Robin Hood
- Pages
- about 225
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4.1 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
CHAPTER V How the Sheriff Lost Three Good Servants, and
Found Them Again
CHAPTER XII How Maid Marion Came Back to Sherwood Forest;
Also, How Robin Hood Came Before Queen Eleanor
List and hearken, gentlemen,
That be of free-born blood,
I shall you tell of a good yeoman,
His name was Robin Hood.
Robin was a proud outlaw,
While as he walked on the ground.
So courteous an outlaw as he was one
Was never none else found.
In the days of good King Harry the Second of England--he of the warring
sons--there were certain forests in the north country set aside for the
King’s hunting, and no man might shoot deer therein under penalty of
death. These forests were guarded by the King’s Foresters, the chief
of whom, in each wood, was no mean man but equal in authority to the
Sheriff in his walled town, or even to my lord Bishop in his abbey.
One of the greatest of royal preserves was Sherwood and Barnesdale
forests near the two towns of Nottingham and Barnesdale. Here for some
years dwelt one Hugh Fitzooth as Head Forester, with his good wife and
son Robert. The boy had been born in Lockesley town--in the year 1160,
stern records say--and was often called Lockesley, or Rob of Lockesley.
He was a comely, well-knit stripling, and as soon as he was strong
enough to walk his chief delight was to go with his father into the
forest. As soon as his right arm received thew and sinew he learned to
draw the long bow and speed a true arrow. While on winter evenings his
greatest joy was to hear his father tell of bold Will o’ the Green, the
outlaw, who for many summers defied the King’s Foresters and feasted
with his men upon King’s deer. And on other stormy days the boy learned
to whittle out a straight shaft for the long bow, and tip it with gray
goose feathers.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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