The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

Original title: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire

 (Book Review)

Started: March 29, 2021

Finished: May 18, 2021

Summary

This is the classic version of Robin Hood.  Written in 1883, and based on the original old ballads, this is the oldest Robin Hood novel that’s still on the shelves today.  Originally written as a children’s story, it’s still fascinating reading for people interested in seeing how the Robin Hood legend evolved.

Because it’s based on a collection of separate ballads, the book has an episodic feel.  But the author has made an effort to loosely connect the separate stories into one novel.  It has more of a folkloric tone than an adventure tone.  (Robin Hood usually plays the role of The Trickster).  But it’s still good fun to read.

The dialogue is written in a faux old English style, which annoyed me at first but I soon got used to it. (132 Words)

[That's me attempting to be concise.  If you want my usual long-winded version, continue on to The Full Review]

Full Review

So, a few weeks ago, I took all my books out of my backpack to film one of my Weekly Reading Vlogs, and then the next morning I forgot to pack them back up again.  And then there I was at work (where I normally get most of my reading done) with a long lunch break, and absolutely nothing to read for the afternoon.

So, I decided to venture into the library and check out a new book.  I had told myself I wouldn't start any new books until I made some progress on - all - the - books - I - am - currently - reading, but with nothing to read for the afternoon, I decided to make an exception.  But at the same time, because I'm already reading several books, I wasn't looking to get bogged down in anything massive.  I wanted to find something that would be quick and easy to read.

I saw this on the shelves and thought to myself, "It's a children's book so it should be quick and easy to read.  But it's also a classic, so I won't be completely wasting my time.  Plus, I've always wanted to read one of the original Robin Hood books."

The desire to read one of the classic Robin Hood books goes all the way back to childhood.  (It's a bit pathetic, I know, that I'm only getting around to it now. But then I've always been a slow reader.)

In childhood, my introduction to the Robin Hood legend was the Fisher Price Classics series (a comic book complete accompanied by a cassette tape).

These Fisher Price Classic series were a huge part of my childhood. (I've mentioned them before in connection with my reviews of Treasure Island, Frankenstein, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.)

I mentioned in my Treasure Island review that my love of the Fisher Price Classic Treasure Island caused me to attempt to read the original from the school library, and the same was true for Robin Hood.  Although even as a child, I knew that the Robin Hood book wasn't quite the same.

I don't remember where I learned this from. (A parent or teacher must have told me, obviously.)  But even as a second grader I knew that the Robin Hood story was an old legend, and thus not attributable to any one book or author in the way that Treasure Island was.  But nonetheless, our school library had one of the old classic retellings of Robin Hood, and I felt that this was as close to an original book as I was likely to find.  

The version in my elementary school library was from The Educator Classic Library. 

Does anyone else remember The Educator Classic Library?  According to the Internet, they were published in the late 1960s, but my elementary school library was stocked with them in the 1980s.  They were oversized books with very large print, and the difficult terms defined in the margins.  In fact, I neglected to mention this in my review of Treasure Island, but the version of Treasure Island I attempted as a kid was also an Educator Classic edition.  But, just as 7-year-old me gave up on the Educator Classic edition of Treasure Island, I also gave up on The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.  I checked it out from the library, took it home for a couple weeks,  and have some memories of trying to read it in my bed at night.  But I found it difficult going, made very progress on it, and eventually just returned it to the library unfinished.

I have not, through the years, remembered the name of the author: Howard Pyle.  And it wasn't until Googling the title that I made the connection that the Robin Hood book I have now was the same Robin Hood book I had attempted to read as a child.  But it was.  And according to Wikipedia, this is perhaps as close to a definitive book on Robin Hood as there is--at least in terms of accounting for the version of Robin Hood that would take hold in the 20th Century.  So now I can finally say I've read one of the classic Robin Hood books.  Another childhood goal accomplished.

This book was originally published in 1883 by American illustrator Howard Pyle.  In some of my Weekly Reading Vlogs, I mistakenly said that Wikipedia had identified this as the first novel about Robin Hood.  But closer inspection shows that I was not correct.  This was not the first novel about Robin Hood (nor does Wikipedia say it was).  

