The book is a half-serious attempt to re-create in fiction what may have been the reality behind the legend of Robin Hood. It is based primarily on the ballads which are the earliest sources of the legend, and therefore closest to whatever actuality there may have been. One of the ballads tells of Robin Hood becoming a yeoman for King Edward II; there was a real Robin Hood at the court of Edward II, and the few details known of the life of this man are a secondary basis for the novel.