[DISCLAIMER: Please note that this information has been sourced from a specially adapted version for younger readers, and, as such, may not be fully accurate or complete]
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood is a novel written by Howard Pyle. Released in 1883, it compiles the various Robin Hood legends into a cohesive narrative.
Characters[]
- Robin Hood
- King Henry the Second
rest to be added
Publisher's summary[]
Modern reprint
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. He stole from the rich and gave to the poor, and in so doing became an undying symbol of virtue. But most important, Robin Hood and his band of merry men offer young audiences more than enough adventure and thrills to keep them listening intently. Filled with action, villains, and surprises, who could resist the arrows flying, danger lurking, and medieval intrigue?
Summary[]
The tale begins by stating that once, the Sheriff of Nottingham had proclaimed a shooting match. Robin Hood, an eighteen year old at the time, decides that he will participate.
Walking through Sherwood forest, Robin stumbles upon a group of the King’s foresters eating and drinking under a great tree. When they ask the youth where he’s headed, they make fun of him, under the impression that he’s no good at archery. Robin, enraged, bets that he can kill a certain deer a good distance away, and he does. The foresters are angry, because they lost their bet and one of the King’s deer they were meant to protect had been killed. The young man walks away angrily, but one of the men is drunk and shoots an arrow at Robin – it narrowly misses. Robin then shoots back at the man, killing him.
Robin is now an outlaw, and gathered many like himself around him. The Sheriff of Nottingham now despises the young archer, and has sworn to see him brought to justice.
One morning, Robin announces to his friends that he will go off on his own that day, ‘’seeking adventure.’’ If they hear him blow his horn three times, he is in need of help.
Robin Hood walks around for some time until he comes across a little stream. In order to cross it without getting wet, he has to walk over a log that serves as a bridge. On the other side of the stream, another man wishes to cross. They start arguing over who may get to the other side first, and soon they end up fighting with staffs on the log.
The fight goes on for over an hour and finally, the stranger wins, knocking Robin into the water. The men congratulate each other, and Robin blows his horn thrice.
Soon twenty to thirty of Robin’s men show up, ready to beat the stranger up, but he fights them off. Robin asks the man if he’d like to join the band, and he says that if one of the men here can beat him at archery, he might. Robin easily wins the contest, splintering the man’s arrow with his own. The man claps and says he’ll join, introducing himself as John Little. One of the band members jokes that, as the burly man is so small and frail, he must be called Little John instead, and so John is rechristened.
The Sheriff of Nottingham sets out an arrest warrant on Robin Hood, expecting the citizens of the town to help. However, none of the locals would be willing to do so, as they know of Robin’s band, and like them. So, a man from another town, a tinker, thinks he could capture the man.
One morning, Robin is walking along as he meets the tinker. They make friends quickly and are soon headed towards an inn. The tinker tells the archer that he is seeking an outlaw by the name of Robin Hood.
At the inn, Robin makes sure that the tinker gets drunk enough to eventually fall asleep. The young man then steals the warrant from the tinker, leaving him to pay for the drinks, and goes away.
The next day, they cross paths yet again. The tinker is enraged, knowing that it was Robin Hood himself who tricked him, and attacks the other man with his staff. Robin loses the fight and blows for help on his horn. Seven of his friends come running out of the forest, and Robin asks the tinker if he would like to join the group. The man accepts, and they all head back into the forest.
The Sheriff of Nottingham is enraged by Robin Hood and proclaims a shooting match as a trap – he knows Robin will come, and hopes to catch him. When the archer hears of the news, he decides that he and his men shall attend the match, but disguise themselves so as to not be recognised.
On the day of the tournament, Robin dresses up and dyes his hair, He also wears a patch over one eye, indicating blindness. Robin wins the match and receives the prize – a golden arrow.
Later that day, the band celebrates Robin’s success. He and one of his friends then shoot a blunt arrow with a message attached into the Sheriff’s dining room while he is eating. It reveals that the winner of the tournament was no other than Robin Hood himself. The Sheriff of Nottingham is frustrated by his inability to catch Robin Hood, and so he sends out three hundred men to catch the outlaw.
Robin heard of this plan and, as he doesn’t want anyone’s blood on his hands, he orders his band to stay hidden in the forest. They remain like this for a week, until the young man decides that one of his men should go check on what the Sheriff’s men are up to. He selects Will Stutely for the task.
Will disguises himself as a friar and goes to an inn, as the owner of the establishment would tell him the news. At the tavern, a few of the Sheriff’s men are drinking. Will quietly sits down in a corner, scared of revealing his identity, when a cat rubs up his robe and shows his telltale bright green clothes underneath to the men out for Robin Hood. He gets captured and shall be hanged the next day.
When Robin hears about what happened to Will, he decides that he shall save his friend. On the day of hanging, plenty of Robin’s men hide in the crows of townspeople watching Will Stutely being brought to the gallows. Little John frees Will from his bonds and they flee together with the other members of the band, leaving ten of the Sheriff’s men wounded.
One day, Robin Hood decides to head into the town to seek adventure. He buys a cart full of meat from a butcher and sets up a stall at the market. Due to him charging very low prices for the food, people only buy from him that day.
