Synopsis
You are invited underneath the great greenwood tree to hear how a young man became a hero, and a hero became a legend. When Robin takes a shortcut through Sherwood Forest, the path he chooses leads not to Nottingham’s archery contest, but to a life on the run from the law. Unable now to become a knight, and joined by his childhood friends, Robin Hood leads the most infamous outlaw band ever to evade the king and his sheriff.
Blending true history with new stories, popular inaccuracies, and some almost forgotten medieval legends, The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood brings a new life to the greenwood, which here feels as fresh as it does traditional. With an academic background in medieval English studies, A. E. Chandler captivates with this unique and nuanced reinterpretation
of Robin Hood’s struggles and adventures. The forest is waiting.
This expanded second edition contains bonus material, including a translation of one of only five surviving medieval Robin Hood "ballads," two medieval recipes, book club questions, and a historical note.
Guest Post
The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood from Medieval Roots to Modern Investigations
Robin Hood has been written about by many different authors through the centuries. As someone who has enjoyed stories about him since my childhood, I was excited to have the opportunity to live in Nottingham while writing my MA dissertation on the social history behind his character. It was invaluable to be able to explore for myself places like Sherwood, where Robin clashed with the sheriff; Barnsdale, where he was based during his outlaw years; and Kirklees Priory, where he is said to have been killed. Still, getting at any kind of truth behind the story can be difficult, given the number of changes each time someone new has taken up the tale.
The ballad Robin Hood’s Death, known as Death B, differs from the medieval Death A: Robin Hoode his Death. Death B is a garland ballad, probably only as old as the mid 1700s. Though we now use “ballad” for all of Robin Hood’s medieval and early modern poems, the term originally meant a song for a dance, changing to mean any verse printed on a single sheet. As Dobson and Taylor explain, garlands were collections of usually sixteen to twenty-seven of these ballads, printed on coarse rag-paper. Death B appeared in only a few garland collections, and was more popular in the north than the south, with York printing most of our extant copies. This seems appropriate, since the medieval Robin Hood came from West Yorkshire.
At the beginning of Death B, Robin Hood and Little John seem to be having a shooting contest, placing bets on each shot, but Robin interrupts, saying that he cannot shoot anymore, and must visit his cousin to be bled. He goes to Kirkley Hall nunnery, becoming very ill on the journey. Refusing to eat or drink, he insists on being bled right away. His cousin takes him to a private room, locking him in to “bleed all the live-long day, / Untill the next day at noon.” Robin feels too weak to jump from the window and escape, so he uses three blasts on his bugle horn to call Little John. John hurries, breaking locks and begging Robin on his knee for leave to burn the nunnery. Robin says he has never hurt a maid, and will not start now, instead asking for his “bent bow” and “broad arrows,” so that he can be buried where his arrow lands, with a green sod under his head and his bent bow by his side.
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| The gatehouse at Kirklees Priory in Yorkshire where Robin Hood is said to have died. |
Unlike the earlier Death A, Will Scarlett doesn’t appear to tell Robin he shouldn’t travel without a contingent of men. Also absent is the woman Robin encounters on his journey to Kirklees Priory, who provides foreshadowing by either cursing or warning him (with half the medieval text missing it’s unclear). Red Roger, the prioress cousin’s lover who loses a swordfight to a dying Robin, is left out of Death B. We do have Little John being summoned by three calls on Robin’s bugle horn to attend his deathbed, and Robin shooting an arrow to mark his grave, while in Death A he asks to be buried at “yonder streete.” This addition is facilitated with broad arrows, meaning arrows meant for hunting, to cause an animal to bleed out, and not arrows that would have been especially accurate when distance shooting. It’s also facilitated by a bent bow, which is a term also used in Death A, meaning what we call a longbow.
“Benbow” likely doesn’t describe a particular kind of bow, but rather a method of using one. The term probably arose during the Hundred Years’ War, which would have been over by the time the ballads we have were set down in writing. Milliken notes that a French archer kept his left hand steady before him and drew back the bowstring with his right. An English archer kept the arrow tip down while drawing partway then, using the “whole weight of his body into the horns of his bow,” he took the bow from horizontal to vertical and loosed. From these divergent methods probably originated the English phrase, “bending the bow,” as opposed to the French, “drawing the bow.” What was a benbow to the English could be simply a bow to the French. All the ballad mentions of the outlaws bending their bows supports a benbow being a typical bow an archer bent. The terms longbow (held “longwise” or lengthwise) and bent bow (bow that you bend) were not used until near the end of the medieval period, and were only used to mean a bow that was not a crossbow. Before that, when people discussed archery, there were simply bows and crossbows.
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| An early modern crossbow at Glenbow Museum |
As for finding the man most famous for his archery skill, a grave purported to be Robin Hood’s has been excavated on Nun Bank Lane by Kirklees, and the ground found never before to have been disturbed, let alone to have had a body laid in it. If anyone is buried near yonder street, we haven’t found them yet.
Where to Purchase
Amazon |
Angus & Robertson |
Apple Books |
Audible |
Booktopia
Meet the Author
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| An author photo taken in Sherwood Forest in the Major Oak clearing |
A. E. Chandler holds a Master of Arts with Merit from the University of Nottingham, where she wrote her dissertation on the social history behind Robin Hood. Living in England, and travelling in Europe, Asia, and Africa have contributed to her stories and characters - she has been chased by a camel rider through the Sahara Desert, skated down a volcano in Sicily, and gotten unintentionally locked inside of a medieval prison in France. Currently, she lives in Calgary, where she is a visiting expert with the Glenbow Museum’s military collection, and writes “Original History”: books about little-known people and events surrounding popular history.
Chandler has published a book of collected non-fiction entitled
Into the World, the
Questionable Quizzes series, and the bestselling novel
The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood. To get exclusive bonus content, including an unpublished chapter from
The Scarlet Forest, visit Chandler's author website.
Connect with A. E.
Website (free bonus chapter from The Scarlet Forest) |
YouTube |
Goodreads |
Amazon Author Page
Giveaway
Enter to win a signed copy of
The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood plus a gift pack which includes an "I *Heart* Yew" tote bag, a signed bookmark, a handout of book club questions, and a sheet of bios on other medieval outlaws.
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