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Robert B. Waltz, St. Paul, Minn., comments on Nell Minow's choice of "Robin Hood"

How about reading the words "This is a Work of Fiction?"

I heard with horror your story of Robin Hood, the Nobleman.

Someone might BELIEVE this.

I don't know which book rewrite commentator Nell Minow was reading, but it was a fake. All the Robin Hood books given to children are modern rewrites. Robin Hood began life as a ballad hero, a yeoman, a character in the May Games, and NOT a nobleman.

The earliest extant mention of Robin Hood is in Langland's Piers Plowman, and it mentions "rymes" of Robyn Hood, not books.

The earliest of these rhymes is the ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk, from a manuscript of around 1450. The first full tale is "A Gest of Robyn Hode," printed by Wynken de Worde some time hefore 1534 and known in fragments from some decades before that. The first words will tell you a lot:

Lythe and listin, gentilmen,
That be of freborne blode;
I shall you tel of a gode yeman [yeoman],
His name was Robyn Hode.

And he didn't live in the time of Richard the Wishy-Washy, either. Richard I died in 1199, and the Welsh longbow is not attested in England at that time. The Gest says the King in Robin's time was Edward — probably Edward II, who didn't even come to the throne until 1307.

If anyone on your program would actually like to find out about the actual legends of Robin Hood, as opposed to the modern fakes, try J. C. Holt's book "Robin Hood," which examines how the legend arose. Or, for a short summary, try the Traditional Ballad Index and look up the "Gest of Robyn Hode."

Your programs always tell us to do our homework about investing. How can we do our homework if you don't do yours? Robin Hood is fictional, but a rewritten legend is even more fictional.

Nell Minow responds . . .

Thanks so much for your erudite comments on the legend and reality behind Robin Hood. We were asked to select "beach books," those that were fun to read and not scholarly tomes. However, I looked through several different versions of the story and investigated some of what was known about the real-life character before writing my piece. The points I wanted to make were best illustrated by the fictional portrayal of Robin Hood as he is now commonly known. I understand your point about the historical basis for the character we now think of as Robin Hood, but believe that it is as valid to learn from myth as history. Myths, after all, persist because they address our deepest hopes, fears, and dreams. Santa Claus has little in common with the real-life St. Nicholas, but he is a powerful symbol with a lot of appeal and a lot to inspire and teach. I'd say the same for Robin Hood.

I believe in research. I make a living by helping people do their homework on investing. But homework is about more than data, or, to put it another way, data has to be about more than numbers and facts. My firm picked Global Crossing and Enron as poor risks a year before they crashed — not based on the numbers, which had Wall Street cheering, but on concerns we had about management and the directors. If those executives had the integrity and leadership of the Robin Hood I described, the investors who thought they had done their homework would not have been disappointed.

Thanks again for your comments, which I enjoyed tremendously, and best wishes.

To which Waltz responds . . .

Just for the record, I agree entirely. And, in fact, the evolution of the Robin Hood myth from the Robin Hood legend is instructive about folklore. But I do think we need to make it clear: We treat Robin Hood as a figure of folklore, and he is — but the modern version is not the same as the figure who gave us the name. He didn't even steal from the rich and give to the poor — he stole from the rich and gave to himself. :-)

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