I got slightly confused because the Wikipedia Robin Hood template lists this as only the third Robin Hood novel after Ivanhoe and Maid Marian.  And I figured that Ivanhoe didn't count because Robin Hood was only a supporting character.  And Maid Marian didn't count because it was only a novella (and presumably more about Marian than Robin Hood).   

But, a little bit more digging shows that the Wikipedia template is incomplete.  In fact, if you go over to the Robin Hood Wiki (a whole Wiki just about Robin Hood) they have a much more complete list of how many times Robin Hood appears in literature.  Included in that list, it turns out, are two Robin Hood novels by Alexandre Dumas which predate Howard Pyle by 20 years.

...oh, wouldn't that be fun to read!  All the fun of Robin Hood plus all the joy of reading Alexandre Dumas.  Where are those books? (Well... according to Amazon, English versions of those books have pretty much disappeared from bookshelves over the years, and they're only available on Kindle nowadays.  Pity).

But it appears, based on my Internet research, that although The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle may not have been the absolute earliest Robin Hood novel, it is nonetheless the earliest Robin Hood novel to have stuck in the public imagination and still remain on the shelves today.  And (according to Wikipedia):

The novel is notable for taking the subject of Robin Hood, which had been increasingly popular through the 19th century, in a new direction that influenced later writers, artists, and filmmakers through the next century.

This is a children's book, but like a lot of children's books from the 19th Century, the style of the prose has aged, and it requires some extra effort for a child to get through it nowadays.  (As I mentioned above, I tried to read this book as a child and  failed.  But no doubt some people are able to enjoy it as children.  In fact, while this book was on my desk at work, a few people mentioned to me they had read it as a child.)

The novel is (again, according to Wikipedia) based on the original old ballads (from which the legend of Robin Hood first comes down to us.)  But Howard Pyle changed a number of things.  Among other changes, he toned down some of the violence to make the story more suitable for children, and he took what were originally a series of unconnected stories and wove them into a coherent novel. 

But the influences of the original source material are still evident--the novel has an episodic tone.  And most of the stories have a folkloric tone, in which Robin Hood plays the part of The Trickster (W)--there will be some sort of conflict, Robin Hood will think of some clever trick to outwit his enemies, and then that will be the end of the story.  These are clearly children's stories.  It's a far cry from some of the grim and gritty Robin Hood portrayals of modern Hollywood.  

Nor is this the Marxist working-class-hero version of Robin Hood--helping the poor is always an afterthought for Howard Pyle's Robin Hood.  His main concern is just always having a laugh.

There are, however, some hints of the swashbuckling Errol Flynn version.  Although The Trickster Robin Hood stories are in the majority, the swashbuckling Robin Hood does make an appearance, and in at least some of the stories Robin Hood and his men do clash swords and fight it out with the Sheriff and his men.

At times the episodic and folkloric tone of the book makes it feels almost like reading a collection of folk tales.  

And yet at the same time, Howard Pyle is making an effort to tie it all together.  Callbacks to previous stories are frequent, and the events of a previous story will typically provide the motivation of the subsequent one.  (e.g. Robin Hood will trick the Sheriff of Nottingham in one story, and then the next story will be about how the Sheriff of Nottingham tries to get his revenge for that trick.) Or quite often some of the stories from the original ballads will be combined with each other.  (e.g. In Howard Pyle's version, Robin Hood seeks out and fights Friar Tuck because he needs help with Alan-a-Dale's wedding.  In the original ballad, the fight with Friar Tuck is its own separate story (W).)

It's interesting to compare these stories with what is nowadays the more well-known version of the Robin Hood story to see what is similar and what is different.

Guy of Gisborne, who in the Hollywood version is typical portrayed as a member of the nobility (most famously in the Errol Flynn movie), is in Howard Pyle's version a lowborn and crude outlaw, but one who is hired by the Sheriff to kill Robin.  And a quick trip over to Wikipedia  shows that Howard Pyle's version is in keeping with Guy of Gisborne's depiction in the original ballads.  (Guy of Gisborne as a nobleman apparently didn't begin until the 20th Century).

