SIR – In answer to the enquiry about Robin Hood (Letters, September 11). He is arguably the world’s most famous outlaw. From being an obscure local robber, thought to have been active around the 13th or 14th centuries, he has become known throughout the world. Books and films have proliferated his image, but unfortunately they have also distorted it.

Forget the legend and look at some facts: Sherwood Forest extended to Doncaster in the 14th century and the long bow was only introduced to the English in the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). Analysis of the earliest printed versions of the Robin Hood ballads provide a number of clues to Robin Hood’s area of operations and the locations of his exploits. Despite his famous association with the forests of Nottinghamshire, in the earliest ballads he is placed quite firmly in Barnsdale, originally Beornsdale, which is situated in Yorkshire between Doncaster and Wentbridge, a village south of Pontefract. And a Robin Hode lived with his wife Matilda in Wakefield during the 1310s.

If this is the same Robin, he was a Yorkshire man!

Peter J Palmer, Buttermere Road, Bradford