Robin Hood

Part One · Sherwood

Sherwood Forest was so enormous and so thick that the sunlight had to squeeze through it sideways. Travelers hurried along its narrow paths with their eyes wide open, because everyone knew that outlaws lived somewhere in the shadows. The most famous of them was a young man named Robin Hood, who had once been a farmer's son until the Sheriff of Nottingham seized his family's land to collect taxes that nobody could possibly pay. Robin walked into the woods, found a hollow oak, and decided to make something remarkable out of his misfortune. He stayed furious for about one afternoon, and after that he got busy.

Before long other people with empty pockets began to arrive, including cooks and weavers and farmers who had lost their homes to the Sheriff's tax collectors. Robin welcomed every one of them as long as they promised to be fair and kind. They built shelters out of branches and woven leaves, they called themselves the Merry Men. THEY practiced with their bows every day until they could split a green twig from a hundred steps away. Whenever a wealthy traveler wandered through the forest, Robin invited him to an enormous feast and politely asked him to share some of his gold with the poor. Most of them agreed, because it is extremely difficult to refuse anything when your mouth is full of roast chicken.

Everything that Robin collected went straight to the families who needed it most. A widow with five hungry children discovered a bag of coins on her doorstep the morning after the Sheriff's men took her only cow, and a miller who could not pay his taxes woke up to find his debt completely cleared. Nobody ever saw who had left the gifts, but everybody understood exactly where they came from. People began to whisper Robin's name the way you whisper a wonderful secret, with a smile. The Sheriff heard the whispers too. HE hated them so much that his left eye began to twitch whenever somebody sneezed, since a sneeze sounds a little like the word Hood.

Part Two · The Log Bridge

One bright morning Robin set out alone to explore a part of the forest that he had not visited for months, and before long he arrived at a narrow log stretched across a rushing stream. Standing at the far end was the largest man Robin had ever seen, nearly seven feet tall, with shoulders like a barn door and a wooden staff as thick as a fence post. Robin stepped onto the log. THE giant stepped onto it as well. Neither of them was willing to back up. "Move aside," said Robin, raising his chin, "because I arrived first." The giant looked down at him the way you might look at an unusually brave beetle.

The giant laughed so loudly that a flock of birds burst out of the trees. HE announced that his name was John Little and that he had never stepped aside for anybody in his entire life. Robin replied that he had never been pushed into the water, and that he certainly did not intend to begin today. They each cut a long quarterstaff from a young ash tree and met in the middle of the log, where wood cracked against wood. Robin was quick, but John was tremendously strong. THE whole log shook beneath them. At last John swung his staff in a wide circle, and Robin flew off the log with a splash like a dropped piano.

For a moment there was complete silence. Then Robin came up out of the water with a frog sitting on his head and began to laugh as hard as the giant had. He climbed onto the bank and shook John's enormous hand, declaring that he had never been beaten so fairly and that a man with such a mighty arm belonged in the greenwood. "Since you are so big," Robin added, "we shall call you Little John." The nickname stuck forever. That evening the Merry Men held a celebration to welcome their newest member. HE ate more roasted venison than any three of them put together.

Over the following months the band grew larger and more daring. Friar Tuck was a round and cheerful monk who hid a sword beneath his robe and sang louder than a thunderstorm, and Will Scarlet dressed in brilliant red from head to toe, which made hiding surprisingly difficult. The Sheriff's soldiers searched the forest every week and discovered nothing except empty campfires and one extremely rude feather. They did meet the Merry Men once, when Little John stepped out from behind a tree and asked them politely to pay a toll. Their captain refused, so the Merry Men gently tipped him into the stream, followed by his helmet and then his boots.

Nobody was hurt, though everybody was soaked. THE soldiers squelched back to Nottingham in embarrassed silence, leaving a trail of puddles behind them. From that day on the captain flinched whenever he heard running water, even in the bathtub, and a duck on the pond quacked what sounded very much like a laugh. The Sheriff watched the puddles spread across his marble floor, and his face slowly turned the color of a ripe plum. "Enough," he whispered. "I shall catch that outlaw if it is the last thing I ever do." He sounded so serious that even his cat left the room.

