ABSTRACT
Eco (1986) has pointed out that many tourists seek hyper-real destinations. One means by which such hyper-reality can be attained and/or heightened, particularly in visual terms, is through the link between mythical or ctional characters and their supposed actions in actual places, and especially in places with heritage signicance. Two such places where this process can be observed are Shrewsbury Abbey in Shropshire and Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, both in the English Midlands. Shrewsbury Abbey is the ctional home of Brother Cadfael, a twelfthcentury monk-detective and the hero of numerous novels and television programs. Sherwood Forest was rst associated with the mythical actions of Robin Hood in late medieval ballads, and the media, in many forms, has continuously built upon this legend over the intervening centuries. At both locations, these ctional/ mythical characters have been used to develop local tourism industries and even to rehabilitate and visually transform areas suffering from economic and/ or environmental problems. Using Selwyn’s (1996) concepts of ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ authenticity in tourism, this chapter will summarize both the histories and the ctional/mythical overtones of these areas before considering how these have been blended in the construction of local tourist narratives and the visual culture that supports these.
