The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (1883)

Read this for my Robin Hood module, as with Ivanhoe. This is the second book which I just couldn't read as anything but an English Literature student; my lit student hat remained firmly jammed upon my head. It pains me to read other people's reviews and thoughts on this, given that they're so wildly inaccurate about it. E.g. someone thinking it was "the" book of Robin Hood (and not knowing about the ballad tradition, or the forerunners to this such as Ivanhoe). Or someone thinking it's written in Old English (see also: my review of Ivanhoe). Seriously, no, guys. It's not even Middle English. It's faux-Middle English in parts, but it isn't even that old a text, for God's sake. Even Shakespeare (late 1500s/early 1600s) was writing in Modern English. This was written in 1883 or so, right? About as Anglo-Saxon as what I'm writing right now!

And then people thinking this is "the" book, the original. Sheesh.

Obviously, a lot of the stories come straight from the surviving ballads -- perhaps all; I haven't read every single Robin Hood ballad. They're expanded upon by Howard Pyle, in that he writes them out as a coherent narrative and with all the same characters recurring, and obviously it's not in verse. It's a pretty sanitised version, given that Robin rarely kills as an outlaw: once when he becomes an outlaw (as opposed to the fifteen he kills in the original ballad, Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham) and once when he kills Guy of Gisborne (and unlike in the ballad, he doesn't cut Guy's face off). It wasn't obvious that it was an adaptation for children, from the language -- it's not exactly difficult, but nor is it easy or exciting. Still, in the time period, perhaps that's not surprising. (I should have some basis of comparison, given my Introduction to Children's Literature course, but I can't bring anything to mind right now.) The sanitisation gave it away rather, in any case.

I did get kind of bored reading it, honestly. Each tale is more or less the same -- they're practically all "Robin meets his match" stories, and at the end the stout yeoman will join the band. The writing isn't intensely exciting, as I mentioned. I did enjoy it, and possibly would have enjoyed it more in small doses. And, of course, it's very episodic so it can easily be read in small chunks.

It's, ah, one of the more 'homosocial' Robin Hood stories I've read, honestly. There are two or three mentions of Marian, at most, and she doesn't come into it as a character at all -- I half-expected a chapter that came from Robin Hood and Maid Marian. And Will Scarlet is so very, very camp. And Little John and Robin are so very very close. It kind of read like a slashfic of Robin Hood, sometimes.

I will confess, the epilogue made me want to cry. Oh, Robin. Incidentally, apparently tales of Robin's death are quite rare, and this is one of the few.

(Note: If anyone wants links to the ballads, or indeed, this book, online, I know where the book can be downloaded legally as an ebook, and where the ballads are collected online.) ( )

This is the first book I've read on my Kindle. I was able to download it for free from Google Books and I'm glad I did. To tell the truth I didn't even know this was a book until I stumbled across it. I guess I should have known better but it just never showed up on my radar before now.

The title of the book is the Merry Adventures of Robin Hood for a reason; it is more of a series of short stories featuring Robin and his band of Merry men than one long story about Robin. If you've seen any of the Robin hood movies you've seen a couple of the short stories merged into one longer whole but, for the most part, there are a lot of Robin's tales you haven't' experienced yet.

My favorite Robin Hood movie is the animated Disney classic. It incorporates a couple of the merry adventures, such as the archery tournament; but, interestingly Prince John (the phony king of England) isn't really a problem for Robin most of the time. Instead, the Sheriff of Nottingham is. However, even the Sheriff isn't really all that evil and instead is just incompetent and a bit afraid of Robin.

Interestingly I'm glad I had just finished Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth" before reading this as I had a better understanding of the roles of various religious figures as well as what it meant to be the Sheriff.

The language, while often archaic, is pretty easy to read and understand and the book, as a whole, was fun. I recommend it. ( )

Reading this took me right back to my childhood. I remembered just about every encounter including the first meetings of Robin with Little John, and Robin with Friar Tuck (tremendous fun), the hoodwinking of the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Robin's fight to the death with Guy of Gisborne. There is not a great deal of depth in the stories, and the sun always seems to shine in the greenwood, but for sheer high-spirited adventure these are hard to beat. Howard Pyle's diction is faux-medieval but that's part of the reading fun. I missed not having his illustrations in my free Kindle edition (looked them up later on Google Images to remind myself) but that's a limitation of the Kindle, and who can really carp over a freebie? ( )

Great fun. I remember loving Robin Hood as a kid but at 21 it's still tops. According to the afterward Pyle was the first modern reteller of the Robin Hood tales. Robin is a merry trickster, and the episodic tales of his noble doings are great for any age.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood try to explain the life of Robin Hood, notorious English outlaw and folk hero, starting from his youth, in which he gets his riches and livelihood yoinked by a mean uncle, to his eventual life of benevolent larceny.

Pyle made the effort of compiling the ballads of Robyn Hode, taking the collection of existing literature and composing a sort of biography of this mythical hero. And he did this before it was cool. Since then, Pyle’s book has been considered by many to be the definitive Robin Hood collection.

He tells the stories of not only how Robin Hood came to be, but also how he managed to recruit his Merry Men (hint: he challenges them to a fight and then is thoroughly walloped), and follows his exploits against the Sheriff of Nottingham, the clergy, and Prince John (among other nobles).

I enjoyed this collection of tales, with the exception of the last two, which were somewhat depressing, and found that though the still bear the flavor of the era in which they were written (e.g., most female characters are given little roles that tend to not last beyond a single chapter), these stories are perfectly readable.

Some of them may be too grim for small children, but for the well-adjusted teen or adult, many of the stories leave the reader laughing, and sometimes at Robin’s own folly.

While this book alone would not be sufficient to elevate Robin Hood to folk hero status, if you are in any way interested in one take on his life, be sure to read Pyle’s compilation. It’s in the Public Domain, so it’ll only cost you your time. ( )