Later, Robin is invited to dine with the Sheriff and all the other butchers and happily accepts the invite. During the meal, Robin tells the lawman that he and his brothers have over five hundred deer, none of which they have been able to sell. The Sheriff wishes to see them and buy the herd for the ridiculously low price of three hundred pounds.
That day, while showing the Sheriff the deer, Robin reveals his true identity and forces his enemy to feast with him and his band. At the end of the meal and the games that followed it, the Sheriff’s purse, once containing three hundred pounds, is emptied and the man is sent on his way.
One October, LIttle John sets off to the town fair hosted every five years in Nottingham. He disguises himself and has a nice time drinking, dancing, and fighting with staffs. After the archery match that Little John wins, the Sheriff offers him to join his service. The man accepts, for he thinks it could be fun. He also gives away the prize he won for the contest – two fat steers.
Although Little John had initially joined the Sheriff’s service as a joke, he soon realises how much easier life has become since he had taken on this new style of living, and stays for half a year.
One morning, however, Little John wakes up and hears Robin’s horn faintly, blowing thrice in the distance, and he remembers the good old days. He realises that he must return to them, and hurries downstairs, towards the pantry guarded by the steward. The steward refuses to open the room, so Little John strikes him down and starts eating. However, the cook hears the noise and comes running up. Before fighting, the men raid the pantry and have a feast. They then have an epic sword fight which ends in Little John asking the cook if he would like to join Robin Hood’s service. The man accepts and the two head off into the forest.
The duo find Robin Hood and his men in the forest, glad to see each other. Little John recounts the events of the past six months, ending the tale by showing off the silverware he stole from the Sheriff. Robin reprimands him, stating that the lawman had already suffered enough. Hearing this, Little John runs into the forest and soon finds the Sheriff and his men, hunting. He convinces the man to follow him. When the two show up again, Robin takes the defeated lawman back to his hunting company, returns the silverware and tells him to test his servants better in the future.
One morning, Robin Hood realises that his band are out of the Lincoln green cloth they wear, and sends Little John off with some money to order some more. When Little John comes to a crossing in the road, one way leading to the cloth salesman, and the other to an inn, he takes the latter path.
At the same time, a tanner called Arthur a Bland of Blyth is rustling through the forest, in hopes of catching some deer. Little John challenges the man to a fight with the staff, and ends up losing – a moment that Robin, who had heard of his friend going towards the inn and was angered enough by this to come and tell him how he felt, sees and is greatly amused by. Robin asks the man to join his band, and he accepts. The story ends by the archer saying he’ll accompany his friend on the way, as there are plenty of other inns nearby.
Arthur a Bland, Robin Hood and Little John continue their trip to order some cloth. They rest in the forest for a while, and see a man strolling by alone, dressed in bright colours.
Robin Hood goes to ask the man for his purse, and they end up fighting – Robin with his staff, and the stranger with a young tree he ripped from the ground. The stranger soon wins the contest and the archer yields while Arthur and Little John come running up.
It turns out that the man is Robin’s nephew, and that he got sent away from home to escape the punishment for accidentally killing a man. The archer renames him from Will Gamwell to Will Scarlet, because there would soon be arrest warrants out for him. The man accepts to join his uncle’s band.
Robin Hood decides that Little John should go order cloth another time, and the four men head back to Sherwood.
On their way to Sherwood, the group notices a strong man who Little John identifies as a local young miller. Robin Hood decides that they should pretend they’re thieves, take him into the forest for a feast and send him home with more money than before. When the four men ask for the youth’s money, he unties his bag, as if to hand it to them, but instead he throws flour at them. Bewildered, coughing and unable to see, the men are beaten by the miller. Robin Hood manages to blow thrice for help on his horn. Later that day, the miller has joined Robin’s band, and they celebrate long into the night.
One morning, Robin Hood states that the band’s purse is low. He instructs Will Stutely to go with six men of choice and return with someone rich to feast with. The little group leaves and waits hidden by the side of a busy road all day, but no one with a notable amount of money passes. The men return back into the forest, where they stumble upon a young man with a harp, crying. They bring him back to Robin. He explains his sorrow – the girl he loves shall be married off in two days time to an old knight. Robin comes up with a plan for what he should do the next day, and then the band feasts. The men also discover that the youth is a great musician named Allan a Dale, and he joins the group.
The next morning, Robin, Little John, Will Scarlet, David of Doncaster and Arthur a Blyth leave to go to a friar. When the men near a little steam, Robin asks them to stay behind, for he wants to go on the adventure alone.
The archer reaches the bank and sees a friar talking to himself, and asks him if he could take him through the water on his back, as he doesn’t want his clothes to get wet. The man complies, however, in the middle of the book, he throws Robin in the water. When the two men are out of the stream again, they have a sword fight, and the archer blows for help on his horn. The friar retaliates by using a whistle that calls four dogs that attack Robin’s men. Luckily, Will Scarlet is able to calm them down, and the friar is an old friend of his. Robin Hood tells the man to come with them, and that they shall tell him on the way what they need from him.
