The Year Turn Fablist

Are you listening?

Always.

Do you remember.

Everything.

We are Oak and Elm, Beech and Ash, Rowan and Yew and all the company of the trees of the forest, of the wood and of the copse.

We are keep towers of memory. Listen – the toll of ages rings through our core.

We pass the tales through time; through a family of trees; through lofty tips and underground tendrils.  

Summer is green and vital. We introduce our selves at our height.

We will tell you the story of Robin Hood for he is worthy of our effort.

Leaves colour and fold and flutter and fall. Stories are secrets, in nuts and acorns, they scatter and sink, tightly held till the time is right.

We can wait.

 

Silent. Weighed down with blankets of snow embroidered with frosty hoar.

…

Unfurling. Shoots emerging.

In May we are masts amongst a bluebell sea. The hero, a sapling man, green in the ways of the world, noble amongst men, stands in a glade. The Earl of Huntingdon with his betrothed, the willowy Marion Fitzwalter. They carve their initials. We are scarred to bear witness to love.

The wind shakes us. Full of life, we give breath to birdsong.

Their king is gone to fight a holy way. In his place, his brother, John. The Thorn. John hears of this budding love and jealously condemns our hero. He strips his title and peels his bark. The earl is weakened but not felled.

Welcome, Robin. The outlaw. The wolf’s head. We will shelter you in our castle of the North Wind.

Many uprooted men flock to Robin’s side. Robin, John, Scarlet and Much in Lincon green of woad and broom. Burning with righteous anger. Robbing the rich to give to the poor. Together a thicket of thieves.

Consider, the absurdity of men!

The sun shines on all. The rain falls evenly.

The Sheriff of Nottingham, some time slighted by Robin, sets a trap. An archery competition. The prize? A silver arrow presented by the Lady Marion.

Where the Sheriff is rotten to the core, Robin is daring and emboldened by love.

Yew, you lend your darkness to man. Your bough for a bow.

With a heavy heart, yes. But arrows fly from your light veneer of disdain.

A cart comes along, oblivious to the rumbling argument in the overstory.

It is the potter. Earth handler, clay shaper. Face gnarled and cankered. On his way to the fair.

The outlaws leap out and Robin demands a toll. “Tolls?” barks the potter, “This is no toll road!”

The potter swings a punch and the two men wrestle on the path, limbs entwined.

Robin finds himself under the potter’s trunk and, with a heaving might, pushes him away. The larger man lumbers clumsily. He grabs a low branch and sits heavily upon it.

Breathing hard, the wind knocked out of them both, the men pause. The potter offers Robin a hand up and as he does so he falls back. The bough swings up and knocks Robin on the face! The merry men burst out laughing- at the potter flat on his back and at Robin, his pride bruised ,rubbing his nose in bewilderment.

“I think I have paid tolls enough!” the potter jokes.

“Indeed,” laughs Robin.

“ I am on my way to the fair and I do not want to miss the archery competition. Robin Hood is bound to come and I want to see the man who has done so much for the people score one over the Sheriff and his ruffians”

At this, Robin reveals his true identity and the potter is abashed.

But he has sown the seeds of an idea in Robin’s mind.

They trade garments and it is Robin, in false foliage, who drives the cart out of the woods toward Nottingham.

A walled town grows slowly. The greenwood was cleared and stone moved in. Some trees remain. Pillars of community. Your shade, your food, your boundary markers.

The fair bustles and rustles. Nobles, knights, ladies, merchants and peasants all enjoying the midsummer revels. The sun is shining and the atmosphere is bright. Only Marion sits anxious. She scans the crowd for signs of Robin Hood. Robin has set up his stall. He does a brisk trade in the potter’s wares. He is enjoying himself but when the archery contest is announced, he is ready with his bow.

Archers aim and shoot. The sheriff’s best archer hits the target.

Marion watches with knots and whorls in her stomach. A flicker of recognition as Robin steps up and everyone draws a breath. It is silent, taut…

 A woodpecker pecks. Her beak is sharp. She hits her mark with the fine accuracy of instinct and practice. It’s distracting but not too damaging…

The crowd’s whoops and cheers startle, the birds fly up, scattering noisily. Robin has won! His arrow has split the wooden mark in the center. It is splintered into three even pieces!

 

Marion stands. Her expression is shaded by the canopy but her hands quake like aspen.  Robin receives the silver arrow to his quiver. They exchange a glance and Robin, aware that lingering attention will give him away, slips back into the dense tangle of the crowd.

The story continues. We see treachery, daring, romance, chivalry and arboreal virtues of steadfastness, resilience, generosity, strength. The characters bloom and then wither. Seasons pass. From tiny acorns, mighty oak trees grow. Tales become myth. Branching but rooted in truth. Witnessed, remembered and recorded in soil and soul. The rich humus of life.

 

Story by Amelia Gledhill based on English legend​

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‘Robin Hood’ © K. Amelia Gledhill 2023

The right of Amelia Gledhill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without the prior permission in writing of the author.

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