Costumes and Weapons of Robin of Sherwood
Season 1.
Albion 1.
Curved square section brass quillons/crossguard with jewel design. Plain round brass pommel. Handle wire bound. Sword blade etched with a large amount of runes (Herne’s son is my master I cannot slay him) and designs running down the fuller. Whether the runes on the blade actually spelled this out we have been unable to determine. This sword was abandoned apparently due to the jewels on the crossguard being painful against the hand in use. The current whereabouts of this sword is unknown.
Albion 2.
Flat rectangular section brass quillons/crossguard tapering slightly outwards to angled ends. Large brass Lion’s Head sculpted pommel. Handle leather wrapped with brass ferrules at either end. Blade with design near crossguard, followed by wording ”Albion”, a smaller design followed by sixteen runes and the preceding design reversed. Blade bevelled along it’s entire length.
These were generally the Albions used for fight scenes, although there were other variations as seen by the example once on display in 'The Tales of Robin Hood' in Nottingham, which had a different cross-guard.
Albion 3. (Wayland).
Handle and crossguard to the same specification as Albion 2. The runes and inscriptions on the blade are also the same. The blade itself is wider and has a ricasso from the crossguard to about midway through the first design.
All seven of the Weyland Swords followed this same design.
Albion 4. (Tales of Robin Hood Sword)
This is a variation of Albion 2 with a different crossguard as used on several other swords in the series. There are also times when Robin is supposed to be using Albion, but in fact actually isn’t! I will add a detailed archive of this at a future date.
Herne The Hunter
This costume was worn by the late and great John Abineri. It has a taxidermy deer head with antlers. The antlers had been over painted for screen purposes and faux fur added for the collar and strips of multi coloured material for the main costume body. It is very heavy to wear and John could only wear it for a short time without moving his head. It was very uncomfortable even though padded throughout the head piece.
