This may be a stupid question, but is the "folk bandit who steals from the rich and gives to the poor" trope ever realistic? Isn't the gig up as soon as the people in power start putting the screws to the people you're helping, until enough of them crack and decide they're better off turning you in?
The short answer is, “maybe?”
One of the staples of a Robin Hood style character is the idea that they’re fighting back against an oppressive regime. This that detail is critical to keeping the whole thing ticking along. When you take that away the situation you’re describing becomes far more likely. So, if your bandit king is harassing the local lord, but the lord is a fairly reasonable individual, then the resulting security clamp down, and even temporary abuse of the peasantry, will be viewed in the context of a response to this bandit.
Central to the Robin Hood myth is the idea that Prince John is already crushing the peasantry, and Robin Hood wanders in to oppose that tyranny. John ramping up his abuse of the people isn’t perceived by them as collective punishment for Robin’s rebellion, it’s viewed as him continuing to abuse his authority.
The irony is, these kinds of characters are far more vulnerable to villains who offer incentives for cooperation. A Robin Hood style rebel is unlikely to be sold out by peasants who view him (or her) as their defender. However, an oppressed peasant who is plied with, “enticing,” incentives, might flip. This may even be effective to flipping members of the bandit’s own team, or even friends. How many offers of amnesty, titles, and treasure would it take to convince a member of the Merry Men to sell Robin out?
To a certain extent, you could can view this situation as a kind of social, “path of least resistance.” If someone is hitting you and the other is feeding you, are you really going to bite the hand that feeds you, in pursuit of pleasing your abuser? Now, in the real world, that answer is sometimes, “yes.” And this is a threat to this kind of a character. As much public support as they may enjoy, there’s likely to be some who would still turn them over to their oppressor on the hope that it will alleviate things, (even if this hope is entirely unrealistic.)
Even in the specific case of Robin Hood, putting a price on his head is more dangerous to him than ramping up the oppression and hoping it erodes his support; because it won’t.
Similar to the point above about how oppression is a critical component, if the local leader is viewed as a basically reasonable individual, if they start talking about needing to employ extreme measures to deal with a bandit preying upon the kingdom, they’re going to have a lot more room to build public support against the bandit. They’ll even have a lot of room to frame this as attacks against the peasantry, as they’re part of the kingdom.
So, why doesn’t this happen with Robin Hood? This hits some details of British history that I’m a little fuzzy on, but the very short version is that when the story was originally being told, it’s possible that the nobles didn’t even speak the same language as the peasants. Go back far enough and Britain was less ethnically homogeneous. Robin Hood, in it’s “modern” narrative context, is about an ethnically distinct king (a Norman) abusing the people (Anglo-Saxons), with Robin as (or at least passing for) an Anglo-Saxon. (Note: This is an element that becomes a lot harder pick up on when you’re looking at a version of the Robin Hood story that recasts him as a disgraced noble. Outside of historical context, it seems like a good way to give him some motivation, and could work if you push the story back a couple hundred years so he’s dealing with William the Conqueror who was the great-grandfather of our villain, but, with King John it actually moves Robin over to being a Norman, thus also an ethnic outsider, and more prone to being betrayed by the peasants.)
Ironically, we can still see some remnants of England’s diverse ethnic history in the language we speak today. In particular, there are a lot of animals where the animal itself uses an Anglo-Saxon derived word, while the word for the meat is derived from French. (For example, “deer” and “venison.”) In very general terms, the Anglo-Saxon speaking peasants interacted with the animal, while the French speaking nobles were the ones consuming the meat. (I’m scratching the surface of a very deep rabbit hole with regards to the development of modern English as a language. This is far more complicated than this example would suggest. Also, there were a lot of other languages getting put in this particular blender.)
If you specifically keep an eye on the ethnic groups involved, and view Robin Hood through the lens of an invading ethnic minority ruling and abusing the, “native,” people, (I’m putting native in scare quotes because the Anglo-Saxons were not, strictly native to England either, they emerged from a mix of native Britons and migrating Germanic settlers from mainland Europe sometime in the fifth century) then the idea that the peasantry would be more loyal to this bandit king than their actual lord starts to make a lot of sense.
It’s also important to remember the most realistic element of Robin Hood, the, “modern version,” of the story, (that is to say, the version that has survived), was written as a political hit piece on King John. King Richard spent most of his reign happily away crusading. As a result, he wasn’t around to collect taxes from his nobles. In contrast, when King John took the throne, he was suddenly close enough to start looking at his nobles, and asking them where his money was. They were, less than amused by the prospect of having to actually pay their taxes. So, while the story is about a tyrannical ruler oppressing his peasants, the reality was it was written by some landed nobility whining about having to pay rent for the first time in a decade.
