Book info

• Title
• Author Howard Pyle
• Year
• Genres

Thoughts

I’ve wanted to read something about Robin Hood for a while, but it’s hard to know which way to go with a topic so legendary. There’s no definitive source on the green-clad forest-dweller, so you have to hedge your bets and pick the one that looks like it will be most entertaining.

Unfortunately, for the first half of this book, I wasn’t sure that Howard Pyle’s version of the legend was going to deliver. Every story seemed to be about one or other member of the band going for a walk, finding someone else, challenging them to a duel, losing and thus inviting them to be part of Robin Hood’s group. For a while, I thought the band were going to swallow up the whole county!

However, once the band were pretty much complete, then the adventures could begin and things really picked up. Organising weddings, going to shooting matches, living right under the Sheriff’s nose, it was all quite a lot of fun. The prose was written in a lilting, old style, with songs and tales thrown in for good measure. It’s not a long book, (which is good otherwise that first half would never have ended!) but it’s worth reading, and I enjoyed it. I was quite surprised by the lack of Maid Marion, and also by the ending which was more moving than I’d imagined.

Rating: Unrated