Maid Marian is absent from Howard Pyle's version--I counted two passing references to her.  (e.g. from chapter 1--"...Robin whistled as he trudged along, thinking of Maid Marian and her bright eyes...").  But Marian as a character never appears.  Strange.  
[A bit of Internet research reveals that Maid Marian wasn't in the earliest Robin Hood ballads, and only in a few of the later ones.  I think she was a well-established part of the Robin Hood legend by Howard Pyle's time, but that came mostly from later novels and stage plays, and Howard Pyle was using the ballads as his sources.  So I think that's why Maid Marian is mentioned, but never appears.]

The story about Robin Hood competing in the archery tournament and winning appears.  (In fact, it appears a couple times.  A lot of very similar stories appear in this novel--I suspect the duplication is a result of being based on the original separate ballads).  Robin Hood never splits an arrow in half to win the tournament in Pyle's version.  (Although he does split an arrow in half in shooting matches in Sherwood forest elsewhere in the book.)

In many Hollywood versions of Robin Hood, Robin Hood is fighting against Prince John, and then England is saved when King Richard returns from the crusades.  In Howard Pyle's version, Robin Hood's main antagonist is not Prince John.  King Henry II is king throughout most of the book, but for the most part King Henry is not concerned with what goes on in Sherwood forest, and leaves it to the Sheriff to take care of. Then, when King Richard becomes King, he makes Robin Hood a member of his court.  It is only after King Richard dies that the evil King John enters the story.  But that doesn't happen until the story is nearly finished.  In fact, it doesn't even happen until the last ten pages in the section labelled "Epilogue".

Sidenote: There is a very curious change of tone in the "Epilogue".  Up until then, Robin Hood had been the merry prankster who was constantly annoying, but never seriously harming, the Sheriff of Nottingham.  Then, in the very tale end of the book, Robin Hood and his men become grim warriors.

The news that Robin Hood had come back again to dwell in Sherwood as of old spread like wildfire all over the countryside, so that ere a se'ennight had passed nearly all of his old yeomen had gathered about him again. But when the news of all this reached the ears of King John, he swore both loud and deep, and took a solemn vow that he would not rest until he had Robin Hood in his power, dead or alive. Now there was present at court a certain knight, Sir William Dale, as gallant a soldier as ever donned harness. Sir William Dale was well acquainted with Sherwood Forest, for he was head keeper over that part of it that lay nigh to good Mansfield Town; so to him the King turned, and bade him take an army of men and go straightway to seek Robin Hood. Likewise the King gave Sir William his signet ring to show to the Sheriff, that he might raise all his armed men to aid the others in their chase of Robin. So Sir William and the Sheriff set forth to do the King's bidding and to search for Robin Hood; and for seven days they hunted up and down, yet found him not.

Now, had Robin Hood been as peaceful as of old, everything might have ended in smoke, as other such ventures had always done before; but he had fought for years under King Richard, and was changed from what he used to be. It galled his pride to thus flee away before those sent against him, as a chased fox flees from the hounds; so thus it came about, at last, that Robin Hood and his yeomen met Sir William and the Sheriff and their men in the forest, and a bloody fight followed. The first man slain in that fight was the Sheriff of Nottingham, for he fell from his horse with an arrow in his brain ere half a score of shafts had been sped. Many a better man than the Sheriff kissed the sod that day, but at last, Sir William Dale being wounded and most of his men slain, he withdrew, beaten, and left the forest. But scores of good fellows were left behind him, stretched out all stiff beneath the sweet green boughs. (Epilogue, p.322-323)

Yikes!  Where did that come from? 

For Robin Hood buffs, there are lots of other things to note and compare across various versions (the depictions of Will Scarlet, Alan-a-Dale, Friar Tuck, the Bishop of Hereford, etc).  But it would take too long to write exhaustively about all the characterizations.  You'd be far better off just picking up the book for yourself.  I'm going to leave this here and move on to talk about the style next.

Style

The style of the book, although it was written in 1883, is in mock old English--this was a stylistic choice that Howard Pyle made in order to try to retain some of the flavor of the old ballads.  At least the dialogue is.  And occasionally this will spill over to the narration.  See, for example:

"Well then," quoth Robin, "list thou and I will tell, but bear thyself up bravely, for the news is sad, I wot. Thus it is: I hear that two tinkers are in the stocks for drinking ale and beer!"

"Now a murrain seize thee and thy news, thou scurvy dog," quoth the Tinker, "for thou speakest but ill of good men. But sad news it is indeed, gin there be two stout fellows in the stocks."