Now, the actual folk story of Robin Hood predates this version by a fairly significant margin and we’re not sure when because no one ever wrote the original stories down. There’s all kinds of versions of the story out there, including some where the early version of Maid Marian duels Robin Hood in the forest. Maid Marian being an action hero is, actually, canonical. Most early versions of the Robin Hood myth involve Robin Hood being a prankster/trickster who mocks the nobility and steals their stuff, and usually, eventually, gets caught. He then escapes through his wits, going on to mock and steal again. Or, he’s brutally murdered. It’s a toss up. It really depends on who is telling the story. The “giving to the poor” part is more recent, as is the “being a noble” part. A lot of the early versions of Robin Hood is just him performing the medieval equivalent of pantsing… rich merchants? The sheriff is also a later addition to the story.
Robin Hood is like King Arthur. People just kept adding new stuff as they went along. The English probably also stole them both from the Welsh. So, you know, feel free to follow suit.
-Starke & Michi
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Oh hey, that’s my area of expertise hobby.
Bandits-Folk Heroes, aka Noble Bandits (not of the nobility, just noble in character), aka Robin Hoods
Pick a country, search for “Robin Hood of [country]”, and you’ll find tons, everywhere, in legend and/or history. They’ve been around for thousands of years. Rome had Bulla Felix, for example. In 1969, Eric Hobsbawm wrote a whole book about them, called Bandits, and argued that these folk heroes expressed a primitive social revolt. The matter is strongly debated to this day, but it’s hard to argue that they were not perceived that way in their legends (even if said legends don’t track with reality at all, which they usually don’t).
So let’s be clear about what we’re talking about.
real bandits who became folk heroes: 100% true, there’s zero debate here.
bandits who stole from the rich: Well yes, see, the poor don’t have any money, so stealing from the rich is an aspiration, really. Plenty of bandits would steal from the poor (and if you were very unlucky, THE poor), and it wasn’t pretty, but it also didn’t make them legends. By definition we’re talking about more successful criminals here, who robbed important and wealthy people on the road, or raided their estates, or kidnapped them for fat ransoms.
bandits who gave to the poor: That DID happen, but most of the time it wasn’t quite like Robin Hood. If you imagine bandits running around with with a sack of gold and redistributing all their loot to the poor oppressed villagers, it’s extremely rare. Off the top of my head, the only historical figure who actually did that was Pancho Villa, both in his bandit days and his revolutionary days. (That man robbed banks and remained penniless, because he literally gave it all away to people in need. But that man was an exception.) The typical bandit M.O. is not redistribution, it’s charity, and favours for favours. I’ll give you money to cover your daughter’s dowry, surely you’ll shelter me from the authorities if the need arises. I’ll give you a stolen sheep, you keep your mouth shut if anyone asks about me. I’ll give you a tip to take this message to my allies on yonder hill. I’ll be generous to your whole village, and I expect one of you will come alert me if the soldiers arrive. It didn’t have to be directly tit for tat, bandits often built a reputation in general and relied on word of mouth and their popularity. Oh, and the reputation for generosity often went hand in hand with a reputation for being ruthless to informers.
bandits who became folk heroes BECAUSE they gave to the poor: That’s not a given, actually. This element may be absent or inserted later, and it’s always exaggerated even when it does happen. Sometimes bandits become legends simply because they stick it to the Man, and embody a peasant-friendly worldview that’s at odds with the ruling class’s (this is Hobsbawm’s thesis). Or because outlaws are cool, and violence is exciting. Sometimes bandits are 100% reactionary, but are still perceived to stick it to the Man (Jesse James springs to mind). Sometimes they become symbols for an oppressed ethnic demographic. In these cases, their legend SWELLS if said demographic ends up with a nation-state of its own. Now the bandit gets officially promoted to a patriot who fought for freedom, whether that happened or not, and it gets real hard to tell apart fact from fiction.
What happens when “the people in power start putting the screws to the people you’re helping”?
Broadly speaking, this is how bandits get caught. Someone talks, either for a reward or out of fear (and like @howtofightwrite said, that someone may well be a fellow-bandit who turned), and the bandit gets ambushed. If the bandit falls in a fair fight, he fucked up: he shouldn’t be in a fair fight at all, the whole point of banditry is to strike fast, catch people unprepared, and immediately fade back into the wilderness where no one can find you.
