The stories of Robin Hood are very old. They are 'folk stories'
Stories which people have told to each other over the last 800 years. Children heard the stories from their parents and then they told them to their own children.
Slowly, over the centuries, tales about Robin Hood - the forest outlaw - were collected and written down. They were turned into songs and poetry, and more recently into plays, television dramas and films.
Robin Hood was not a 'real' person, but there are many other real people from history in the stories. King Henry ll, King Richard and the Sheiff of Nottingham, were real people. Sherwood Forest is a real forest.
Robin Hood came from a town called Locksley near Nottingham. He was born between the years 1160 and 1170 in the time of King Henry ll. At this time, the kings of English were not English - they came from Normandy in northern France.