"Nay," said Robin, "thou hast missed the mark and dost but weep for the wrong sow. The sadness of the news lieth in that there be but two in the stocks, for the others do roam the country at large."

No wonder 7 year old me gave up on this book!  Even as an adult I had some trouble deciphering the dialogue.  (The phrase "I wot" popped up several times in this book, and I could never figure out what "wot" meant.  Eventually I Googled it, and "wot" is an archaic form of "know").

But the good news is that despite the occasional strange word, the book is very easy to read.  The dialogue is always decipherable from context, and the narration is in a simple and straightforward.  And the more you read, the more you get used to the style.  I felt like the style was a bit jarring in the first few chapters, but I had completely gotten used to it by the end of the book.

The Major Themes of the Book: Drinking Ale, Loving Nature, and Fighting Random Strangers

There are certain themes that pop up over and over and over again.  

One notable theme is the joys of eating and drinking.

Robin Hood and his merry men love feasting and drinking.  There are a great many passages describing how much they love eating, but there seem to be many more passages describing them drinking ale and beer, often in terms that seem designed to make your mouth water.  The ale or beer is described as "foamy" or "sweet" or "stout", etc.  And there are several passages in this book which talk about how much they love their ale and beer.  For example:

"Truly," quoth he, "the dear world is as fair here as in the woodland shades. Who calls it a vale of tears? Methinks it is but the darkness in our minds that bringeth gloom to the world. For what sayeth that merry song thou singest, Little John? Is it not thus?

     "For when my love's eyes do thine, do thine,

     And when her lips smile so rare,

     The day it is jocund and fine, so fine,

     Though let it be wet or be fair

     And when the stout ale is all flowing so fast,

     Our sorrows and troubles are things of the past."

"Nay," said Friar Tuck piously, "ye do think of profane things and of nought else; yet, truly, there be better safeguards against care and woe than ale drinking and bright eyes, to wit, fasting and meditation. Look upon me, have I the likeness of a sorrowful man?"

At this a great shout of laughter went up from all around, for the night before the stout Friar had emptied twice as many canakins of ale as any one of all the merry men. 

And yes, I know, in Robin Hood's times people commonly drank beer instead of water because the water wasn't safe to drink.  But that doesn't mean you have to spend so much time praising the taste of ale in 1883. 
I guess how you feel morally about all these references to alcohol in a children's book will probably depend on your wider feelings about alcohol.  But practically, it struck me as a bit strange.  What's the point of constantly telling children how delicious ale is when they can't drink it yet?  Isn't that a bit of a tease? (Although I don't know... what was the alcohol culture like in 1883?)

The other theme that comes up again and again in this book is the love of nature.  There are constant passages describing either how lovely Sherwood forest is, or how lovely the English countryside is.  Below is one example from many:

All the air was laden with the bitter fragrance of the May, and all the bosky shades of the woodlands beyond rang with the sweet song of birds—the throstle cock, the cuckoo, and the wood pigeon—and with the song of birds mingled the cool sound of the gurgling brook that leaped out of the forest shades, and ran fretting amid its rough, gray stones across the sunlit open glade before the trysting tree. And a fair sight was that halfscore of tall, stout yeomen, all clad in Lincoln green, lying beneath the broad-spreading branches of the great oak tree, amid the quivering leaves of which the sunlight shivered and fell in dancing patches upon the grass. (p.89-90)

 Robin Hood and his merry men are constantly described as having an idyllic natural existence--either napping peacefully in the mid-day sun, or walking through the beautiful English countryside, or enjoying the beauty of the forest.
Although there are no overtly magical elements in this story, it struck me as a kind of fantasy nonetheless.  It is always springtime (not a single one of these stories ever takes place in winter).  It was always warm and sunny.  The forest is always beautiful (and there are never any mentions of  mosquitos or other pests).  And everyone lives a peaceful live lazing around in the forest without having to work or worry about anything.  Well, of course!  That's what you come to a Robin Hood story for, isn't it? For the fantasy of living a merry carefree life out in the forest. (As I mentioned above, the Robin Hood in this book isn't overly concerned about the poor.  I mean, if he happens upon some money, he'll give it to them.  But he doesn't consider it his duty to constantly be striving to better their lot or anything.  He's just out for a good time.)

