$Wolf$

Almost without trying, his natural skills with all things heavy and sharp, coupled with uncanny leadership qualities for someone so young, begin to cause problems and jealousy with the existing management and he finds himself thrust into the leadership of the band almost without wanting to. Robin begins as a typically well-balanced Yorkshireman, with a chip on both shoulders and joins an already existing outlaw group. Never a good idea at any point in history, if you live in Yorkshire (as I did for 26 years, for anyone picking up their pen right now). Never a good idea when your life is not your own in medieval England. He’s a worried, frightened, unsure – he is very young at the start – character, just been run out of town after his temper and sense of justice ran away with him. I identified with ‘Wolf’ Robin immediately – despite the 700-odd years between us. We meet this Robin in his home town in England before he becomes an outlaw and immediately it is clear he is much more down to earth and, I feel, closer to the legend and therefore closer to our sympathies. While the superb first volume of The Outlaw Chronicles was (partly) of necessity based in and around Sherwood and England in general, Alan Dale and the increasingly peripheral as the series progressed Robin, soon returned to their French/Norman roots and embarked on a series of day trips, long weekends and several volumes of adventures, in the Holy Land, in France, France and lost in France…anywhere but England, it seemed. Well, just when I was thinking I was all Robin Hooded-up, this comes along, grabs me by the Sherwoods and refuses to let go.įrom the start, it’s clear that this will be a much more traditional Robin Hood the Angus Donald’s re-imagining. Meanwhile, the country is in turmoil, as many of the powerful lords strive to undermine King Edward II’s rule until, inevitably, rebellion becomes a reality and the increasingly deadly yeoman outlaw from Wakefield finds his fate bound up with that of a Hospitaller Knight… When they are betrayed and their harsh lives become even more unbearable, the band of friends seeks bloody vengeance.

Becoming a member of a notorious band of outlaws, Hood and his new companions – including John Little and Will Scaflock – hide out in the great forests of Barnsdale, fighting for their very existence as the law hunts them down like animals.

After viciously assaulting a corrupt but powerful clergyman, Robin Hood flees the only home he has ever known in Wakefield, Yorkshire.

Wolf's Head by Steven A. McKay