The folktale of Robert Hode, widely known as Robin Hood, emerges from late thirteenth-century England in Sherwood Forest, which once covered western Nottinghamshire. There, the son of a forester assembled a merry band of highwaymen who robbed from the rich and gave to themselves, and maybe the poor now and then.

During this preindustrial period, England’s heartland forests were enclosed, harvested, and turned into grazing pastures for sheep on the isle’s way to becoming “a petrostate for wool.” Six centuries later, this same enclosed region is where bands of Luddites emerged to dispute the first instances of automation. The mill owners were becoming very rich; everyone else was scraping to survive. In response, the Luddites named a new mythological outlaw:

Chant no more your old rhymes about bold Robin Hood,

His feats I but little admire,

I will sing the Atchievements of General Ludd

Now the Hero of Nottinghamshire