The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

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.
Not only Robin himself but all the