Robin Hood is a purely mythological figure whose name is an Anglicised hybrid of the Robin element from Gaelic qualified by the Hood element from Welsh: the latter meaning 'devil', as in denoting a former religion now supplanted; the former meaning both 'the red king' -- the generic 'bleeding god' of 'regeneration' mythologies, where the sympathetic magic ritual of the blood of a 'sacred king' is thought to be required to be spilled on the land to ensure its fertility -- and 'the maiden queen', which is the goddess (the pan-Celtic Bridhe/ Brigid/ Brigantia) to whom the blood sacrifice is made.