In modern times, our perception of myths is very much shaped by different translations. With the Robin Hood legends, I mean this both literally and figuratively: the earliest Robin Hood ballads date back to the 15th century, and there have been many translations of the Middle English tales since. Howard Pyle’s 1883 children’s novel The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood is one of these, along with dozens of film and television adaptations which base themselves on the medieval tellings. For many people born after the 1970s, their awareness of the character will stem from the likes of Disney’s Robin Hood (1973), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), and perhaps even the Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). These were certainly three films that informed my interpretation of the character, and I recently observed that it was actually the comedic tone of Men in Tights that made it feel like the piece of media most aligned with the Pyle version. However, for all the mischief and ‘laughing until tears rolled down their cheeks’ that Robin and his merry men indulge in, the entire book is tinged with a sense of nostalgic sadness – and the reason why only becomes clear in the novel’s final few pages.
A Time and Place For Everything
The epilogue deals chiefly with Robin’s death – his last fight with the Sheriff of Nottingham, betrayal at the hands of his cousin, the shooting of his final arrow, and his burial. Howard Pyle presents these events in such a more determinedly fatalistic and straightforward manner, that it makes the rest of the book by comparison seem like a distant memory. And in many ways it is – while most of the locations in the stories are based on real places within Nottinghamshire, the Sherwood forest home of Robin Hood is myth – a place where honest outlaws can hold sumptuous feasts and play host to no less than the King of England. It’s not the first or last time that a forest would be presented as a place of magic and mystery, and it serves as an important focal point for the fantastical nature of Robin’s adventures.
The last few chapters separate Robin from the forest through both time and distance: “it was many a year ere he saw Sherwood again… so Robin followed the King to the wars.” In doing so, Robin is removed from the land of fancy and placed within the serious context of war. Even his eventual return to the forest is marked by the grave battle which he himself instigates, where he kills the Sheriff of Nottingham. The story becomes an almost distorted mirror image of everything that came before: no more exists the honest yeoman who loathes the idea of having “slain a man”. In fact, the very act of spilling blood “lay heavily upon his mind” at this point, causing a fever to seize him which results in Robin’s visit to the priory to be leeched.
The Values and Valuables of Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood
It’s not just Robin’s principles which undergo a transformation in the final act. Key values, such as truth and honesty, loyalty, honour and justice, are all demonstrated by Robin and his band through each adventure. ‘The Merry Adventure with Midge the Miller’ particularly embodied this. In this story, we see:
– Robin pay for his dishonesty by receiving an (albeit humourous) thrashing
– His merry men run to his aid at the first blow of his horn (only to laugh at his situation)
– The honest miller is forgiven and rewarded by being asked to join the band
Each event showcasing the importance of honesty, loyalty and and justice, respectively. Yet despite this being one of the most high-spirited chapters, Pyle finishes by noting:
“Happenings so come upon us in the world that the serious things of this world become so mixed up with the merry things, that our life is all of a jumble of black and white…[like a chessboard] upon which country folk play draughts at the inn beside the blazing fire of a winter’s night.”
Pyle resets the tone here and creates hazy imagery of dark days yet to come in the story by evoking the cold blackness of a ‘winters night’. It’s a paragraph that initially feels jarring on a first read through, but serves as the foreshadowing of a time when the core morals valued by Robin would be rivaled upon his return from the wars.
Tall Tales
Pyle takes care to preface the book with a disclaimer “You who plod so serious among things… these pages are not for you.” He then continues by listing off the many characters in the adventures that follow. Pyle makes it very clear “‘tis the land of Fancy…when you tire of it –whisk! You clap the leaves of this book together and ‘tis gone.” So while on the one hand we are assured that we are entering a realm of merriment and ‘joyousness’, we are also reminded that it can be done away with just as quickly. Importantly, it can and will be set aside – the book must be finished at some point – which lends the ending a feeling of inevitability. This is part of what makes these stories feel so nostalgic and wistful. It parallels childhood itself, and builds on a recurring theme in many children’s novels that childhood, like all good things, must eventually end (though, some books reject this idea and instead allow childish fancy to spill over into adulthood).
Robin’s end was particularly jarring for me as an adult. I’m not sure which abridged version I read as a child, but it did not end with Robin’s death, and my understanding has always been that Robin (or at least his spirit) is left free to roam and protect Sherwood forever more. Not only does Robin not finish his last days in the forest, he also experiences a series of events that are quite at odds with the fanciful adventures of the rest of his life. The most damning of which is the betrayal he meets at the hands of family – his cousin, the prioress:
“And so she did bleed him, but the vein she opened was not one of those that lie close and blue beneath the skin; deeper she cut than that…All that livelong day the blood ran from Robin Hood’s arm, nor could he check it, though he strove in every way to do so.”
Pyle’s description of Robin’s demise is exceedingly graphic, especially for a children’s book. In some ways, it augments Robin’s character by turning him into a Christlike figure – the betrayal, having to suffer his death alone, and the letting of blood via a limb – and by extension the rest of the story can take on biblical connotations (the merry men as disciples, for example). But in my view, the conclusion of the story signals an end to the ideals that Pyle originally presents. Particularly in the closing lines, when we are told Robin’s grave reads:
“Sick outlaws as hi an is men
Vil England nadir si agen.”*
*Such outlaws as he and his men,
Will England Never see again.
This heightens the longing embodied throughout the book of a time which may have once been, but will never be again.
Ultimately, there is no wit in Robin’s final tale – no disguises, or triumphant reveals. His last moments see him blundering around a tower, rapidly losing blood and utterly powerless. He is left leaning upon his right hand man, staring wistfully out of a window at his beloved forest which sits far away on the horizon.
Closing Thoughts
Maybe it’s re-reading these stories as an adult, but the darker side of the Robin Hood legend feels much more prevalent in Pyle’s telling, despite not being actively mentioned until the very end. It may be impossible to recapture youth, or to even recapture the quality of ‘such men’ again, but these legends are nearly as old as England itself (give or take a few hundred years). Robin’s tales have been preserved, though modified along the way, and somehow kept whole and wholesome enough for generations to venerate Robin Hood as a heroic figure. In a way, it feels wrong to let Robin die in such an ordinary way, and I think Pyle is aware of this given that he bids readers do not “follow me further” to the end of the tale. True enough, Pyle’s young readers can’t stay as children forever, so perhaps it’s best to have an ending that reflects this. Would young readers have felt frustrated at not knowing Robin’s fate? Or, would it have been better to let Robin roam Sherwood forever more – as a small, yet hopeful act of childhood preservation?
Which version of Robin Hood (book, film or otherwise) is your favourite? Let me know in the comments.