And the other theme that pops up over and over and over again in this book is: fighting strangers you just met for silly reasons.
One story template that keeps getting repeated is that Robin Hood will be walking along, and then he'll meet someone on his walk.  They get into an argument about something silly, and then get into a fight.  And then, after beating each other senseless for a while, Robin Hood will congratulate the other on his fighting, and ask him to join his band of Merry Men.
This is the story (repeated in several different chapters) of how Robin Hood first meets Little John.  And Friar Tuck.  And the Tanner of Blyth.  And Will Scarlet. 
[Technically Will Scarlet is actually Robin Hood's nephew, but they didn't recognize each other until after the fight, so I'm counting it.  And it was actually Little John who fought the Tanner of Blyth, but it was still the same story.]
This is, one suspects, a consequence of the original source material.  The original ballads probably contained lots of stories about Robin Hood fighting random people and then asking them to join his band.  And probably nobody thought it was repetitive because the ballads were all composed separately.  But when you put them all together into one book, you notice the repetitive structure.

...and all this is just to list the people that Robin Hood fought who later went on to become his friends. I haven't even counted the people he fought along the road who stayed enemies.  (The beggars, or Guy of Gisbourne).  

Robin Hood and his crew liked to fight a lot, is what I'm saying.  It's easy to romanticize them when they are outlaws living in the forest, but if they were regularly drinking at the local tavern in your neighborhood, we'd probably call them hooligans.

Occasionally it struck me as a strange juxtaposition that the passages of Robin Hood and his men talking about their love of nature would occur in the same chapters in which Robin Hood and his men were so pugnacious, and I'd wonder if it was a contradiction.  But I'm not sure it is.  I personally tend to associate the idealization of nature with innocence and peace, but on a purely logical basis, there's no reason why a love of fighting and a love of nature would be mutually exclusive, right? 

Illustrations

I'm going to take a minute to complain about the illustrations in the edition I read.  This might not be relevant if you are reading a different edition.
Howard Pyle was (according to his Wikipedia Bio) just as famous for being an illustrator as for being an author.
Strange, then, that the edition I got from the library--2004 Sterling Publishing Co., the edition pictured at the top of this blog post--contains none of Howard Pyle's original illustrations.  Instead, they hired a new illustrator, Scott McKowen, to do scratchboard illustrations instead.  The scratchboard drawings are okay, I guess, but why not go with Howard Pyle's originals?  (I don't know.  I'm guessing maybe they would have taken up too much ink?)
Because this book is public domain now, the original illustrations are all freely available online.  (See Wikimedia Commons Page).  So at least I got to see what I was missing out on.  But it would have been nice to have them in the book.

...and speaking of Howard Pyle...

Based on his Wikipedia page, Howard Pyle seems like an interesting guy who did a lot of fantasy and adventure books.  I'd be interested in reading more of him.
At my library, they have The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle, so I'll be reading that one next.

Comparisons with the 1984 Fisher Price Classic Version

So, this is probably only of interest to me, but having begun this review by talking about my childhood nostalgia for the Fisher Price Classic Version, I should compare the two.
I've gone ahead and re-listened to the Fisher Price Version as I was writing this.
Fisher Price - Robin Hood

To talk about all the little details that are the same or different would take way too long.  I'll just say that almost all of the stories that are in the Fisher Price version are also in Howard Pyle's version.  (Howard Pyle's novel also has tons more stories that aren't included in the Fisher Price version.)  
The only story that is in the Fisher Price version, but not in Howard Pyle's version, is Robin Hood meeting Maid Marian.
The story of the death of Robin Hood at the end is especially similar across both versions

Other Notes

* Add this book to my list of "Classic Books Which are Actually Fun to Read"

Weekly Reading Vlogs

April 4, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood p.0-106
April 11, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood p.106-144
April 18, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood  p.144-160
April 25, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood  p.160-182
May 2, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood  p.182-210
May 9, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood  p.210-276
May 16, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood  p.276-296
May 23, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood  p.296-327, (finished) 
May 30, 2021 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood p.0-10

Video Review  (Playlist HERE)
Video Review HERE and embedded below: