up from the bottom of an impenetrable social hierarchy to become a fearsome knight who crosses blades and wits with the most powerful men in your land. He calls you his guardian angel, his champion, his brave and faithful companion, the Lancelot to his Galehaut. He will kill himself if you die because life will have no meaning to him. He mirrors you along every step along your hero’s journey until he breaks down into confession on the eve your near-certain demise, defying class conventions, social stigma, his unwanted betrothal, and fear of damnation to hold you at least once before it’s too late.
“If he’s truly as good with wenches as he is with swords, I might have to trouble him for another lesson.” Eržík says around a mouthful of boar, cheeks fat.
Jitka hisses at her brother, and Hans buries a laugh in the pheasant between his own teeth.
“Do excuse him,” She sends Henry an apologetic look. “Your lord has told quite a number of colorful tales over dinner these past nights, and Eržík only seems to absorb certain details.”
“I have to, uncle’s made him recount his rescue from the Italian Court four bloody times already,”He moans against the rim of his goblet. “If I didn’t squeeze a tangent out of him about you and Kunzlin’s daughter, I’d pass out into my soup.”
Chapter 4 of GethsemaneI really hope you enjoy it and I hope to have the next chapter out later this week.
Draw kcd1 Henry because I love his cute face more than kcd2 model. My friend accidentally took a shoot of Henry’s evil face, which I never saw this expression during playing kcd1
And there’s a kcd2 Henry evil time picture I forgot where I saved from, but I’m sure he’s about to kill someone and get excited
Hansry storytelling through nicknames in the Czech version
One of my most favorite things about Hansry is the way they call each other (in Czech because I’m biased sorry) evolves both overtime and depending on what emotion they’re feeling at the moment.
The ways Henry calls Hans
In the first game, Henry calls Hans “pan Ptáček” (Lord Capon) most often, even when he’s being sassy to him at the tavern.
Later, Henry evolves to “pan Jan” (pronounced [yan]) (Sir/Lord Hans). Or to just “Ptáček” (Capon). Never once does he call him just simply “Jan” in KCD1.
In the second game, Henry still calls Hans “Ptáček” (pronounced [p’taah-check]) most of the game, but it’s veeery rarely lord/sir in front of that. The only few times I can remember is at the very beginning at the lake and then when talking to Hans in front of Brabant but not even that is consistent because he drops the lord/sir once.
But the best part about this word vomit is that Henry calls him very familiarly and fondly sometimes. The thing is that he calls him like that only when the situation is very intense and dangerous. The first time in the franchise (iirc) Henry calls Hans “Jan” without any “pan” (Sir/Lord) is when Henry is being hauled away from the cell in Trosky. He calls out for Hans with a “Jane! Jane!! Neboj! Já to nějak–!” (“Hans! Hans!! Don’t be afraid! I’ll somehow–!”) And yes, Jan with an -e at the end because the Czech language uses vocative as one of their declension cases and as such, the endings of names look different when directly addressing someone.
Another case like this, is the ambush near Nebákov. There, in all that chaos, almost the second you lose sight of Hans in your gameplay or are too far away from him, Czech Henry calls out to him with a “Jendo! Sakra, [I have to go after him]!” where Jenda (yes with an -a in nominative) is a very cute nickname from Jan. That’s the only time in the entire franchise he calls him like that. I would personally compare Jenda to calling someone Johnny instead of John or Jonathan.
Not long after, when Hans gets bonked, Henry tries to shake him awake and there is the absolutely legendary “Jane! Ptáčku! Podívej se na mně! Honzo!!” (imagine it as something like “Johannes! Capon! Look at me! Johnny!”) because honestly the nicknames Honza/Jenda/Honzík aren’t that alien to English. It’s just that Hans is a bad name for having any nicknames. A good parallel would be William. You have Will or Billy there after all. Or Thomas and Tom and Tommy.
Here is a clip of the moment I just talked about:
The ways Hans calls Henry
Hans on the other hand, is very consistent throughout the two games with how he calls Henry.
Yes, he started their relationship by calling him shit shoveller and Jindřich in a very mocking voice but very quickly he settled into a tradition where he calls him Jindra almost all the time but calls him Jindřich when he’s either angry at him or when he’s being a sarcastic little shit. Jindra is a casual and friendly nickname, very common. Something like calling your friend Tom instead of Thomas.
He also once or twice sarcastically calls him Jindříšek which is a super baby boy way to say Jindřich.
But when he’s being normal or friendly or tender, he always uses Jindra. Even during their romance scenes, Hans says that nickname but with how much of an amazing actor Czech Hans’ VA is, the tone always varies throughout the game.
As I cannot post more than one video on a tumblr post, I cannot provide some Czech Hans clips but I do plan to make a video edit soon with all the ways Hans calls Henry in Czech!
Anyway, my conclusion is…
That I am absolutely feral from how much the evolution of their nicknames mean. The Czech version of this game takes awesome advantage of the nickname conventions in Czechia (and Slavic nations overall tbh) and in a very time and space efficient way uses them to show the players how far these two have become and how their fondness of each other surfaces!
Since KCD2 came out, the fandom got a lot bigger and seems very much alive! so I decided to repost my old kcd fanart - made before the second game came out. I still love the first and the second one very much.
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