Special Method in Primary Reading and Oral Work with Stories Part 9

The fun of the stories also is of a light and rollicking sort which children should have a chance to thoroughly enjoy. In fact it is excellent material upon which to cultivate their early sense of the comic and humorous. The literature used in early school years has, unfortunately, too little of the sportive and laughable, and the Robin Hood adventures will help in no small degree to remedy this defect.

It is interesting to note, also, that brute strength is not at a premium, but skill and quick-wittedness. Not the least attractive and forcible part of Robin Hood's character is the shrewd-witted versatility and boldness with which he plays any part which circ.u.mstances require him to a.s.sume. His foes are circ.u.mvented by his shrewdness and keen wit even as much as by his unfailing skill in archery or dexterous strength in personal contest.

Robin Hood's relation to the British government was known as that of the outlaw, although the visit of King Richard to him in Sherwood Forest and his service under that prince and others gave him a certain legal status. He has always been regarded as a popular hero representing the rights of the common people.

After describing Robin Hood's first adventure with the foresters and his outlawry, Howard Pyle says: "But Robin Hood lay hidden in Sherwood Forest for one year, and in that time there gathered around him many others like himself, outlawed for this cause and for that.

"So, in all that year, five score or more good, stout yeomen joined themselves to him, and chose him to be their leader and chief. Then they vowed that even as they themselves had been despoiled they would despoil their oppressors, whether baron, abbot, knight, or squire, and that from each they would take that which had been wrung from the poor by unjust taxes, or land rents, or in wrongful fines; but to the poor folk they would give a helping hand in need and trouble, and would return to them that which had been unjustly taken from them. Besides this, they swore never to harm a child, nor to wrong a woman, be she maid, wife, or widow; so that, after a while, when the people began to find that no harm was meant to them, but that money or food came in time of want to many a poor family, they came to praise Robin and his merry men, and to tell many tales of him and of his doings in Sherwood Forest, for they felt him to be one of themselves."

When we consider the stories which tradition has handed down relative to the exploits of Robin Hood, the Old-English ballads which celebrate them in song, the stories of King Richard's visit to him in Sherwood, and Robin's visit to the court of Eleanor and King Henry at London town, to share in the great shooting-match, and the story of Locksley in Scott's "Ivanhoe"--we might almost say that Robin Hood would bear favorable comparison with any Englishman of his time. At any rate it would be difficult to find among the kings and great lords of that age one who had so much regard for justice and fair dealing among men, to say nothing of his kindness to the poor and needy.

He stands distinctly for those rights of the common people which were constantly violated by the powerful and influential in that half-barbarous age of feudalism. It is from this instinct for popular rights that the body of English liberties has gradually developed, and it is not strange that Robin Hood has always been regarded as a hero among a people who have preserved this instinct for liberty and justice.

The foresters of Robin Hood's band were lovers of forest and glade; the song of the bird and fragrance of wild flowers were sweet to them. In Pyle's introductory chapter is this description of their retreat under the Greenwood. "So turning their backs upon the stream, they plunged into the forest once more, through which they traced their steps till they reached the spot where they dwelt in the depths of the woodland.

There had they built huts of bark and branches of trees, and made couches of sweet rushes spread over with skins of fallow deer. Here stood a great oak tree with branches spreading broadly around, beneath which was a seat of green moss where Robin Hood was wont to sit at feast and at merrymaking, with his stout men about him. Here they found the rest of the band, some of whom had come in with a brace of fat does.

Then they built great fires, and after the feast was ready they all sat down, but Robin Hood placed Little John at his right hand, for he was henceforth to be the second in the band."

Little John's bout with the tanner of Blyth is introduced thus:--

"One fine day, not long after Little John had left abiding with the Sheriff and had come back to the merry Greenwood, Robin Hood and a few chosen fellows of his band lay upon the soft sward beneath the Greenwood Tree where they dwelt. The day was warm and sultry, so that whilst most of the band were scattered through the forest upon this mission and upon that, these few stout fellows lay lazily beneath the shade of the tree, in the soft afternoon, pa.s.sing jests among themselves and telling merry stories, with laughter and mirth.

"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-c.o.c.k, 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."

This delight in the beauty and music of all nature about them is a sort of atmosphere which gives tone to all the stories of this group.

The language in which the stories are narrated is rich in the quaint and vigorous phrases of Old English, reminding one of the times of Shakespeare and before. One could hardly give the children a better introduction to the riches of our mother tongue.

The description of English customs, the popular festivities, the booths of the market town, the parade of feudal lords and retainers, the constraints placed upon hunting by kings and lords, and the hards.h.i.+ps of the poor are touched upon in significant ways. The stories give an insight into the English character, their love of rude sports, their ballad literature, and their respect for honesty and courage and shrewdness.

The ballads a.s.sociated with the Robin Hood legends are often beautiful and striking expressions of the English spirit, and have a special charm for children. They should be read in connection with the later reading of the stories in the third and fourth school years.

The bearing of these tales upon early feudal history and the general literature of that age is of importance. This is well ill.u.s.trated in "Ivanhoe" in the use by Richard of Robin Hood and his archers in the attack upon Torquilstone, and in various exploits of the men of the Greenwood when brought in contact with knights on horseback. There is also a kins.h.i.+p in these narratives with some of the best stories and novels of early English history, as Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather,"

Kingsley's "Hereward the Wake," Jane Andrew's "Gilbert the Page," and a number of Scott's novels.

In the oral treatment of the stories in the third or fourth school year, the teacher will find her powers of presentation taxed in a peculiar way. The quaint language and humorous tone, the occasional witty conceits, will need to be appreciated and enjoyed, and the mode of presentation suited to the thought. Let the teacher first of all thoroughly enjoy the stories and in rendering them to children in the cla.s.sroom lose herself in the tone and spirit of the account. It requires great freedom and flexibility of body and mind to do this well, but that is what a teacher most of all needs. The humorous part, especially, will require a certain unbending of the stiff manners of a teacher, but no harm is done in this.

The large volume of Robin Hood stories by Pyle should be in the hands of the teacher, if possible, although it is an expensive book. It is much fuller in the special details of the stories needed by the teacher, though the smaller book is far better adapted as a reading book for schools.

To ill.u.s.trate the place which the Robin Hood legends hold in English history and literature, the following selections, quoted from Tennyson's "The Foresters" and one of the old ballads, are given. They are taken from "English History told by English Poets," published by The Macmillan Company, where the pa.s.sage from "The Foresters" is given at greater length.

KING RICHARD IN SHERWOOD FOREST

LORD TENNYSON

(From "The Foresters")

Robin Hood and Maid Marian, Friar Tuck and George-a-Green, Will Scarlet, Midge the Miller's Son, Little John, and the rest are legendary characters loved and sung from the fourteenth century to modern times.

The charm of these light-hearted highwaymen was felt by Shakespeare himself: "They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him: and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England; they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world."--("As You Like It," I, I.) Tennyson adopts the tradition that the generous outlaws dwelt in Sherwood Forest in c.u.mberlands.h.i.+re, and that their leader, Robin Hood, was the banished Earl of Huntingdon. The plot of the "The Foresters" turns upon the sudden return of Richard from his Austrian captivity and the consequent collapse of the intrigues conducted by his crafty and cruel brother John.

_Robin Hood._ Am I worse or better?

I am outlaw'd. I am none the worse for that I held for Richard and I hated John.

I am a thief, ay, and a king of thieves.

Ay! but we rob the robber, wrong the wronger, And what we wring from them we give the poor.

I am none the worse for that, and all the better For this free forest-life, for while I sat Among my thralls in my baronial hall The groining hid the heavens; but since I breathed, A houseless head beneath the sun and stars, The soul of the woods hath stricken thro' my blood, The love of freedom, the desire of G.o.d, The hope of larger life hereafter, more Tenfold than under roof.

True, were I taken They would p.r.i.c.k out my sight. A price is set On this poor head; but I believe there lives No man who truly loves and truly rules His following, but can keep his followers true.

I am one with mine. Traitors are rarely bred Save under traitor kings. Our vice-king John, True king of vice--true play on words--our John, By his Norman arrogance and dissoluteness, Hath made me king of all the discontent Of England up thro' all the forest land North to the Tyne: being outlaw'd in a land Where law lies dead, we make ourselves the law.

_King Richard_ (to _Robin_). My good friend Robin, Earl of Huntingdon, For Earl thou art again, hast thou no fetters For those of thine own band who would betray thee?

_Robin._ I have; but these were never worn as yet, I never found one traitor in my band.

Our forest games are ended, our free life, And we must hence to the King's court. I trust We shall return to the wood. Meanwhile, farewell Old friends, old patriarch oaks. A thousand winters Will strip you bare as death, a thousand summers Robe you life-green again. You seem, as it were, Immortal, and we mortal. How few Junes Will heat our pulses quicker! How few frosts Will chill the hearts that beat for Robin Hood!

_Marian._ And yet I think these oaks at dawn and even, Or in the balmy breathings of the night, Will whisper evermore of Robin Hood.

We leave but happy memories to the forest.

We dealt in the wild justice of the woods.

All those poor serfs whom we have served will bless us, All those pale mouths which we have fed will praise us-- All widows we have holpen pray for us, Our Lady's blessed shrines throughout the land Be all the richer for us. You, good friar, You Much, you Scarlet, you dear Little John, Your names will cling like ivy to the wood.

And here perhaps a hundred years away Some hunter in day-dreams or half asleep Will hear our arrows whizzing overhead, And catch the winding of a phantom horn.

_Robin._ And surely these old oaks will murmur thee Marian along with Robin. I am most happy-- Art thou not mine?--and happy that our King Is here again, never I trust to roam So far again, but dwell among his own.

Strike up a stave, my masters, all is well.

HOW ROBIN HOOD RESCUED THE WIDOW'S THREE SONS

Robin Hood and his followers were bandits and outlaws, but the people loved them because they defied the hateful forest laws and made light of the sheriff. The king's officers were responsible for the maintenance of order, but in these lawless times they often used their power for their own advantage, imposing heavy fines and penalties on the poor, and extorting bribes from the rich. The following is one of the oldest and rudest of the many Robin Hood ballads:--

There are twelve months in all the year, As I hear many say, But the merriest month in all the year Is the merry month of May.

Now Robin Hood is to Nottingham gone, With a link a down and a day, And there he met a silly[7] old woman, Was weeping on the way.

"What news? what news, thou silly old woman?

What news hast thou for me?"

Said she, "There's my three sons in Nottingham town To-day condemned to die."

"O, have they parishes burnt?" he said, "Or have they ministers slain?

Or have they robbed any virgin?

Or other men's wives have ta'en?"

"They have no parishes burnt, good sir, Nor yet have ministers slain, Nor have they robbed any virgin, Nor other men's wives have ta'en."

"O, what have they done?" said Robin Hood, "I pray thee tell to me."

"It's for slaying of the king's fallow-deer, Bearing their long bows with thee."

"Dost thou not mind, old woman," he said, "How thou madest me sup and dine?