When Robin lost his Hood

capitol seofon; the monster called Sherwood

CHAPTER SEVEN;

The men were afraid. Waiting for punishment on a molding table in an inn, abandoned and decayed by time. The fear didn't rush in, it didn't barge into the room wrestling with the mightiest of them on the ground. It didn't loom, didn't drown them in death.

Gaderian was a man, just like every other man, but not just any man. Tall, slender, cloaked by Sherwood, it had claimed him, the monk spoke. And the men of Nottingham, wet and patchy clothed, worn by time like some painting of perdition, perked their ears up to listen.

Sherwood forest was not the name of a forest, but the name of a beast. And the Beast, the monk said, was a woman.
A woman, i repeated. Aye, he said. A woman.

In time past when the sun was still new to England, and houses were still made of pine roofs and stick walls, a little girl was born named Sher. Her mother and father, the little we know, were born in lands between worlds, always on the go. But always, they spoke about the land of vipers and lions they'd migrate to next. If, they weren't so old.

By tradition, the little girl was given a choice marry and leave England or stay and take root. Taking root was a death sentence to Sher. For she'd fallen for a boy with younger, healthier parents who had decided to migrate to lands of lions and vipers. But her own parents were sick, and life had hunched their arrow backs and depleted their muscles. She knew starting her life meant ending theirs. Sher stayed. And watched the love of her life go. And for this choice, she paid with her heart. Some say it blackened and died like a rotting grape. From that day on she spent her nights and days planting seeds on the ground and said, when these seeds become a forest, my parents will have died and i will go to my lover.

After a time when her parents were at their deathbeds, spear headed sticks were aimed at iron clad swords, settlers, new nomads were flooding in but the difference was, they didn't want to go and would kill anyone in their way who stopped them from building their stone houses. Hunted and afraid, Sher hid them in the woods where she'd build a house to make her loved ones live their final days in peace. This my friends was the first house of Nottingham.

Bears, wolves and coyotes were the first monsters of the woods that made the knights and soldiers afraid to enter the woods. But, after mother and father died, and Sher herself had grown old, unable to leave of risk of getting killed. She asked the druids, ancient wise men and magicians to curse the woods so no one but her offspring would feel safe in it and would obey them. Sher had been loved as a young girl but had grown feared as she grew old. When she died.

Some say her spirit, just like her body, never left the woods and that lost, wandering men who've dared enter have caught sight of a woman, dressed in white attempting at every turn to kill them, and she has. Since the beginning of time, she has. Only the natives of Nottingham can come and go as they please but even they are not so fortunate some days. Sherwood forest follows her command.

The Nottingham men, beer bearded and trembling, nodded, looking down at their holed wooden cups. They'd all heard the story but with the storm looming above them, it affected them differently. It wasn't a tale for them, not a myth or a bedtime story. I realized. These strong men, who chopped off the heads of Prince John's soldiers like scythes to the harvest would beg on their knees for help right now if the lightning struck the roof.

But yet, this didn't explain why they feared-

"What does this have to do with the man, Gaderian Caen?" I said and they all whipped their heads to the door to check if my mentioning had summoned him somehow. Like a demon.

The young boy, Jonah, let out a huff of annoyance behind me. Resting his head on top of his crossed hands on the table, he'd tried sleeping but to no avail, the monk was talkative tonight. Moreso than usual.