Is Robin Hood's Maid Marian a Bimbo?

When I was a girl reading the story of Robin Hood, I was deliriously happy that Robin had a woman, Maid Marian, in his band. I didn't have much curiosity beyond that, accepting her as one of Robin's merry men except that she was a merry woman.

Now, with Ridley Scott's new film version of Robin Hood with Russell Crowe in movie theaters, I am more curious. Who was this lady who is always part of the Robin Hood legend?

Here's one way of looking at Maid Marian. Robin Hood aficionado Allen W. Wright, who opened the website Robin Hood - Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood in 1997, shows us Maid Marian as she appears in the 17^th century ballad No. 150 of the Child Collection:

They drew out their swords, and to
cutting they went,
At least an hour or more,
That the blood ran apace from bold
Robins face,
And Marian was wounded sore.

"O hold thy hand, hold thy hand," said
Robin Hood.
"And thou shalt be one of my string,
To range in the wood with bold Robin
Hood.
And hear the sweet nightingall sing."

The ballad reads almost like a Shakespearean comedy, with Marian in disguise as a man coming to blows with Robin Hood, also disguised, in the woods, neither finding out who the other is until she wounds him. In this version, because of Maid Marian's prowess, she is invited to join the band. This early Marian is definitely a tough cookie, long before the word feminism was invented!

So is there a less tomboyish Maid Marian in other versions of the Robin Hood story? According to both Wright and the contributors to Wikipedia, her character and personal history have varied over the centuries.

In the Victorian era, Maid Marian is commonly a young untouched maid for Robin Hood to pine after or protect from the unwanted attentions of other merry men. And today, it's not unusual for for the story to end with Robin and Maid Marian marrying and leaving the woods for a "civilized" life.

One version I like is Marian shown as objecting to the cruelty of the so-called merry men, guerrilla fighters who give no quarter.

For finding out more of the twists and turns the legend has taken, Allen Wright's Beginner's Guide to Robin Hood, provides a whopper of a start. The current film version is only one of a thousand and one takes on what happens to legendary characters like Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Little John and Will Scarlet who have inspired creative people for centuries.

Sources:

http://www.boldoutlaw.com/rhbal/bal150.html

http://www.boldoutlaw.com/robbeg/robbeg2.html#mm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid_Marian