The locals you’re helping are also helping you, and in fact they’re indispensable. Without them, you have no shelter, no food, and no information. Forget Robin Hood, he’s made up. In the real world, bandits don’t retreat to a safe hideout in the woods, they MOVE. So they’re either the aggressive sort who wreak havoc wherever they go, like armies “foraging” in enemy territory, and never ever qualify as noble (usually these are a product of war: robber knights, or disbanded soldiers, or desperate civilians who’ve lost everything including qualms), OR they’re the smart sort who make common cause with the locals, and forge relations with them, and take care to operate in areas where they already have kith and kin. So “the people you’re helping” are not random. They’re YOUR people.
This is generally understood by the authorities, which is why the standard method to get rid of such bandits is to deal with their accomplices (in the very broad sense), the local farmers and shepherds. Rarely with a carrot, often with a stick. States have not hesitated to brutally terrorise, displace, or even exterminate the populations of whole regions to catch the bad bandits, a tactic which on one hand works, and on the other hand fuels the legends more than anything the bandits themselves ever did.
If the bandit is the fellow who tossed you a coin and told you a kind word, and the soldier is the fellow who beat the fuck out of you, chained your brother, and straight up killed your dad, well the bandit’s your hero now! Even if he wasn’t before. And you’re gonna tell people he was SO generous he have you a whole SACK of coins, yes sir! And he was bold! And strong! And devilishly handsome! And if that filthy coward from the next village hadn’t snitched, he’d never ever been caught, he was so smart you see. But he did, and he’s dead now, and we made him a song, oh it will break your heart, sir, would you like to hear it?
So if that method worked so well, why was banditry even a thing? Because it’s fucking extreme. It’s like setting fire to the house to get rid of the mice: you’ll only do that if you truly don’t give a fuck about the house, i.e. the local population. So authorities only resorted to that when the situation was completely unacceptable. Otherwise, they might as well tolerate it, and stick to half-measures. A small gang with limited successes probably won’t cause a ripple. It’s when you have endemic banditry, or trade routes become unpassable, or people with TOO much wealth and status get targeted, or the legitimacy of the state itself is threatened, that the measures become extreme.
Retirement
Most of the time, bandits don’t live happily ever after unless
they get a personal amnesty, usually for turning in their companions or straight up bringing their heads
there’s a blanket amnesty after a widespread social unrest which couldn’t be solved any other way
they get co-opted into the state apparatus (as soldiers, irregulars, knights, paramilitary troops whose job is to hunt bandits, etc), and manage to survive all that too, and then get a nice pension / piece of land / reward that sets them up for life (otherwise they’ll become bandits all over again)
If none of that happens, and if they don’t fuck off to another country where no one can find them and start a new life, bandits don’t get to retire. They get caught, jailed, tortured, executed, murdered. Well, there might be a survivor bias here: not WHO survived, but whose STORY survived. If they successfully faded into obscurity, we simply won’t know about them. For our folk heroes though, there’s only one ending: they get killed.
The Anglo-Saxon Robin Hood
The Anglo-Saxons vs Normans angle seems to be from the 19th century, most notably in Ivanhoe by Walter Scott. It can certainly be argued that it used to be a thing in early oral tradition, and it simply never got written down for obvious reasons. It can also be argued that it was not a thing at all, and we’re only talking about it because the Brothers Grimm started that trend where you take your local folklore, project it far FAR into the past, with or without evidence, and arbitrarily endow it with the Eternal Essence of a Nation. It was all the rage at some point, and Scott surely took it and ran, but by now we hopefully understand why it’s a bad take. Nations are made up, they do exist as made-up things, but they do not come with an “essence” of any kind, and most of the time they’re much younger than they pretend to be (see: ethnogenesis).
I think that if there were an ethnic angle to the early legend of Robin Hood, something would have survived, even as a refutation. Cover-ups are often obvious, they may hide the dangerous thing, but you can still see the wraps around it, especially if you know what to look for. AFAIK, nobody mentions anything that could be connected to that interpretation in early records. Nothing at all. It’s unclear if people in post-Hastings Britain felt ethnically oppressed by the invaders to a significant degree. When you’re a tenant and have a beef (hah!) with your Lord, is it because he speaks French? Or because he’s your Lord? And before he came along, did you vibe with your ruling class? No complaints there? Everything peachy?
So I remain skeptical and unconvinced, but always open to new evidence.
Small corrections
The Sheriff of Nottingham is not a late addition, he’s right there in A Geste of Robyn Hode, the very first extant tale, from the late 1400s. Robin Hood kills him.
The good King Richard / bad King John angle is a very late addition. At first we’re not even in that time period, and even when we get there (in a play from c. 1600), Richard is simply the dude who happens to be king, he’s not juxtaposed with the evil brother. As for the ransom plot (let’s steal from the rich to give to the poor ransom good king Richard!), it’s just Hollywood. (AFAIK. Please let me know if you’ve found an earlier record, because I’ve looked and came up empty.)
