THE MERRY ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD ***
Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger
THE MERRY ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD
by Howard Pyle
PREFACE
FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell you plainly that if you go farther you will be scandalized by seeing good, sober folks of real history so frisk and caper in gay colors and motley that you would not know them but for the names tagged to them. Here is a stout, lusty fellow with a quick temper, yet none so ill for all that, who goes by the name of Henry II. Here is a fair, gentle lady before whom all the others bow and call her Queen Eleanor. Here is a fat rogue of a fellow, dressed up in rich robes of a clerical kind, that all the good folk call my Lord Bishop of Hereford. Here is a certain fellow with a sour temper and a grim look--the worshipful, the Sheriff of Nottingham. And here, above all, is a great, tall, merry fellow that roams the greenwood and joins in homely sports, and sits beside the Sheriff at merry feast, which same beareth the name of the proudest of the Plantagenets--Richard of the Lion's Heart. Beside these are a whole host of knights, priests, nobles, burghers, yeomen, pages, ladies, lasses, landlords, beggars, peddlers, and what not, all living the merriest of merry lives, and all bound by nothing but a few odd strands of certain old ballads (snipped and clipped and tied together again in a score of knots) which draw these jocund fellows here and there, singing as they go.
Here you will find a hundred dull, sober, jogging places, all tricked out with flowers and what not, till no one would know them in their fanciful dress. And here is a country bearing a well-known name, wherein no chill mists press upon our spirits, and no rain falls but what rolls off our backs like April showers off the backs of sleek drakes; where flowers bloom forever and birds are always singing; where every fellow hath a merry catch as he travels the roads, and ale and beer and wine (such as muddle no wits) flow like water in a brook.
This country is not Fairyland. What is it? 'Tis the land of Fancy, and is of that pleasant kind that, when you tire of it--whisk!--you clap the leaves of this book together and 'tis gone, and you are ready for everyday life, with no harm done.
And now I lift the curtain that hangs between here and No-man's-land. Will you come with me, sweet Reader? I thank you. Give me your hand.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I HOW ROBIN HOOD CAME TO BE AN OUTLAW 1 II ROBIN HOOD AND THE TINKER 14 III THE SHOOTING MATCH AT NOTTINGHAM TOWN 27 IV WILL STUTELY RESCUED BY HIS COMPANIONS 38 V ROBIN HOOD TURNS BUTCHER 50 VI LITTLE JOHN GOES TO NOTTINGHAM FAIR 61 VII HOW LITTLE JOHN LIVED AT THE SHERIFF'S 68 VIII LITTLE JOHN AND THE TANNER OF BLYTH 81 IX ROBIN HOOD AND WILL SCARLET 92 X THE ADVENTURE WITH MIDGE, THE MILLER'S SON 102 Xl ROBIN HOOD AND ALLAN A DALE 115 XII ROBIN HOOD SEEKS THE CURTAL FRIAR 129 XIII ROBIN HOOD COMPASSES A MARRIAGE 145 XIV ROBIN HOOD AIDS A SORROWFUL KNIGHT 156 XV HOW SIR RICHARD OF THE LEA PAID HIS DEBTS 172 XVI LITTLE JOHN TURNS BAREFOOT FRIAR 186 XVII ROBIN HOOD TURNS BEGGAR 202 XVIII ROBIN HOOD SHOOTS BEFORE QUEEN ELEANOR 222 XIX THE CHASE OF ROBIN HOOD 243 XX ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBOURNE 262 XXI KING RICHARD COMES TO SHERWOOD FOREST 281 EPILOGUE 300
How Robin Hood Cane to Be an Outlaw
IN MERRY ENGLAND in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood. No archer ever lived that could speed a gray goose shaft with such skill and cunning as his, nor were there ever such yeomen as the sevenscore merry men that roamed with him through the greenwood shades. Right merrily they dwelled within the depths of Sherwood Forest, suffering neither care nor want, but passing the time in merry games of archery or bouts of cudgel play, living upon the King's venison, washed down with draughts of ale of October brewing.