On the day that Ellen is supposed to get married, Robin Hood, a few of his most loyal friends and the friar go to the church where the wedding is to take place. The archer is dressed up as a minstrel. When the wedding party comes along, Robin tells the Bishop that he’ll play some music on his harp, to which the man replies that if he does so well enough, he can have whatever he wants. The band then interrupts the wedding ceremony, and the friar gets Allan a Dale and Ellen married. Robin takes the Bishop’s golden chain and hands it to the newly wed lady. They all leave and head into the woods, where they celebrate all night long, and the friar, called Friar Tuck, joins the band.
One day, Robin Hood and Little John debate whether it would be better to live as a friar or a beggar. They end up deciding that they should each spend a day pretending to be the one they prefer.
Little John dresses up as a friar and meets three girls with whom he goes to the market. Then, three men pay for all he can drink at an ale, and he meets two friars who claim to not have any money to hand the man. However, they are loaded with money that Little John then takes off of them.
Robin Hood buys the clothes from the first beggar he meets, and stumbles upon four other beggars who claim to be blind, mute, deaf, and have paraplegia, respectively. However, they all accidentally display that those are lies, and Robin has a fight with them after they get mad at him for not knowing beggar slang and ends up stealing their money. He then meets a rich merchant and tells the man that he is only dressed up as a beggar to fool a robber, Robin Hood. The merchant praises him for his carefulness and says that he has his money hidden in his shoes. Robin then takes said money. When the two men recount the events of the day to the other members of the band, some think that the beggar’s life is better, and some think that the friar’s life is better.
One day, Richard Partington, the Queen’s page, rides to an inn by Sherwood forest. He states that he is looking for Robin Hood, and two of the band’s men who happen to be there at the time take him to the archer.
Having arrived at Robin’s location, Richard tells the man of a grand shooting match in London and the Queen's wish for him to take the prize. The archer accepts gladly, chooses Little John, Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale to come with him, and the group leaves.
In London, the men spend some time with the Queen before the archery contest that they win, even after a rematch. However, a Bishop recognises Robin, who gets a message from Richard Partington stating that the King is angry. The man leaves London with his friends, knowing the danger he is in.
The four men plan to stay the night in an inn dangerously close to London, however, Richard Partington shows up and warns Robin that there are currently a thousand men out looking for him, so the archer departs, separating himself from his friends. Will Scarlet, Little John and Allan a Dale all reach Sherwood safely within the next eight days.
When Robin is close to Sherwood, he nearly gets killed by archers and runs away. He changes clothes with a man he meets and stays the night in an inn, where, in the morning, he takes a friar’s clothes. Robin then meets Sir Richard of Lea, a knight who agrees to help him by bringing him to his castle. Thanks to the Queen’s protection and the King’s head page, the archer manages to return to Sherwood safely. Robin has learned his lesson and never strays further from Nottingham than would be safe.
One day, Little John and Robin Hood each set off on their own adventures. Robin Hood encounters the Guy of Gisbourne, a murderer with the task of killing the archer, on his way. However, Robin ends up with his enemy’s blood on his hands. He then takes Guy’s clothes and dresses up as him to seek revenge on the Sheriff, who was the one who had put the assassin out on the task. Meanwhile, Little John is awaiting his hanging for freeing three innocent young men from death and getting captured in the process.
Robin Hood, still disguised as Guy, gets the Sheriff’s permission to kill Little John. However, instead of commiting murder, he frees his friend and they escape.
Once, King Richard visited Sherwood. Hearing good stories about Robin Hood and how the man steals from the rich and dines with them, he devises a plan. He goes into the forest, laden with money, half of which gets taken by Robin’s men. They have a good time, until a man recognises the King, who was disguised, and the band become royal rangers.
Robin Hood returns to Sherwood for a short time. He remembers the good old times, and, as he blows thrice on his horn, Little John and a couple other men come up and are overjoyed to see him. Robin decides to come back to his old life in the forest, and comes down with a fever. Back then, having your blood drawn was thought to help against fevers, and the archer goes to his cousin’s for the supposed treatment. However, she cuts his vein and locks him in the room. Robin barely manages to blow for help on his horn, and when Little John comes to rescue, the man is already too weak from blood loss. He hands the archer his bow and Robin shoots his final arrow, instructing his tearful friend to dig his grave where the projectile lands.
Characters[]
- Robin Hood, the bold outlaw of Sherwood Forest
- Robin’s Merry Yeomen
- Will Stutely
- LIttle John
- David of Doncaster
- Arthur a Bland
- Will Scarlet
- Allan a Dale
- Midge the MIller
- Wat the Tinker
- Friar Tuck, the friar of Fountain Abbey
- Fair Ellen, the girl Allan a Dale loves
- Robin’s enemies
- The Sheriff of Nottingham
- The Bishop of Hereford
- Guy of Gisbourne, an evil thief and murderer
- Sir Richard of Lea, a knight
- Sir Henry of Lea, Sir Richard’s son
- Rulers of England
- King Henry
- Queen Elanor
- Richard Partington, the Queen’s page
- King Richard, Henry’s successor as King of England
- The Prioress, Robin’s evil cousin
See Also[]
- Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
Sources[]
(PLACEHOLDER)