The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood: A Retelling for Curious Readers

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The opening of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood: A Retelling for Curious Readers, free to read.

1. 

   How Robin Hood Became an Outlaw

   One May morning long ago, when good King Henry ruled merry England, a young man came whistling through Sherwood Forest. He had yellow hair and a yew bow. His name was Robin, he was eighteen, and he lived in Locksley Town. The Sheriff of Nottingham had called a shooting match, and Robin meant to try his luck.

2. 

   “Where are you going, little lad, with your one-penny bow?” jeered a forester. Fifteen of the King’s foresters, who guarded his deer, sat eating pie under a great oak. Robin’s cheeks burned. “I’ll bet you twenty silver marks,” he said, “that I can bring down the best deer at the end of this glade.” The foresters snorted. Then Robin’s arrow flew, and the finest stag fell.

3. 

   Robin ran deep into the greenwood, his heart heavy as a stone. Moments before, the foresters had shouted, “That was the King’s deer! Be off, or we’ll beat you!” Robin had walked away. But the man who lost the bet shot an arrow that hissed past Robin’s ear. Robin whirled and shot back, and the forester fell and never rose again. “I struck in haste,” Robin cried, “and I will be sorry all my life!”

4. 

   Soon other wronged men gathered around Robin in Sherwood: yeomen, or free country men, pushed off their farms by greedy lords. They chose Robin as leader and dressed in Lincoln green. “We will take back what rich cheats squeezed from the poor,” said Robin, “and help poor folk. We will never harm a child or wrong a woman.” Now Robin was an outlaw, outside the protection of the law, and the Sheriff of Nottingham swore to catch him.