Storytelling week 11: The Birth of Robin Hood

There once was a boy that had no family. He was raised by the wolves in the woods. He grew from a small boy into a man that respected the woods very much. It was his home.

When he was old enough to separate from his wolf brothers and their den he set off on an adventure to find a new home. He walked through the forest talking to the birds and other animals he met along the way.

He thought he would never run out of the dirt path through the magical place he lived. It was getting dark and he thought he should find a place to sleep. He climbed a tree and found a nice spot to rest his head. He gave a quick howl that echoed through the forest so his brothers could hear that he was safe for the night.

He drifted off to sleep when he heard a ruckus coming from below the tree. He opened his eyes and to his surprise there were others like him. There was a man and a woman having an argument below his tree. Robin Hood listened to what they were saying.

“Give me that purse or I will bring harm to you!” said the man.

“This is all I have and I am better off dead without it,” she screamed back.

The man then threw the woman against the tree Robin Hood was in.

Robin didn’t know much about humans. He had only been raised with wolves. Something inside him told him what was happening was not right. He had to take action against the man that hurt the lovely lady. He then grabbed a tree branch and let out a cry of war that he and his brothers used.

He then swung down from the tree knocking the man off his feet. He grabbed the bag and through it back towards the girl who was laying below the tree. He then crouched down like he did with his brothers before they were about to fight. The man pulled out a knife and pointed it towards Robin. He was not afraid he knew his brothers would be on their way. He then howled the war cry again and growled at the man.

The man did not know what was happening. He was scared because he had not seen this behavior in a human before he then dropped the knife and started running towards the town he had snatched the girl from.

When he got back to town he told the town about the boy that lived in the woods. The towns people wanted to know what he looked like and he told them about how he mostly wore leaves for clothes and had a funny shaped hat on his head. The towns people laughed at the thief and began calling the boy in the woods Robin Hood for his behavior of giving the poor girl her purse back, and for the way he dressed were you could not see anything but his eyes.

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Author’s Note:

I liked the original story of Robin Hood. The unit I read made him seem like someone else to me. I wanted to create a new image of him as well, which is why I created the wolf brothers. There isn’t much about how Robin Hood was raised so I wanted to explain his actions. I thought this would be a good time to make the audience see that he was not familiar with how to act with humans but he knew the difference from right and wrong. I also wanted to create a connection between the woods and how that life is all he had ever known. 

Bibliography:

“Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham,” by Francis James Child from The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898).Story Link