Part Three · The Contest

At last the Sheriff thought of a truly clever scheme. He announced a magnificent archery contest in the market square at Nottingham, with a golden arrow as the prize. HE invited every archer in England, because he was convinced that Robin Hood, the finest archer in the land, would be unable to resist such a challenge. Soldiers would be hiding all through the crowd. THE moment Robin stepped forward to shoot, they would seize him. The Sheriff rubbed his hands together and gave a wicked grin that he had practiced in the mirror for a week. "A perfect trap," he said to nobody. Then, because nobody answered, he said it again, louder.

The Merry Men heard about the contest within a day, and most of them declared that it was far too dangerous. Little John begged Robin to remain safely in the forest, but Robin only smiled and explained that a trap is simply a puzzle with a lid on it, and that he had already worked out the answer. On the morning of the contest he rubbed ashes into his face, tied a patch over one eye, wrapped a ragged cloak around his shoulders, bent his back like an ancient beggar, and limped into town leaning on a crooked stick. He was not alone, however, because behind him shuffled a long line of hunched and ragged beggars, and every single one of them was a Merry Man.

The marketplace was crowded and noisy, with flags snapping in the wind and soldiers studying every face that passed. The Sheriff sat in a high seat at the front, looking enormously pleased with himself, while one archer after another shot at a round target far down the field. Some of them missed it completely, and others struck only the outer rings. Robin waited until just three archers remained. THEN a cracked old voice called out, asking whether an old man might have a turn. A soldier near the front leaned closer, and his nose wrinkled, because the beggar smelled exactly like a wet forest stream and a cold prickle crawled up the back of his neck.

He was the captain who had been dunked in the stream. HE took one step toward the beggar. THEN another, while his hand crept slowly toward his sword. Robin did not even turn his head. He only leaned on his stick and kept smiling a toothless smile that he had practiced for a week. "Let the old fellow shoot!" cried the Sheriff from his seat, since it would make an entertaining joke. The captain froze with his fingers an inch from the hilt, because he understood that if he grabbed the wrong beggar in front of the entire town, he would be the one who looked ridiculous. HE already owned a pair of very squelchy boots.

Robin borrowed a worn bow from a boy in the crowd and studied the target for a long, long moment. Then he let go. The arrow flew straight and true and landed in the exact center of the bull's-eye. THE whole crowd fell silent. Robin shot again, and his second arrow split the first one right down the middle. The Sheriff leapt from his seat so fast that his hat fell off. "That is Robin Hood!" he shrieked. "Seize that beggar!" Every soldier in the square charged forward and grabbed the nearest ragged cloak.

They grabbed one old man in a patch, then another old man in a patch. THEN a third. IT slowly dawned on them that half of the crowd was wearing ashes, an eyepatch, and a bent back. Beggars popped up everywhere, each of them limping in a different direction and shouting, "I am Robin Hood!" in a cracked old voice. Soldiers tripped over other soldiers. THE captain wrestled a beggar who turned out to be Friar Tuck, who simply sat on him until he stopped. In the middle of the chaos the real Robin bowed to the Sheriff, plucked the golden arrow right out of his hand, and said, "Thank you, my lord. How very kind."

Part Four · The Golden Arrow

By the time the Sheriff stopped shouting, every beggar in the square had limped away in the same direction, which happened to be the forest, and not one of them was limping anymore. That evening the Merry Men gathered around the fire. Robin wiped the ashes from his face and held up the golden arrow. THE entire camp cheered so loudly that the owls hooted back. Little John laughed until he had to lie down, and Robin told the story twice, once in his own voice and once in the old beggar's, until everyone was wiping their eyes.

The following morning a messenger from the castle came looking for the winner and found only a note nailed to a tree, which said, Thank you for the lovely prize. Robin did not keep the arrow for long, because a traveling merchant bought it for a fair price. THE money went to the villages that the Sheriff had taxed most heavily. By winter every family in the shadow of Sherwood had warm blankets and enough wheat to last until spring. The Sheriff never did catch Robin Hood, and people say that to this day, whenever he sees an old beggar, he secretly checks the man's boots for stream water.