Will Scarlet (also Scarlett, Scarlock, Scadlock, Scatheloke, and Scathelocke) was a prominent member of Robin Hood's Merry Men. He was present in the earliest ballads along with Little John and Much the Miller's Son.
The confusion of surnames has led some authors to distinguish them as belonging to different characters. The Elizabethan playwright Anthony Munday featured Scarlet and Scathlocke as half-brothers in his play The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington. Howard Pyle included both a Will Scathelock and a Will Scarlet in his Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Will Stutely may also exist as a separate character because of a mistaken surname.
Read more about Will Scarlet: Ballads, Later Versions, Other Depictions of Will Scarlet
Famous quotes containing the word scarlet:
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)